Note 15 — Chapter V · The Filipino People Before the Arrival of the Spaniards.

The Mohammedan Malays.—The Mohammedans outside of southern Mindanao and Jolo, had settled in the vicinity of Manila Bay and on Mindoro, Lubang, and adjacent coasts of Luzon. The spread of Mohammedanism was stopped by the Spaniards, although it is narrated that for a long time many of those living on the shores of Manila Bay refused to eat pork, which is forbidden by the Koran, and practiced the rite of circumcision. As late as 1583, Bishop Salazar, in writing to the king of affairs in the Philippines, says the Moros had preached the law of Mohammed to great numbers in these islands and by this preaching many of the Gentiles had become Mohammedans; and further he adds, “Those who have received this foul law guard it with much persistence and there is great difficulty in making them abandon it; and with cause too, for the reasons they give, to our shame and confusion, are that they were better treated by the preachers of Mohammed than they have been by the preachers of Christ.”15