Understanding the Muslims in our Midst

I speak to the Christian population in the Philippines with regard to the Muslims in the Philippine society. Understanding the Muslims in our midst means respecting and accepting them as our fellow Filipinos. Muslims comprise around 10% of the total population of the Philippines, which makes them a significant minority in our country. With the protracted war in Mindanao between the Muslim rebel groups and the military since the 1970s, many Muslims had to leave their homes to avoid the fighting leading to their internal diaspora in our country.

Nowadays, Muslims can be found in different parts of the country – in the Visayan islands like Leyte and Cebu, in different parts of Metro Manila, Baguio, even in Southern Luzon. This situation calls for peaceful and friendly relationship between Christian and Muslim Filipinos living or working side by side with each other and necessitates a greater understanding of the Muslims in our country and their religion which is Islam.

Understanding our Muslims brothers and sisters entails divesting ourselves of the long-held biases and prejudices we harbor against them by knowing the goodness in them and in their culture and the common things between Christianity and Islam. Christians need to know how to relate to Muslims and Muslims should also learn how to relate to Christians. But since majority of the Filipinos are Christians, it behooves upon them to offer the hand of peace and friendship to Muslims and to know how they can relate in a peaceful and friendly way to them.

Christians should be aware of, understand, and do something about the Muslims’ grievances over the Christian Filipinos’ biases and prejudices against them. Lingga (2008) wrote that according to studies, prejudices by the Christian majority lead to the Muslim Filipinos’ exclusion from jobs, education, housing and business opportunities. Muslims personally experienced being shut out of jobs, housing and study opportunities, according to the Philippine Human Development Report 2005. The PHDR 2005 study revealed that a considerable percentage (33 percent to 39 percent) of Filipinos is biased against Muslims. According to this study, majority of the Christians cannot even accept Muslims as neighbors, opting for higher rent far from a Muslim community. These biases and prejudices need to be dealt with and renounced by the Christian majority who need to understand the fact that due to the internal diaspora of the Muslims in our country and the presence of other religious groups, our society has become multi-religious, rather than homogeneously Christian.

We need to consider the fact that there are other religions or philosophies of life in our country, namely: Islam, Buddhism, and Sikhism, the latter being the religion of most of the Indian migrants in our country. This multi-religious situation requires the spirit of tolerance, peace, and appreciation of the cultural and religious diversity in our country. Knowing and understanding the beliefs, values, and practices of other religions and finding some common ground with them are important in instilling the spirit of tolerance, peace, and harmony in our society with appreciation of cultural and religious diversity. Christians thus need to know and understand what they can appreciate about Muslims and the religion of Islam. Jomier (1999) explained in his book How to Understand Islam that the Catholic Church has a high regard for the Muslims. Some of the things that Muslims believe and practice which Christians can appreciate and for most of which they are in common with are the following (p. 132):

1)Muslims worship God, who is one, living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, who has also spoken or revealed Himself to humankind.
2)They strive to submit themselves without reserve to the hidden decrees of God, just as Abraham submitted himself to God’s plan, to whose faith Muslims eagerly link their own.
3)They venerate Jesus as a prophet, honor the mother of Christ, and even at times devoutly invoke her.
4)They await the Day of Judgment and the reward of God following the resurrection of the dead.
5)For the reason given in number four, they highly esteem an upright life and worship God, especially by way of prayer, alms-deeds and fasting.

We also need to appreciate the distinctiveness of their religious expressions whilst finding some common ground between us and them. Christians and Muslims may have irreconcilable differences such as the fact that Muslims do not believe in the deity of Christ and profess Muhammad as the last God-sent prophet. Christians, on the other hand, believe in Christ as the Word made flesh, the only begotten Son of God, the Way, the Truth, the Life, the Savior of the world, and that the Bible contains all the revealed truths. There are indeed irreconcilable differences, but these should not be the cause or reason for Christians and Muslims to discriminate one another, but rather to accept the differences, and to find some common ground.

Furthermore, Christians should understand and appreciate the good things about Muslim culture such as the following: 1) their constant remembrance of God with their five times of prayer; 2) their expressions which reflect their religiosity such as Alhamdullilah (Glory be to Allah or to God), Bismillah (In the name of God/Allah), Mashallah (God is wonderful), Sukrillah (Thanks be to God); 3) the modesty of the Muslim women, shown in their covering of body parts including their head, arms, legs, even neck, to avoid becoming objects of temptation; 4) their communal spirit and generosity, as shown in their communal sharing of food to break the fast after sunset during Ramadan; 5) their unique cooking which is more like Malaysian cooking, characterized by their use of shallot, turmeric, and natural spices.

Importantly, understanding the Muslims in our midst means understanding their long struggle for self-determination as a distinct group of people in our country. Their struggle for self-determination and even independence dates back to the times of the Spanish colonization and American colonization of the country. The Moros refused to be under the Spanish rule and were successful in defending their territories against the Spanish conquistadores. Their resistance continued even when US forces had occupied some areas in Mindanao and Sulu. It is due to this need for self-determination that the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) was drafted by the 15-member Bangsamoro Transition Commission. In the proposed BBL, the Bangsamoro is empowered to exercise self-governance and self-determination to pursue its economic, social and cultural development while still being part of the Philippines under the Central Government. Passing the BBL will help end the conflict in Mindanao towards the achievement of peace and sustainable development in the region.

To conclude, while we Christians find comfort and security in the fact that we are the majority in the country, we need to understand, accept, appreciate, and love our Muslim brothers and sisters. Biases and prejudices need to be done away with while fostering a spirit of tolerance and peace in acknowledgement of the multi-religious and multi-cultural character of the Philippine nation. By doing so, we will learn to acknowledge that diversity and pluralism are what characterize healthy, vibrant societies in this age of global connectivity and global community, and that Muslims deserve their place in the Philippine society toward fostering harmony, dialogue, tolerance and peace between Muslims and Christians in our country and in the world.

Works Cited
Jomier, J. (1999). How to understand Islam. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company.
Lingga, A. S. M. (2008). Understanding the Bangsamoro right to self-determination. In B. M. Tuazon, The Moro reader: History and contemporary struggles of the Bangsamoro people. Quezon City: CenPeg Books.

About the author: Belinda F. Espiritu is a faculty member of the University of the Philippines Cebu. She holds a Master’s degree in Comparative Literature and a PhD degree in Communication. She would like to hear from the readers about their feedback or comments on her articles through her email address: belinda.espiritu@gmail.com to set a conversation going even after her articles have been published.