Publication: Les sultanats du Sud philippinUne histoire sociale et culturelle de l’islamisation (XVe-XXe siècles)

30. Juni 2022, von AAI Webmaster

Foto: Elsa Clavé

In her new book Les sultanats du Sud philippin. Une histoire sociale et culturelle de l’islamisation (XVe-XXe siècles) [The Sultanates of the Southern Philippines. A social and cultural history of Islamization (15th-20th centuries)], JP Dr. Elsa Clavé deals with the history and the cultural memory of Islamization.

Forming the Eastern end of the Islamic world, the Southern Philippines hosted, between the 15th and 20th centuries, two sultanates (Sulu and Magindanao-Buayan) and a Muslim confederation (Pat a pengampong ko Ranao). This book traces the emergence of these Islamized political entities, focusing on the social and cultural changes induced by the adoption of Islam, a universal religion, in this part of Southeast Asia.

Islam in the Philippines is approached from the texts produced by the Islamized societies who live in Mindanao and Sulu. These texts highlight the circulation of a Malay cosmopolitan culture in the Southern Philippines as well as the local specificities of an indigenized Islam. Visiting the tomb of a saint, composing and transmitting a genealogy, or copying a manuscript are practices that organize the territory, society and the time lived by Muslims in Mindanao and Sulu. By following the myths and epics of the Tausug, the Magindanao and the Maranao, the book sheds light on the way in which the population of the sultanates articulated Islam with pre-existing beliefs and practices, in a system of great coherence.

More information on the book can be found here.