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Balik Islam is a religious phenomenon and Muslim community in the Philippines, the perpetrators of which are mainly former who have converted to Islam. Many of the Balik Islam people are former expatriates or migrant workers who converted to Islam in the Gulf countries and have returned to the Philippines. Many of the Balik Islam perpetrators come primarily from the northern region of the Philippines, especially Luzon.
Understanding and practice of Islam, especially those who were migrant workers in the Gulf countries, they are heavily influenced by the stricter and more orthodox versions of Salafism and Wahhabism which were practiced by their former arbaab 'superiors' or 'employers'. However, not only in the Gulf countries, the trend of Balik Islam is also occurring among Filipino migrant workers in other countries, such as Singapore.
This term also refers to people who have 'returned' to Islam, implying the Islamic teaching that all humans are born Muslims, as well as an anti-colonial longing for what 'should have happened' if there had been no Christianization and invasive colonization by the Spanish Empire and United States.
In the past, the Spanish Empire considered their wars with the Muslims in Southeast Asia, in this case the Philippines, an extension of the Reconquista, a centuries-long campaign to reclaim and re-Christianize the Spanish homeland invaded by Muslims from the Umayyad Caliphate. The Spanish expedition to the Philippines was also part of the larger Ibero-Islamic world conflict. After his rule, mass conversion to Roman Catholicism began in the Philippine Archipelago, which was most successful in Maynila, and in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao, they faced fierce resistance from Moros (taken from the word 'Moors').
In the present day, the so-called Balik Islam community has grown in popularity since the 1970s, a period also marked by a surge in the influx of foreign workers from the Philippines to the Gulf countries. It was revealed that Balik Islam people viewed conversion from Christianity is not a separate experience, but rather a continuous experience in the dalan 'path' of searching for true religion.
Since the 1970s, Moro Muslims in Mindanao, Philippines have been in Moro conflict. Religious and political based conflicts not only cause deaths but also force people to migrate from Mindanao. One of the places targeted is Palawan Island. This island is located southwest of the Philippines – quite far from the other islands in the Philippines. This island is known as "The Last Frontier". In their place of migration in Palawan they maintained their Islamic identity from 1970 onwards. This migration motive also impacts economic opportunities in Palawan. In terms of identity formation, the construction of the mosque became a symbol and starting point for Muslim migrants in Palawan, also has important significance for the development of the Balik Islam community there.
Academic research has revealed various aspects of religious conversion in Balik Islam. Luis Lacar studied the Balik Islam movement in Mindanao from the late 1980s to the late 1990s and has discussed the tendency of Christians in Muslim areas to convert to Islam in order to improve their security and social opportunities. Although the motivation for conversion is socio-economic, Balik Islam can encourage mutual understanding between Muslims and Christians. However, the relationship between Islam and Christianity has not always been smooth. On December 16, 1996, the Christian extremist group Ilaga attacked and burned down a mosque and Muslim village in Sultan Kudarat.
In a study, James Eder argues that converts to Islam in Palawan have developed political cohesion and transformed the boundaries between Muslims and Christians, previously considered to be static and consistent groups ethnically and religiously. Akiko Watanabe has analyzed the experiences of Balik Islam individuals working in the Gulf countries, with a focus on the motivations and impacts of religious conversion, including the acquisition of employee protections and mutual assistance among fellow citizens.
In Iligan, the main characteristics are the indigenous Muslim population and Christian settlers in the southern Philippines. Iligan was founded in the 17th century as a base for Spanish missions and invasions into the interior of Mindanao, which had been controlled by the Islamic Sultanate of Maguindanao. During the American colonial period, many Christian settlers migrated from the central and northern Philippines to the cities and suburbs. They established plantations of hemp and other crops, while Iligan developed as a trading center between the settlers and the Muslim natives. After the Philippine independence in 1945, the construction of hydroelectric power plants boosted the city's economic growth and Iligan later became a place for Muslims and Christians to live together, as it attracted people from the surrounding areas.
Although Iligan has developed into a contact zone, Christian settlers remain politically and economically dominant, and prejudice against Islam and fear of Muslims persist. Muslims in the southern Philippines, especially in the Mindanao and Sulu Archipelago, have led armed separatist movements since the 1970s. As a result, an agreement between the Philippine government and Muslim organizations formed the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (current Bangsamoro Autonomous Region), which includes several provinces and cities, including Lanao del Sur, which borders Iligan. In this prolonged peace process, the people of Iligan were directly and indirectly affected by the armed conflict. The Christian population has built and maintained a negative image of Muslims and Islam as a whole, expressed in terms such as 'barbaric', 'violent', or 'uneducated'.
Iligan borders the provinces of Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur, where the Muslim ethnic group, the Maranao people, has historically been home to the city. According to the 2015 census, of the 342,618 residents of Iligan, 87.5% are Christians (76.6% of the total population are Catholic) and 11.5% are Muslims. According to this census, which is the most recent census for which statistics are available, Most Muslims in Iligan are not converts, but rather Maranaos who migrated from Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur. In urban areas, Muslims do not form residential communities. Instead, Muslims and Christians live side by side. In reality, in this modern era, Balik Islam individuals experience double marginalization, they are alienated from their Christian family background and excluded from ethnolinguistic communities (Moros) that are Muslim by birth, where ethnic identity often influences religious legitimacy.
In the early 2000s, the Rajah Solaiman Movement (RSM), a Balik Islam organization in the northern Philippines, increasing its activism with the aim of establishing an Islamic state throughout the Philippines, which resulted in several kidnappings and bombings. The image of Balik Islam as an exclusive political group with extremist ideas was reinforced by several media reports. RSM led by Ahmed Santos has established ties with the Islamic extremist groups, such as Abu Sayyaf, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). With funding from Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah, they recruited converts to Islam, held terrorist training camps, and conducted initial terrorist operations in Metro Manila. The group also sent some of its members to MILF camps in Mindanao to undergo Special Training Courses (STC) before being deployed to Manila. Where they are considered responsible for terrorist acts such as the bombing of Davao International Airport in March 2003 and the bombing of the MV SuperFerry 14 on February 27, 2004, which killed 116 people and injured 300 passengers, with Abu Sayyaf support.
In mid-2015, almost hundreds of residents of a village in Bulacan declared their conversion to Islam and recited the shahada guided by Ustadz Mohammed Yousef Pamintuan. Initiated by the Mualaf Dakwah Symposium Community in Hagonoy, Bulacan. There are many former pastors and missionaries in the community, making it easier to convey da'wah to the Christians. In Eastern Samar, more than one hundred Maslog residents had converted to Islam by 2017, according to its mayor. Balik Islam was introduced in the city since 2015 by converts from Nueva Ecija, Cavite City, Tacloban, and Dolores, where there is a large Muslim community. Then also in Bantayan, Cebu in late 2018, around 215 people converted to Islam in a mission initiated by the UK-based Islamic Education & Research Academy (IERA).
Balik Islam individuals in the Philippines come from various ethnic affiliations and come from almost all regions of Luzon, up to the Visayas, and some from Mindanao. The largest number of Balik Islam individuals in Luzon come from Pampanga (14.68%), Manila (12.84%), Quezon City (8.26%), Batangas (7.34%), dan Quezon (5.50%). Some came from Ilocos Norte, La Union, Tuguegarao, Ilocos Sur, Isabela, Cagayan Valley, Pangasinan, Tarlac, Nueva Ecija, Bataan, Cavite, Bulacan, Palawan, Samar, Marinduque, Antique, Sorsogon, Romblon, Bacolod, Western Visayas, and Zamboanga City. The spread of their areas of origin is a strong indication of local migration among them. Most of the Balik Islam individuals by ethnicity are Tagalog people (46.79%), Ilocano people (17.43%), and Pangasinan (10.09%).
As in Iligan, the number of new Balik Islam individuals registered in the Sharia courts has increased annually since 1991, when records are available, with a constant number of new registrants of 100 to 200 annually since 2009. However, new converts register at the Iligan Sharia court only if they have a concrete need to do so, such as obtaining a certificate of conversion to Islam. So the number will be higher if people who said the shahada but did not register are included. In BARMM, among Christians who converted to Islam, 84.40% were Roman Catholics before converting to Islam. The remainder were converts from other Christian sects.
The Sangil people in southern Mindanao is also one of the fairly developed Balik Islam communities. Although most of them were born Muslim, many also grew up as Roman Catholics. Many of them converted to Islam, especially referring to their history of being allied with the Sultanate of Maguindanao, where they were known to have a reputation as skilled warriors and fighters. They are active in the struggle for self-determination as part of their strategy to preserve and develop their culture and social institutions. In 1992, the province of Sarangani was formed to calm the unrest between the Sangil people and the Philippine government. Today, most Sangil people are Sunni Muslims.
Many Muslims, especially in the northern Philippines, despite having professed the shahada for many years, are still unable to read the Quran. It's alleged that there was no teacher or institution to guide him. In the suburbs of Manila, there are virtually no Koranic teachers. Mosques are very rare, and even then they are small, compared to other Islamic countries. For example, the population in the suburbs of Manila is around 110,000 people, and only around 400 people are Muslim.
The Balik Islam communities also built many , including as centers of Islamic learning. These mosques are usually scattered in urban areas where the Muslim community grows and develops, such as around Metro Manila. In addition, foreign Muslim organizations or governments also fund and support the construction of many mosques and Islamic educational institutions in the Philippines. For example, the Imam Khomeini Islamic Center was established in Dumaguete as a mosque and Islamic education center. There is also the At-Taqwa Mosque which was founded by the Indonesian Embassy in Makati.
One of the characteristics of the Balik Islam organization, especially in Iligan and the southern Philippines in general, is the presence of ustadz, missionary leaders for Christians in Mindanao who are usually Maranao people and Tausug people peoples who understand the Cebuano language. These traits have contributed to the Balik Islam character of Iligan compared to Metro Manila.
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