マニラ首都圏におけるムスリム・コミュニティの形成と展開--コミュニティの類型化とモスクの役割を中心に--

Abstract

This paper examines the evolution and transformation of mosque-centered Muslim communities in Metro Manila against the background of the changing politico-economic situation in the Philippines since the American colonial regime. It has long been recognized that the Muslim heartland in the Philippines lies in Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan. However, some of the Muslim population of these core regions have migrated to various destinations both inside and outside the country since the Second World War, and now a large number of Muslims are concentrated in Metro Manila. Currently there are more than 80 mosques in the capital and estimates of the Muslim population there range from 60, 000 to 120, 000. During the 1970s, the various Muslim ethnolinguistic groups in Manila mainly lived side by side in a few "primary communities" close to their places of work. Since the 1980s, however, some moved out of the primary communities and established "secondary communities" that tend to include fewer or even a single ethnolinguistic group among their residents. The secondary communities also include non-residential, "job-centered communities" whose members commute to them from surrounding primary or secondary residential communities. In the process of this transformation, the mosques have come to embody multiple meanings in the lives of Muslims in Manila. They symbolize strong religious, economic and cultural ties between the Manila Muslims and some Middle Eastern countries which have helped in the construction of some of the mosques; they safeguard the establishment and continuation of Muslim communities against municipal authorities who are sometimes eager to evict "Muslim squatters and slum dwellers"; they function as a litmus test for community leadership since those who are instrumental in the construction and/or management of mosques are highly regarded; they constitute an information and network hub of the community which helps community members survive everyday life in the Christian-dominated capital city; and, in a broader sense, they stand for the resurgence of Islamic influences in the Philippine capital which, they claim, was once controlled by Muslim rulers before the arrival of the Spanish.