Islam in Guinea

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2005 official statistics for Islam in Guinea estimate that 85% of Guinea's 7.8 million people are Muslim. Most are Sunnis who follow the Maliki legal tradition and Qadiri and Tijani Sufi orders. Although the French established a colony in 1891, their control of the region was weak. After independence in 1958, the nominally Muslim Marxist president Sékou Touré discouraged Islamization; only after his popularity waned in the 1970s did Touré seek to co-opt Muslim institutions to legitimize his rule. Since Touré's death in 1984, cooperation between the Muslim community and the government has continued.^[1]

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