Yakan Cosmos

In the Yakan culture religion is taken very seriously, when the Yakan's view the world they believe that

everyone should be kind and live up to morals.  Roman Catholicism is the dominant religion in the philippines. The Yakan's cultural religion is Islam the Yakan are primarily

Muslim. 45 Islam was introduced to inhabitants of the southern Philippines in the 13th century by Arab

traders and Muslim missionaries from Sumatra and other parts of Southeast Asia. Rather than displacing the

local belief system, Islam was absorbed into it. It addressed the spiritual needs of the Yakan, whose daily life was regulated by taboos that, if not properly observed, threatened to become a source of
trouble .46

Children were taught to avoid playing in places such as clumps of trees and caves where spirits

bent on doing them harm were presumed to lurk. People learned about the spirit world in

order to avoid crossing paths with troublesome spirits. Islam augmented the traditional

belief system by providing a clearer picture of an invisible separate universe. The new

religion made inroads because it was based spiritually, formal, and claimed universal
application.








Reference
45 There has been a limited amount of conversion to Christianity.
46 Google Books. State and Society in the Philippines. Abinales, P.N. and Donna J. Amoroso. “Chapter 1:
Introducing Philippine Politics [p. 12].” 2005. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
http://books.google.com/books?id=xiOQdEzgP9kC&pg=PA12&lpg=PA12&dq=muslim+folk+religion+ph
ilippines&source=bl&ots=PUyYxbkCOM&sig=LJG0VLE-
1s3XfHtjG82fzagXZSc&hl=en&ei=pYI2SvyVIIfMM4a3kY0K&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnu
m=3#PPA12,M1
47 Economist. “Born of Fire: In Search of Jinn.” 19 December 2006.
http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8401289
48 The Environmental Dimensions of Islam. Dien, Mawil Izzi. “Chapter 6: Islamic Economic Justice and
the Environment [p. 130].” 2000. Cambridge: James Clark and Company.
http://books.google.com/books?id=AL5qbA9lytMC&pg=PA130&lpg=PA130&dq=jinn+islam+economist