Algeria
Islam is the predominant religion in Algeria, with its adherents, mostly Sunnis, accounting for 99% of the population according to a 2012 CIA World Factbook estimate, and 97.9% according to Pew Research in 2010. There are about 150,000 Ibadis in the M'zab Valley in the region of Ghardaia.
Religion in Algeria
The Jewish community of Algeria is of considerable antiquity, with some members claiming descent from immigrants from Palestine at the time of the Romans. The majority are descendants of refugees from Spanish persecution early in the fifteenth century. They numbered about 140,000 before the Algerian War, but at independence in 1962 nearly all of them left the country. Because the 1870 Crémieux Decrees, which aimed at assimilating the colonists of Algeria to France, gave Jews full French citizenship, most members of the Jewish community emigrated to France. The small remaining Jewish population appeared to have stabilized at roughly 1,000. It was thought to be close to this number in the early 1990s. Although no untoward incidents occurred during the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973, a group of youths sacked the only remaining synagogue in Algiers in early 1977.