Who is sulu people

Her family lives in one of the most isolated and inaccessible parts of the forest, with no roads, no health facilities and no government social infrastructure.

The Ogiek were evicted from some forest areas, which have since been logged. The Ogiek consider it essential to preserve their forest home; others are content to use it to make money in the short term. Esther has a year-old daughter living with a physical disability who has never attended basic school, as it is over 12 kilometres away.

Young children living in these areas face challenges such as long distances to school, fears of assault by wild animals and dangers from people they may encounter on the journey. Because the Ogiek have no legally recognised land rights, despite hundreds of years of residence in this forest, the government is refusing to provide social services or public facilities in the area.

Ensuring that the Ogiek can access health services and education is essential and will mean that they can continue living on their land, protecting and conserving the environment there. We are also advocating for equity in access to education and health by supporting OPDP to ensure that budgets for services are allocated fairly and are used well.

The consequence of this wealth is that successive governments — colonial and post-colonial — have seen greater value in the land than the people. This has led to extensive open cast mining which is doubly damaging to the climate, despite the opposition of the Khadia tribe. Archana is a rare example of an indigenous activist who is involved in UN debates; we need to support many more indigenous peoples and acknowledge their expertise.

Minority Rights Group acts as a bridge between excluded communities and decision makers, telling indigenous peoples about opportunities to contribute and reminding decision makers that they need to listen to and involve all, particularly those with proven strategies of living in harmony with nature.

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In brief, tarsilas were meant to accomplish a few aims beyond the genealogical function. We are all greatly indebted to Dr.

Najeeb Saleeby for the collection, translation, and publication of many tarsilas from Sulu and Mindanao- in the first decade of this century. We owe Saleeby even more, considering that many of these documents had been burnt or lost during the last days of the Japanese Occupation in Unfortunately, too, not a few tarsilas in the possession of some of the leading Muslim families in.

Nevertheless, there still exist tarsilas among some families — at least this is what we have been assured. In the past, tarsilas were jealously guarded from the prying eyes of the curious, especially those of strangers. It took Saleeby, who was an Arab from Lebanon, years of friendship with the families of.

Yet, even he, missed some important ones, possibly because of mistrust. For example, he did not have the chance to see the ones from the Buluan and Tawi-Tawi areas.

In any case, the debt of Philippine Muslim scholars to Saleeby remains inestimable. That the sultans jealously guarded their tarsilas does not mean that they did not divulge some of their contents to foreigners.

Likewise, Thomas Forrest, who was in Maguindanao in , was able to put down in writing the dictation of Faqir Maulana Hamza, a Maguindanao sultan, who was consulting his tarsilas on data concerning the history of Maguindanao. Moreover, the Sultan appeared to have known the genealogies of the sultans of Sulu and Brunei, to the extent of claiming that they, together with the sultans of Maguindanao, had a common Arab ancestor somewhere in the dim past.

Significantly, some Maguindanao tarsilas make it a point to mention dynastic or marriage relations between the royal families of Maguindanao and Sulu. The Brunei Selesildh, likewise, makes reference to a marriage between the Brunei royal family and that of Sulu.

John Hunt, who was in Sulu in , appeared to have had indirect information regarding various Brunei and Sulu tarsilas, probably from his datu friends.

Writing from memory, however, his account is a bit unreliable since he often confuses different sultans with one another and unnecessarily telescopes events. But anyone with a knowledge of Dalrymple's works and Spanish sources can easily recognize the misidentifications in the genealogy and historical events reported by Hunt.

No less than seven varied sources must have been available to him. If he had reported them separately, according to specified sources, instead of lumping them together, he would have been of greater value to present scholars. What follows is a description and analysis of the Sulu tarsilas published by Saleeby. The so-called "Genealogy of Sulu" was published by Saleeby in in a chapter hi his important work The History of Sulu. For convenience, Saleeby also entitled various parts of the "Genealogy of Sulu" in accordance with subject matter.

They are successively as follows : "Sulu author's introduction", "Descendants of Asip", "Descendants of Tuan Masha'ika", and "Original and later settlers of Sulu". The first part deals with the writer of the tarsilas while the second part is a tarsila having to do with the descendants of Asip, one of the ministers who came to Sulu with Raja Baginda, a Sumatran prince. Incidentally, the writer of the tarsilas claimed descent from this minister.

The other two tarsilas, namely, the "Descendants of Tuan Masha'ika" and the "Original and later settlers of Sulu", as well as the "Sulu Historical Notes" were written in Malay, attesting to their antiquity.

It is believed that the "Sulu Historical Notes" which consists of four parts, was originally composed before the "Descendants of Tuan Masha'ika" and the "Original and later settlers of Sulu".

All three tarsilas have many elements in common, but unlike the "Original and later settlers of Sulu", the "Sulu Historical Notes" does not deal either with the first sultan or his descendants. Disregarding some differences, if not actual inconsistencies, between the above three tarsilas, and setting aside certain details which are not quite relevant for purposes of this essay, what follows is their summary :. During the time of Raja Sipad the younger, a son or descendant of Raja Sipad the older, a certain Tuan Masha'ika arrives in Jolo island, in the area now known as Maimbung.

At that time, the inhabitants there are not Muslims but worshippers of stones of various sorts? On account of his qualities, probably regarding' knowledge and skills, he is very much esteemed and respected by the people. In time, he marries a daughter of Raja Sipad. She bears him three children of which two, one male and one female, have Arab names.

The name of the female, 'Aisha, is a typical Muslim name. Not long after, people from Basilan called Tagimaha and another group called Baklaya settle in Sulu. They are followed by Bajao supposed to have come from Johore. The Bajao do not remain in one place but become scattered in various islands. At this time, the people of Sulu begin to adopt Islam. Ten years later it is not clear whether after the arrival of Karim ul-makhdum or after the building of the mosque , Raja Baginda from Minangkabau, Sumatra, appears with his followers, in Buansa.

After this, peace ensues, especially when, it is said, it was found out that Raja Baginda was a Muslim like the Buansa chiefs. Raja Baginda appears to have become a chief in Buansa as evidenced by the report that five years after his arrival, he receives a gift of elephants from the Raja of Java.

In any case, Raja Baginda settles in Buansa and marries there. It is important to note at this point that one of the tarsilas mentions that during the arrival of Raja Baginda, some of the Sulu chiefs not from Buansa were Tuan Buda, Tuan Da'im, and Tuan Bujang.

These chiefs, it will be recalled, were grandchildren of Tuan Masha'ika of Muimbung. Now, according to the "Original and later settlers of Sulu", it was while Raja Baginda was in Buansa that Sayyid Abu Bakr, after having stayed in or passed through Palembang in Sumatra and Brunei, arrives and preaches Islam.

The people then become more attached to Islam. Abu Bakr then marries Paramisuli, the daughter of Raja Baginda, and ends by establishing himself as the first sultan. The enumeration of sultans in the "Genealogy of Sulu" is as follows : 3. Sultan Mustafa Shapiud Din. Sultan Mohammad Nasarud Din. Sultan - Mohammad Mu'izzid Din. Sultan Mohammed Sarapud Din. He was sultan for only 40 days. The earlier portions of the chapter must have been written much earlier.

Some of its contents were even told to Dalrymple in The above brief summary suggests various observations and conclusions :. The genealogy of Sulu asserts that the earliest inhabitants of Jolo island were centered in the area of Maimbung, in the southern part of the island. The second to arrive were the Tagimaha who came from Basilan and who settled in Buansa, in the northern part of the island west of the present Jolo town.

The third to come were the Baklaya who settled in tha northern part of the island east of Jolo town. They were followed by the Bajaos and Samal who distributed themselves all over the Sulu archipelago. Tuan Masha'ika was one of the first foreign Muslims to come to the Maimbung area and, therefore, to Jolo island.

That some of his children and grandchildren had Arabic names supports this view. Now, the word mu'min pi. The phrase, therefore, means that Masha'ika begot Muslim. Of common knowledge, too, is the fact that the majority of Arabs who settled in the Indonesian archipelago came from South Arabia. The account of the genealogy of Tuan Masha'ika that he was "born out of a bamboo and was esteemed and respected by all the people", not reveals that his land of origin was unknown, but also serves to emphasize his greater knowledge vis-a-vis the people he came to live with.

The other report in the "Sulu Historical Notes" that the parents of Tuan Masha'ika were sent to Sulu by Alexander the Great shows that the writer of the "Sulu Historical Notes" was acquainted, in one way or another, with the traditions of the Malaka sultans who claimed descent from Alexander the Great. Other Sulu traditions state that the rulers of Sulu were descended from Alexander the Great. This is simply a technique to bolster the claim for legitimacy to rule, for the rulers of Sulu were, in this case, claiming kinship with the Malaka sultans.

The coming of- Karim ul-makhdum, suggests ithe coming of a Muslim to actually preach Islam. This is unlike the coming of Tuan Masha'ika to whom neither the preaching of Islam nor the building of a mosque is attributed. The word makhdum, in Arabic, means "master". In Arab lands, it is used as a converse of "server". However, in India and in the land of the Malays the word came to be used as a title for Muslim religious teachers or scholars and pious men.

In personal terms, this means that Raja Baginda was sort of claiming an uninterrupted sovereignty. His marriage with a local girl also means that his descendants who became sultans had rights to land in Sulu by virtue of bilateral relations.

In brief, the Sulu sultans,, who were descended from Raja Baginda could not be criticized as representing a foreign dynasty since, after all, their ancestress who married the Raja was a local girl. The « word. Clearly, then, the claim of the Sulu sultans to rule over Muslims is based on their reputed descent from the Prophet, through Sayyid Abu Bakr. But again, to strengthen their claims on the land without appearing fully as a foreign dynasty, the Sulu sultans claimed descent from the wife of the first sultan who, in spite of her being a daugter of Raja Baginda, was considered a, local girl.

Indeed, her mother was a lady from Buansa. In brief, the Sulu tarsilas, particularly those owned by the Sulu royal family, are not mere genealogical accounts made for antiquarian interests, but represent documents par excellence to support their claim of legitimacy to rule over Muslim as well as their claim to their right to the land. The tarsilas are also meant to show kinship and historical links between.

Sulu and older centers of empire. Of great importance is that the three above-mentioned tarsilas try to explain the advent and the spread of Islam in Sulu. The problem can now be raised. Tumang- tangis which faces Buansa. The tomb carries the elaborate titles of the Sultan; but, unfortunately, it gives no date. A stone slab nearby is pointed out as the marker of the grave of Kamal ud-Din, the second sultan.

According to Spanish records, Spanish soldiers in destroyed one of the most revered tombs near Buansa. This tomb was a center of pilgrimages and was supposed to be that of a Muslim ruler who had come from other lands. Whether or not this tomb is that of Raja Baginda remains an unsolved, problem. The fourth sultan Pangiran Buddiman was known to the Spaniards in The fifth sultan, called Pangiran Tengah, was also known to the Spaniards and the Jesuit Francisco Combes narrated a few things about him.

This same priest also had various times conversed with Sultan Bongsu. In effect, all he sultans numbered from 4 to 17 in the "Genealogy of Sulu", had dealings with the Span-. However, that sultans from 4 to 17 are to be considered as historical figures only because of the existence of cross references in European sources, is no criteria why sultans from one to three cannot be regarded as historical figures. But, indeed, there are Spanish references to a Sulu ruler in who happened to be father- in-law of the Brunei Sultan.

This ruler might have been one of the earlier sultans. On the basis of other tarsilas or Sulu traditions not reported by Saleeby, it can be accepted that it was the first sultan who put the different peoples of Sulu, including those in the mountains in the interior, under one rule.

Thus did Sulu begin to have the semblance of a principality or small state. Unfortunately, none of the Sulu tarsilas contain any date. The same holds true for the Maguindanao tarsilas. The Brunei Selesilah, however, contains one and only one date. Scholars cannot, so far, be absolutely sure about, or conclusively prove, the existence of Tuan Masha'ika or Raja Baginda.

But this does not mean that they did not exist. On the contrary, to assume that they existed can explain a great deal of Sulu history. Actually, by cross references to other sources, historical of archaeological, the probability is that they actually existed.

And more than this, they signify persons involved in the dramatic political and religious transformations in the history of Southeast Asia. A source says that this prince escaped with a small following to found after some adventures, a kingdom in Singapore, after which he or his descendants founded Malaka.

Another source, however, mentions that the princely evacuation was of such great magnitude that "the sea seemed to be nothing but ships". It says : "So vast was the fleet that there seemed to be no counting. The mast of the ships were like a forest of trees ; their pennons and streamers were like driving clouds and the state umbrellas of the Rajas like cirrus.

The "Sulu Historical Notes" and the "Original and later Settlers of Sulu", mention that he went to Zamboanga first, from where he sailed to Basilan until he decided to transfer to Buansa where he and. That the tarsilas say he came from Minangkabau instead of Palembang is not of much consequence ; for the central power in Sumatra in the few years before was located in Palembang.

It does seem that some of the Palembang adventurers had founded not only the city of Malaka, which was to become the greatest emporium and Islamic center in Southeast Asia in the 15th century, but also a principality in Sulu which had become so important later on as to attract the Sharif Abu Bakr.

When the Sulus tried. There is an indirect evidence to , further support the speculation that Raja Baginda came to Sulu about A. This has to do with the tarsila report, that, five years after his arrival, Raja Baginda received a gift of elephants from the Raja of Java.