Arabs in the Philippines


Arab traders have been visiting the Philippines for centuries, playing a prominent role in the trade networks of the time. They used Southeast Asia for stopovers and trading posts. Arab merchants began establishing settlements in the southern Philippines around the 13th century. Since the 14th century, Arab travelers such as Makhdun Karim are known to have reached the Philippines and brought Islam to the region. They moved from the southern islands such as Mindanao and traveled towards the north and converted the Filipinos to Islam, many of these early Arabs married Filipina women.
An estimated 2% of the population of the Philippines, about 2.2 million people, could claim partial Arab ancestry.

History

Muslim Arab merchants increasingly traveled via Southeast Asian trade routes, including through the southern Philippines by the 10th century. Around the 13th and 14th centuries, foreign merchants had formed settlements in the area. By the 14th century Arab travelers had traded extensively with local chiefs, datos and rajahs. During the advent of Islam into Southeast Asia, Makhdum Karim, the first Islamic missionary to reach the Sulu Archipelago, brought Islam to what is now the Philippines, first arriving in Tawi-Tawi.
Arab and Persian traders passed by the Philippines, on their way to Guangzhou, China. Subsequent visits of Arab Muslim missionaries strengthened the Islamic faith in the Philippines, concentrating in the south and reaching as far north as Manila. According to the Syrian Consulate in Makati, the first Orthodox Christians on the islands were Syrian and Lebanese merchants and sailors, who arrived in Manila after the city was opened to international trade. Many of the Lebanese sailors married local women and their descendants have since become Philippine citizens.
Political and economic relations were enhanced in the 1970s between the Philippines and Arab nations, this was during the period of oil shocks and political instability in the Middle East. This led to closer collaboration between the countries and led to an increase in Philippine laborers working in the Middle East.
In recent times, another wave of Arabs to arrive in the Philippines were refugees from war-torn nations, such as Lebanon and Arab other nations involved in the Gulf War in 1991. While other Arabs were entrepreneurs who intend to set up businesses. Filipinos with Arab descent live primarily in Mindanao, while the more recent immigrants live in Manila.

Cesar Majul

Filipino author Cesar Adib Majul, the son of a Greek Orthodox Christian immigrant from Syria, converted to Islam in his late adulthood. He became a prominent historian on the Muslim Moro people and the history of Islam in the Philippines and wrote many books about Moros and Islam.

Notable people

Movie and TV celebrities