Although a minority religion, Islam in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has deep historic roots and survived intense repression during the colonial era. Today a vibrant Muslim community constitutes between five and ten percent of Congo's population of more than eighty million. While estimates of the Muslim community vary from 1.5 to 10 percent, depending on the source, there is no recent or reliable census data. The majority of Congolese people are Christian, about half of them Catholic. 1. Introduction and expansion of Islam Islam was introduced