Islam is the second-largest religion in Cyprus, after Christianity, and is also the predominant faith of the Turkish Cypriot community which resides in Northern Cyprus. Before the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, the Turkish Cypriot community made up 18% of the island's population and lived throughout the island. Today, most of the estimated 264,172 Muslims are based in the north of the island.
Turkish Cypriot society is formally relatively secular; adherents to the faith subscribe mostly to the Sunni branch of Islam, with an influential stream of Sufism underlying their spiritual heritage and development. Nazim al-Qubrusi, the leader of the Naqshbandi-Haqqani Sufi order, hailed from Larnaca and lived in Lefka. Another branch among the Turkish Cypriot Muslims is Alevism. There are also a few Turkish Cypriots who are Ahmadi Muslims.