Our Islamic heritage

PINOY KASI

Our Islamic heritage
By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 00:36am (Mla time) 12/08/2006

Published on Page A15 of the December 8, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

WHAT a delight, and a relief, it was that the Pope’s trip to Turkey helped to advance Muslim-Catholic (and Christian) dialogue. There was much tension before he left, with many Muslims still hurting from a lecture he delivered in Germany last September, which was interpreted as being anti-Islam. The Pope later expressed regrets but insisted he had been interpreted out of context.

The Pope visited two major mosques in Turkey, considered significant because he was only the second pope, after John Paul II, to have entered Muslim places of worship. Those visits were not without risk, considering that more dogmatic Muslims might have interpreted it as blasphemous intrusion. When John Paul II visited the Hagia Sophia in 1967, he caused some controversy because he had knelt and prayed. Pope Benedict was more cautious.

Educational

The papal trip was well covered by Al Jazeera, the Arabic cable TV network, which could help to project a more benign image of Christian leaders to Muslims. Conversely, I hope the coverage on CNN and BBC helped to educate non-Muslims on Islam.

Even CNN’s anchor persons audibly gasped in awe as their cameras panned the grand interiors of the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. The Hagia Sophia still has an image of the Virgin Mary with the Child Jesus, amid inscriptions praising Allah, all reflecting its colorful history. First built in the 6th century as a Byzantine church, it was converted into a mosque when Muslims took over, and finally transformed into a museum in 1935 after Turkey became a secular state.

CNN also featured the Pope’s visit to a stone house near the city of Ephesus, supposedly where the Virgin Mary spent her last years. It is a popular pilgrimage site for Catholic Marian devotees as well as Muslims. Jesus Christ is, after all, considered a great prophet by Muslims, and his mother is particularly loved.

There’s so much more that needs to be done to educate Christians and Muslims about each other’s religions, including the legacies we share. Writers sometimes refer to Jews, Muslims and Christians as the “three religions of the Book,” referring to our sharing of the Old Testament.

‘Mabuhay’

Much has been said about the prejudice Christians in the West have for Muslims, fueled in part by stereotypes such as Hollywood portrayal of “Arabs” as sinister-looking characters. Islamophobia, the irrational fear of Islam, is often mixed with this Arabophobia, with few people realizing that “Arab” refers to people living in several countries, and of different faiths, including Christianity.

Filipino Christians have picked up much of this fear of Muslims and of Arabs partly because of our turbulent history of conflicts in Mindanao. Now, with large communities of Muslims in most major urban centers of the country, Christians are learning to live with Muslims but the relationship is still one of uneasy co-existence.

We could defuse some of the suspicions we have of each other if we could just look for our common heritage. Christians, in particular, need to give more attention to how “Filipino” -- as a language, a people, a nation -- is itself infused with an Islamic heritage without many of us knowing about it.

Last October, I wrote a column about how important the word “mabuhay” is for Filipinos. I wasn’t able to trace the origins of this use, so I’m grateful that professor Julkipli M. Wadi of the University of the Philippines’ Institute of Islamic Studies wrote to remind me that “mabuhay” is derived from Arabic.

The professor points out that “hay” in Arabic means life, and “ma” connotes “presence,” a way of saying “there is” or “it is.” Thus, as “maganda” means “there is beauty,” “mabuhay” would mean “there is life.”

And what about “bu”? Wadi isn’t sure here, but notes that the Tausug word for life is “buhi.” He proposes that “hi” or “hih” is an indigenization of the Arabic “hay,” while “bu” could have been added for emphasis, like English has “indeed.” So “buhi” (the word for life not just in Tausug but many other Philippine languages) and “mabuhay” could mean “there is, indeed, life.”

Wadi notes, too, that our words for death -- “patay,” “nakapatay,” “mamatay” -- are derived from the Arabic “mawt.”

I’ve already mentioned that “Arab” isn’t synonymous with Muslim, but in our context, the entry of Arabic words into the Philippines happened because of Muslim missionaries who reached our shores several centuries ago. So the Arabic loan words come in as part of an Islamic legacy.

The borrowing of such basic words as those for life and death most probably occurred in the context of religious and philosophical exchanges. Wadi points out that the Islamic perspective of life has at least five stages, as described in the Koran (II:28): nothingness, life, death, resurrection and Final Return. He writes: “Life in Islam must be celebrated and death is not necessarily an end but the beginning of a more pure, blissful, eternal life.”

He mentions other Filipino words of Arabic origin, including “kaluluwa” (soul, from the Arabic “ruh”) and “hukom” (judge from the Arabic “hukm” for judgment) and notes how so many of the loan words are in the realm of psychology and spirituality. Even the expression “ala e,” particularly popular in the Southern Tagalog region, is from “Allah,” the Islamic and Semitic name for God.

Our Islamic expert also mentions “simbahan” as coming from the Tausug “sumba,” which in turn is derived from the Arabic “subha” or praise. So, we owe the Muslims this important word, and concept, of worship as praise.

When the Spaniards arrived in the Philippines, Islam had already reached different parts of the islands, including Manila. Catholicism eventually became the dominant religion but, ironically, became another channel for Islamic influences. Spain, after all, was once occupied by the Muslims or Moors, who left a strong influence in the arts, from architecture to music. Alicia Coseteng writes in “Spanish Churches in the Philippines” about the Muslim influence in churches in the provinces of Bohol and Cebu. One church in Carcar, Cebu, even has those onion-shaped domes or cupolas and four-cornered hat roofs that we usually associate with Islamic architecture.

Coseteng also refers to “Moorish” influences in the churches’ interiors, mainly the elaborate floral and geometric patterns. Islam discourages graven images in places of worship, so it’s not surprising that mosques seem so bare—until you notice the walls, floors and roofs, covered with the most intricate of ornamentation.

Ornate design is sometimes described in English as “arabesque,” its root word telling you where it all started. Who knows? The Filipino penchant for "borloloy" -- the almost excessive side decorations on everything, from our clothes to our jeepneys -- may have similar arabesque origins. (“Borloloy,” if you’re wondering, comes from the Spanish “borla,” or tassel, so a "borloloy" person looks like someone with a lot of tassels and accessories.)

Beyond “ala e” and “mabuhay” and Pinoy arabesque, there’s much more to our Islamic heritage waiting to be rediscovered.