Muslim in the Philippines

pendekar Tue Mar 04, 2008 10:16 am

"There are an estimated 3.5 million Muslims in the Philippines. While they represent less than 5 percent of the population of the Philippines (the only predominately Christian country in Southeast Asia), Philippine Muslims are geographically concentrated in the south of the country in Mindanao and Sulu and are distinguished from Christian Filipinos not only by their profession of Islam but also by their evasion of 300 years of Spanish colonial domination. At the same time, Philippine Muslims have always been separated from one another in this archipelagic nation by significant linguistic and geographic distance. They are divided into three major and ten minor ethnolinguistic groups and dispersed across the southern islands. The three largest ethnolinguistic groups are the Magindanaons of the Pulangi River Basin of central Mindanao, the Maranaos of the Lanao Lake region of central Mindanao, and the Tausugs of Jolo Island in the Sulu archipelago. Smaller groups include the Yakans of Basilan Island, the Samals of the Tawi-Tawi island group in Sulu, and the Iranuns of the Cotabato coast of Mindanao. In some parts of their traditional territory, Philippine Muslim populations retain their majority; about 98 per cent of the population of the Sulu archipelago, for example, are Muslims In Mindanao-Sulu as a whole, however, Philippine Muslims now comprise less than 17 per cent of the population"