Islam is practiced by roughly 5% of Filipinos from a variety of ethnolinguistic groups, over half of whom live on the large southern island of Mindanao.
Islam arrived in the Philippines in the late 14th century with Arab and Malay merchants following Southeast Asian trade networks, propagating Sunni Islam with a variety of Sufi traditions. Muslims were dubbed “Moros” by the Spanish, a reference to the Muslim “Moors” encountered in Spain and North Africa whom the Spanish regarded with disdain. Filipino Moros successfully withstood the Spanish conquest, maintaining autonomy up until the mid-19th century invention of advanced gunboats made a permanent Spanish presence in Muslim territory possible. Culturally speaking, the term “Moro” as it is used among Muslims tends to denote resistance rather than religious affiliation. This is echoed in the term used by contemporary separatists for their community, the Bangsamoro (“Moro Nation”).