Samori Ture
Samori Ture brought many ethnic Mandinka marabout Sunni Muslims clerics from the Sufi tradition of Islam from Guinea to Northeastern Sierra Leone to teach the Quran and the life of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. Ture banned some indigenous practices by the local Sierra Leone people that he viewed as un Islamic. Ture also imposed an Islamic dress code in Northeast Sierra Leone under his rule. Although most part of Northern Sierra Leone had been Muslims even before Samori's conquest, A minority of the local Sierra Leonean people under Samori Ture's rule were not Muslims at the time. But faced with the tremendous powers of the new hardline Muslim rulers, they abandoned their animist beliefs and converted to Islam. Many of the local peoples joined the Mandinka in enrolling in the Islamic Madrassa schools established by Samori Ture. Within a short period of time after Ture conquered part of northern Sierra Leone, part of the region, once dominated by Indigenous religion, rapidly became an overwhelmingly Muslim majority, and has remained an overwhelmingly Muslim majority to present.