Studies in Moro History, Law, and Religion

by Najeeb M. Saleeby

Having a fair admixture of Malay blood in him and sufficient Arabian energy and enthusiasm to push on, he came and conquered and soon found himself at home in Mindanao as well as at Juhūr. There was no racial prejudice to contend against and the language of the new land was akin to his own. But true to his religion, as he was true to his ancestry, his faith suffered no defeat. No submission was accepted without conversion, and no friendship was cultivated with the unfaithful. He married in the land of his conquest, and the ties of faith were soon strengthened by the ties of blood and kinship; and as the first generation passed and the second generation followed, the conqueror and the conquered became one in blood and sympathy, one in faith, and one in purpose. A new dynasty which stood for Islam, for progress, and for civilization arose on the ruins of barbarism and heathenism. Savage and fierce as the Moros look, they are greatly superior to the surrounding pagans who inhabit the hills and the interior of Mindanao. Once their equals and kinsmen, they have vastly surpassed them now and are preëminently above them. With Mohammedanism came art and knowledge, and communication with the outside world was established.

For four centuries two different agencies of civilization have been at work in the Philippine Islands. One started in the north and worked its way south, continually progressing and constantly growing in power and improving in character. The other began in the south and extended north, but it soon reached a definite limit, and like a tree stunted in its growth it reverted to its wild nature and grew thorny and fruitless. The first graft of the tree of Magindanao was not aided by later irrigation. The first wave of immigration was not reënforced, and with an ebb tide it lost most of its size and force.

The Moros of Mindanao figured very prominently in the history of the Philippines. They were never united under one flag, but they formed different sultanates, some of which attained considerable power and fame. In the fullness of his glory, the sultan of Magindanao ruled over the whole southern coast of Mindanao from Point Tugubum, east of Mati, to Zamboanga, and beyond this latter point to the outskirts of Dapitan. All the pagan tribes living around the Gulf of Davao and in the Sarangani country, and all the Subanos west of Tukurun and Dapitan submitted to his power and paid him tribute. In the upper Rio Grande Valley the power of the rajas of Bwayan was felt and respected as far as the watershed of the Cagayan Valley on the north and the inaccessible slopes of Mount Apo on the east. The Ranao Moros controlled the whole country and the seacoast west of Cagayan de Misamis and north of the Illana Bay.

The large majority of the Moro sultanates are, however, small, and have never been fully numbered or described. They generally represent small divisions of territory and subdivisions of tribes, each under one chief who calls himself sultan or datu. Nevertheless, tribal relations and language group these petty divisions into two large distinct groups, the Magindanao and the Iranun. The Magindanao group includes the majority of the tribes. The Iranun group is restricted to the tribes living along the eastern coast of the Bay of Illana from the point of Polloc to the neighborhood of Tukurun, and the whole Ranao region lying between that line and the Bay of Iligan.

The Magindanao group is the greater of the two in number, in the extent of its territory, and in fame. Indeed, all the Moros of Mindanao, except the Iranun, were at one time under one influence and were brought under the sole control of the sultan of Magindanao.

The Samal Moros, who are variously classified by different writers and who are often mentioned as one of the main divisions of the Moros of Mindanao, are really foreign to Mindanao and belong to a distinct and separate group. Until recently they had never been independent, but had lived under the protection of various datus, and always served the datu for the protection he afforded them, or paid him tribute. They were sea rovers and had no claim on territory anywhere. Lately they have settled down on the Island of Basilan, the Sulu Archipelago, and around the Zamboanga peninsula. The Samals were the latest of the Malay people to arrive in the Philippine Islands. In fact, they are the only Malay people of whom we have positive historical statement of emigration from the Malay Peninsula to Sulu and Mindanao, and were in all probability Mohammedans prior to their arrival in the Philippine Islands. With the Magindanao and Iranun peoples it is different. They were in the land and belonged to the native element of the country long before their conversion to Islam.

Islam was successfully introduced and firmly established in Mindanao by one man. This same man founded the sultanate of Magindanao and reformed the whole system of government among his converts. His full name was Sharif Mohammed Kabungsuwan, generally known as Sharif Kabungsuwan.

Kabungsuwan was without doubt the greatest Mohammedan adventurer who trod the soil of the island. But both the traditions of Magindanao and its written records state that he was preceded by two pioneers, the first of whom was Sharif Awliya. Awliya was universally regarded as a relative and a predecessor of Kabungsuwan. His history is wrapped in myths. He is said to have come to Mindanao in the air to search for paradise, or that part of it which remained in Mindanao, and, while he was looking for it on the hill of Tantawan (Cotabato), to have found a houri who was sent to him from heaven. He married this houri and she bore a daughter called Paramisuli. Later the sharif returned to the west, but his wife and daughter remained in Magindanao.

The second arrival in Magindanao was Sharif Maraja, who married Paramisuli and was thought to have begotten Tabunaway and Mamālu, who were the chiefs of Magindanao when Kabungsuwan arrived in the land. Sharif Maraja is said to have had a brother called Sharif Hasan, who accompanied him as far as Basilan, but who stopped there and founded the sultanate of Sulu. Whether Bidayan, the son of Sharif Hasan, who is mentioned in the fourth tarsila, should be Bidin, the abbreviated form of Zainul-Abidin, who was the first sultan of Sulu, it is not easy to say. No copy of the Sulu genealogy has been obtained as yet, and no authoritative statement can be made. But it is universally believed that the first sultan of Sulu came from Basilan, and that the ancestors of the sultans of Bruney, Sulu, and Magindanao were brothers.

Sharif Kabungsuwan was the son of Sharif Ali Zainul Abidin, a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed who emigrated from Hadramut, southern Arabia, to Juhūr, Malay Peninsula. The sultan of Juhūr, was evidently a Mohammedan then, and was called Iskandar Thul-Karnayn, the Arabic appellation of Alexander the Great. The word “Sharif” is Arabic and means “noble.” It is a title which is universally given to the descendants of the Prophet Mohammed. The full title is “Sayid Sharif,” the “master and noble.” The Arabians generally use the first word, Sayid, alone, but the Moros have adopted the second. Being highly respected on account of his ancestry, Zainul-Abidin was given the hand of the sultan’s daughter in marriage. Her name was Jūsul Asiqīn, a corrupted form of the Arabic name “Jawzul-’Ashiqīn.” It is generally believed that she bore three children, the youngest of whom was called Kabungsuwan. The word “Kabungsuwan” is Malay and means “the youngest.” The names of the two older brothers of Kabungsuwan were variously given. They were not mentioned in the tarsila and have been obtained from mere traditions. One authority gave them as Ahmad and Alawi, the other as Mohammed and Ahmad. Both authorities agreed on the fact that the oldest founded the sultanate of Bruney, and the second the sultanate of Sulu.