Islam by country · Africa
Islam in Guinea: history and Muslim population data
Explore CoMPS research on the historical journey of Islam in Guinea, alongside population data and an interactive timeline.
Open Guinea in the interactive map
History of Islam in Guinea
The Republic of Guinea has an area of 245,857 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 3.2.7. It was occupied by France in 1898 and gained independence from France in 1958, when it changed its name from French Guinea to simply Guinea. Islam entered here in the fourteenth century through Mali Kingdom. It spread further starting the seventeenth century through Qadiri Sufi order (tariqa). Earlier estimates of the Muslim population increased from 1.6 million or 82.8% in 1911, to 1.8 million or 87.4% in 1921. Later census data showed an increase of the Muslim population to 4.2 million or 86.8% in 1983, then 6.2 million or 86.8% in 1996 and 9.4 million or 89.10% in 2014.
Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will continue to increase by one percentage point per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to reach 24 million or 93% by 2050 and 34 million or 98% by 2100.
Historical Muslim population dataset for Guinea
The figures below are from the CoMPS historical dataset. Population values are expressed in thousands; 2100 is a modelled projection, not a present-day count.
| Year | Total population (thousands) | Muslim population (thousands) | Muslim share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1900 | 1,762 | 1,459 | 82.78% |
| 2000 | 8,263 | 7,175 | 86.83% |
| 2100 | 34,149 | 33,466 | 98.00% |
For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.