This paper discusses the political ideas of a well-known Islamic intellectual of Lanao del Sur in the Philippines, namely Ahmad Bashir. It examines the concept of the state as expressed in his representative book entitled, History of Islam in the Philippines, which was written in Arabic and published in 1964.
Bashir was a reformist ulama who had studied in Islamic schools in Mecca in the mid-20th century. He founded a reformist Islamic school in Lanao del Sur in Mindanao in 1957. Concepts such as umma （community）, waṭan （homeland） and notions concerning the state that appear in his book, reveal features associated with the “moderate Islamic reformist” school of the first half of the 20th century, as represented by Rashīd Riḍā.
Furthermore, Bashir declares in his book that since Islamic states had once exercised jurisdiction all over the Philippine archipelago prior to the Spanish invasion of the 16th century, and since most of the residents of the archipelago at the time were Muslims, hence the Philippine archipelago was originally the land of Islam, and the Philippine people were originally Muslims. The historiography of Bashir as revealed in his book describes the history of Islam in the Philippines as a struggle by Muslims in the country to defend their religion, waṭan and freedom, against colonial aggression and invasion.
Bashir focused his efforts on Islamic propagation and educational reform. He avoided confronting the Philippine state, which was largely non-Muslim, and adopted instead a strategy of developing Islamic networks and strengthening the Muslim community in the country, by utilizing the resource of the state. This strategy required a logic that would legitimize the Philippine state from an Islamic point of view, and hence as a response to this need, Bashir reinterpreted the Philippine state and history from the standpoint of “moderate Islamic reformism”. Hence the historiography revealed in the History of Islam in the Philippines may be viewed as a means to endorse the contemporary Philippine state and Philippine nationalism, from an Islamic perspective.
Bashir not only imbibed the political concepts of “moderate Islamic reformism” of the first half of the 20th century, but urged on by such reasoning he also reinterpreted Philippine history, portrayed the people’s collective past and present, and envisioned their shared future.
