Basilan

Basilan, officially the Province of Basilan, is an island province of the Philippines located primarily in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region. Basilan Island is the largest and northernmost of the major islands of the Sulu Archipelago. It is just off the southern coast of the geographic Zamboanga Peninsula.
Isabela, the most populous city and the former capital, is a component city under the provincial government of Basilan but is administered as part of the Zamboanga Peninsula Region and is listed statistically independent. The provincial capital has since been transferred to Lamitan. Despite this, some national government offices are still located at Isabela.
Basilan is home to three main ethnolinguistic groups: the indigenous Yakans, and the later-arriving Tausugs and Chavacanos. The Yakans and Tausugs are predominantly Muslim, while the Chavacano are mainly Christian. There are also a number of smaller ethnic groups. Although the official languages are Filipino and English, the main native language is Yakan and lingua franca is Chavacano. Other languages include Tausug, Cebuano, and Sama.
Basilan, although classified as a 3rd-class province in terms of gross provincial income, has one of the lowest incidences of poverty in the Philippines, ranked 20 among the Philippines' 80 provinces. The gap between Basilan's rich and poor residents are among the narrowest in the country, pointing to one of the most equitable distributions of wealth anywhere in the country.

Etymology

of the Magellan Expedition, records the name of Basilan as "Taghima", and was variously spelled in other early European maps as "Tanguima", "Taglima", "Tagimar", "Tagema", and "Tagyto". The first record of it being called "Basilan" is by a Jesuit historian, Fr. Colin.
Oral traditions of the local Yakan people include several names for pre-historic Basilan: "Uleyan", which is derived from the present-named Basilan Peak, and later changed to "Matangal" after a mountain farther to the east of the island. These names were presumably used by the Maguindanao traders from mainland Mindanao, using these mountains as navigation landmarks when sailing the Celebes Sea.
Other names romantically given were "Puh Gulangan" or "island of forests", "Umus Tambun" or "fertile land", "Kumalarang" after the westward flowing river on the island's western half which is otherwise called Baunuh Peggesan.

History

Precolonial Basilan (Taguima and the Tagimaha)

According to royal genealogical records, colonial accounts, and modern historical research, Basilan, historically known as Taguima, emerged as an important regional trade center in the precolonial period, linking the Sulu Archipelago, Borneo, and broader Southeast Asian maritime networks.
Datu Taguima’s authority reflected the island’s political and commercial significance in early regional affairs.
The island’s inhabitants, known as the Tagimaha, formed a coastal and inland farming community engaged in trade, seafaring, agriculture, and regional diplomacy, establishing Taguima as a center of economic activity, cultural exchange, and early political organization within the Sulu Archipelago.
By the 7th to 8th centuries, Champa traders from mainland Southeast Asia maintained sustained commercial and social contact with Taguima through regional maritime trade networks. These Cham merchants established trading ties, settlements, and intermarried with local Tagimaha communities, contributing advanced maritime knowledge, boat-building techniques, textile production methods, decorative weaving styles, and social organizational practices. This long-term interaction shaped Tagimaha society into a culturally hybrid community that combined indigenous Basilan traditions with Champa-derived maritime, artistic, and commercial influences, strengthening Basilan’s role as a center of regional trade and cultural exchange in the Sulu Archipelago.
Between the 9th and 12th centuries, a violent conflict erupted in Sulu between the Buranun and Champa merchants over trade dominance and economic power. According to historical accounts and Sulu oral traditions, many Orang Dampuan traders were killed in a massacre linked to rising tensions over wealth, commerce, and political influence. Survivors of the violence fled the Sulu mainland, with a significant group seeking refuge in Taguima , where they settled among local Tagimaha communities. This migration created a second wave of Cham-linked settlement in Basilan, reinforcing existing trade networks, cultural exchange, and demographic ties between Champa-origin groups and indigenous Tagimaha society.
By the 10th to 13th centuries, Islamic influence in the Sulu Archipelago and Basilan expanded through Muslim merchants and missionaries, including scholars associated with Champa . These missionaries reinforced earlier Islamic knowledge introduced through trade, teaching religious practices, legal traditions, and communal norms to coastal and inland communities in Taguima. Some Tagimaha groups were among the earliest adopters of Islam in the southern Philippines, predating the formal establishment of the Sulu Sultanate.
In search of new trading opportunities and political influence, Tagimaha groups expanded beyond Taguima into Buansa, where they encountered resistance from the indigenous Buranun, leading to conflict. As a result, some Tagimaha groups returned to Taguima, while others remained in Buansa. Royal genealogical records in the Sulu tarsila describe the Tagimaha who stayed in Buansa as early leaders who helped establish local systems of governance that later shaped Sulu political development.
In Buansa, Tagimaha leaders played an important role in supporting and facilitating three Muslim figures recorded in Sulu genealogical traditions. Karimul Makdum introduced Islam and began early religious teaching in the region, and is traditionally credited with the construction of one of the earliest mosques in Sulu. Tuan Masha’ikha strengthened Islamic influence among local elites. Raja Baguinda later arrived, initially encountering resistance, but eventually became a political leader in Buansa and married into a local ruling family linked in some traditions to Tagimaha lineage. These interactions contributed to the spread of Islam and early political development in Sulu before the establishment of the Sulu Sultanate.
The historical influence of the Tagimaha extended beyond Basilan and Buansa into the long-term political development of the Sulu region. Descendants of Tagimaha-linked elites continued to hold leadership roles in local governance, trade networks, and regional diplomacy. Sulu genealogical records and colonial-era accounts describe Tagimaha-affiliated families as part of the ruling and noble class that shaped political authority, economic activity, and inter-island relations. Over time, their legacy persisted through elite lineages, cultural influence, and continued participation in Sulu’s political and social structures.

Basilan during the Sulu Sultanate

As the Sulu Sultanate consolidated power, regional trade became increasingly centered in Jolo, reducing Basilan’s earlier prominence as a maritime trading hub. Over time, Basilan’s economy placed greater emphasis on localized production, inland agriculture, and resource-based livelihoods, as reflected in later historical and anthropological accounts. This shift marked a transition in Basilan’s regional role from a major trade center to a more locally oriented economic landscape.
Historical accounts indicate that the authority of the Sulu Sultanate was largely concentrated in coastal and political centers, while inland communities in Basilan, including the Yakan, retained substantial local autonomy. Ethnographic studies suggest that Yakan communities were not tightly bound to the Sultanate’s administrative or political obligations, instead maintaining their own systems of communal governance, local leadership, and customary law.
During the period of the Sulu Sultanate, communities in Basilan historically associated with the Tagimaha continued to participate in regional trade, agriculture, and local leadership. While the Tagimaha are less frequently named in later written records, Sulu genealogical records and colonial accounts suggest that Basilan-linked families continued to hold influence by serving as local leaders, forming marriage ties with Sulu elites, and participating in regional trade, allowing their social status and identity to persist over time.
The Tagimaha appear to have followed two historical paths: some became integrated into elite lineages within Sulu Sultanate, while others are widely regarded as ancestral to, or historically linked with, the present-day Yakan people of Basilan.
Today, Yakan cultural traditions in Basilan show continuity with earlier Tagimaha and Cham influences, particularly in intricate weaving patterns, maritime knowledge, settlement patterns, and oral traditions linked to precolonial trade networks. These traditions reflect long-term cultural continuity shaped by both Cham foreign contact and native Basilan heritage.

Taguima

Documents from the royal archives of the Sulu Sultanate referred to the northernmost island of the Sulu Archipelago as Taguima
Later references mentioned "Bantilan", probably referring to Maluso, which was established as a major Tausug base by Sulu Sultan Muizz ud-Din.
Imperial Chinese texts mention a "Kingdom of Kumalarang" during the Ming Dynasty, believed to be the island which now has a barangay of the same name on its northwestern shores.
Basilan was seen and mentioned by the remnants of the Ferdinand Magellan expedition in 1521.
The earliest map of the Philippines which made reference to an island labeled "Taguima" was produced by Giacomo Gastaldi, through woodblock prints in 1548. It was subsequently included in the influential travel book of Giovanni Battista Ramusio, the Della Navigatione e Viaggi, which was published between 1556 and 1583 in three volumes. This was followed by Abraham Ortelius's work Indiae Orientalis Insularumque Adiacientium Typus, published in 1573 in a German text edition of the atlas Theatrum Orbis Terrarum by Christophe Plantin in Antwerp. As late as 1719, a map titled "Die philippinische Inseln - Isle Brneo" by Allain Manesson Mallet of Frankfurt, Germany featured an island labeled "Tagyma I."
The process by which all these names became "Basilan" is almost certainly due to miscommunication between the natives and the Spanish, as well as the penchant to engage in editorial license by European map-makers of the era.
Basilan's name may also derive from its iron ore deposits. Tausug warriors and slave-traders from Sulu came to Taguima to purchase high-quality magnetic iron ores, which they used for swords, knives and other blades. This profitable trade, helped in large measure by the establishment of Maluso as a major military-naval base of the Sulu Sultanate, eventually gave the island the distinction of being the source of basih-balan, the Tausug word for magnetic iron. Roughly translated and abbreviated, however, basih-lan means "the iron trail" or "the iron way".
When several Tausug warriors were caught by the Spanish in one of their numerous raids on the Zamboanga settlement, Spanish officials supposedly admired the artistry and skill that went into making the warriors' elaborately decorated swords, knives and blades. They asked where these weapons could be bought. From atop the ramparts of the Spanish commandery at the Fuerza del Nuestra Senora del Pilar de Zaragoza, the warriors supposedly pointed to the island visible across today's Basilan Strait, and said, simply, "ha basih-lan".
Reports from the Jesuit reducciones in Zamboanga and Pasangen were relayed to Manila, where Spanish cartographer Pedro Murillo de Velarde published Historia de la Provincia de Philipinas de la Compañia de Jesvs. Segvnda parte using the Jesuit printing press at Manila in 1749. It featured a map of the Philippines with the unofficial "I. Basilan". The map was re-published by Leipzig map-maker Nicolaus Bellinn for general European circulation in 1752.
Finally, to represent a clear break from the Habsburg Dynasty, the first officially sanctioned Spanish maps of its colonies, including "Las Islas de Mindanao", were commissioned by the Bourbons. This particular map of Mindanao, apparently copied from the Nicolaus Bellinn map of 1752, was published by Nicolas Norton Nicols in 1757, featuring "Basilan" and bearing the royal stamp of Spanish Bourbon King Ferdinand VI. It has been called "Isla de Basilan" ever since.