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.

Kunta Family
The Kunta family (the Awlad Sidi al-Wafi) is among the best-known examples of a lineage of Islamic scholarship with widespread influence throughout Mauritania, Senegambia, and other parts of the Western Sudan.

The Kunta shaykhs and the family or clan they represent, are an outgrowth of the Kounta Bedouin peoples (likely of Berber origins) who spread throughout what is today northern Mali and southern Mauritania from the mid-sixteenth to the early eighteenth centuries (CE).

Family Background
The family's history goes back to Sheikh Sidi Ahmad al-Bakka'i (d.1504) who established a Qadiri zawiya (Sufi residence) in Walata. In the 16th century the family spread across the Sahara to Timbuktu, Agades, Bornu, Hausaland, and other places, and in the 18th century large numbers of Kunta moved to the region of the middle Niger where they established the village of Mabruk. Sidi al-Mukhtar al-Kunti (1728-1811) united the Kunta factions by successful negotiation, and established an extensive confederation. Under his influence the Maliki school of Islamic Law was reinvigorated and the Qadiriyyah order spread throughout Mauritania, the middle Niger region, Guinea, the Cote d'Ivoire, Futa Toro, and Futa Jallon. Kunta colonies in the Senegambian region became centers of Muslim teaching.