Chapter One
Introduction | Arrival of Islam | Spanish Incursions | 1600-1850 Spanish Occupation
Spanish Rule | Objectives | Significance | Methodology | The Setting
Spanish Rule | Objectives | Significance | Methodology | The Setting
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Arrival of Islam and Its Impact
Between the people of the southern Philippines and the people of the neighboring lands of Borneo, the islands of Indonesia, and the Malay states, there had long been trade relations, which antedated the coming of Islam. It would be by way of the trade routes connecting these neighboring lands that Islam would reach the shores of Mindanao and Sulu.
Saleeby's report on the traditional account of the Subanons of Zamboanga regarding the coming of Islam to their shores strongly hinted of the role that trade relations played in this regard (narrated in De la Costa, The Jesuit in the Philippines).
Around the middle of the fifteenth century, Moslem missionaries cam by way of the trade routes to southern Mindanao and Sulu and began to make conversions among the people to the religion of Islam. Professor Michael Mastura is of the conviction that this influx of Moslem missionaries came after the Malay state of Malacca fell to Portuguese control in 1511 or 1515. (Mastura, A Short History of Cotabato City and Its Historic Places).
Tarsila records (derived from the Arabic "silsila") attribute the Islamization of the Cotabato Region to Sharif Muhammad Kabungsuwan "son of Jusul Asiquin of Johore who came to Maguindanao and converted to Islam all of the people of Maguindanao, Matampay, Slangan, Simway, and Katidtuan." Mastura, citing Captain Thomas Forrester, dates the Islamization period as starting roughly in 1475. He also mentioned the presence of other Moslem missionaries prior to Kabungsuwan - Sharif Marajah, Hasan, and Awliya. Mastura mentions that "Cesar Adib Majul has placed that event (Awliya's presence) to have taken place sometime around 1460.
Several decades of Islamization, therefore, had already taken place in the Cotabato region and elsewhere in Mindanao by the time the Spaniards came into contact with the inhabitants of these places.
The Islamic faith provided a force of cohesion among the people of the region. Islam is a force that moved the early settlers to communal life as well as to organize the Maguindanao dynasty" (Mastura).
Like most of the inhabitants of the archipelago, the basic pre-Islam social organization in the Cotabato region was that of the clan - a group of freemen and their slaves recognizing a chieftain or datu as head. Though clans formed temporary alliances, they were basically independent of one another.
According to De la Costa, "the Moslem Malays added a summit to the pyramid; the princess; and the domination of these warlords gave to the Maguindanaos a cohesion, a solidarity of purpose and action which the people of the north had not yet attained." This political development introduced by the Malays would later culminate in the establishment of at least two nascent states, the Sultanates of Sulu and Maguindanao.
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Introduction | Arrival of Islam | Spanish Incursions | 1600-1850 Spanish Occupation
Spanish Rule | Objectives | Significance | Methodology | The Setting
Spanish Rule | Objectives | Significance | Methodology | The Setting