The majority of Ossetian Muslims today reside in Turkey, as well as the Western areas of North Ossetia, such as the Irafsky, Kirovsky, and Pravoberezhny Districts and in Vladikavkaz, with Minorities in the Alagirsky, Ardonsky, Mozdoksky, and western Prigorodny Districts, as well as in Syria, Kabardino-Balkaria, and Stavropol Krai.

Prior to the annexation of the Digoria region into Russia in 1771, the vast majority of Digorians professed Islam.

In 1825–30, the rebel movement in Tagauria and Kurtatia was led by Beslan Shanaev, Khazbi Tulatov, Dzanhot Mamsurov, Kurgok Karsanov and others.

In the 2000s a group calling itself Kataib al-Khoul was established by Ossetian Muslims as part of the North Caucasus insurgency and its goal was to expel the Russian presence in North Ossetia and establish an Islamic Emirate called Iriston.

This unit was led by prominent Jihadi fighter Alan Digorsky, and gained publicity in 2005-2008 when it attacked casinos and gambling houses in Vladikavkaz, and engaged in a series of assassinations of high-ranking military and state officials in North Ossetia, this combined with that on May 26, the beheaded body of Shamil Jikayev, a venerated Ossetian poet was found near Vladikavkaz and the fact that his killer, David Murashev, himself an Ossetian, is said by authorities to have converted to Islam, stirred up talks about the increasingly uncomfortable coexistence of Christian and Muslim communities within North Ossetia, renewing fears of the “jihadization” of North Ossetian Muslims.