BONGAO, Tawi-Tawi—President Benigno Aquino III recently signed Republic Act No. 10573 declaring as national landmark the 716-year-old mosque in the island town of Simunul, this province, a local lawmaker said.
Rep. Hadja Ruby Sahali said the more than seven-century- old mosque in Tubig Indangan was built in early 1380 by Sheik Karimul Makdum, the first-ever Arab missionary to set foot in the Southern Philippines to propagate Islam.
Sahali stressed that in signing the law, the Chief Executive cited the government’s mandate to promote and propagate the country’s historical and cultural landmarks, like the Sheik Makdum Mosque, even as he directed the National Historical Commission to oversee and supervise the preservation of the country’s oldest Muslim church.
She told local scribe John Unson that historical records showed that Makdum also established a strong Sharia justice system in Tawi-Tawi, then a part of Sulu, ”to serve as the framework for governance that pagan leaders he convinced to embrace Islam used as guide in managing the affairs of their community.”
The legislator claimed that many early Simunul residents were known to have Arab descent reportedly resulting to Makdum’s intermarriage with local women even as other Arab missionaries who later arrived in the island “also sired children with Samal and Tausug women spreading further the area’s mixed-race lineage.”
Unson quoted Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Gov. Mujiv Hataman as saying that Makdum’s influence on Muslims in Tawi-Tawi “was so deep that many keep coming for a pilgrimage to the mosque he established and to visit his Simunul grave to show respect and recognition to the building of Muslim community in Mindanao.”