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
Notes
- ^ John Esposito, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, Oxford University Press 2003
|
