The Case of Imam Akmad

Imam Akmad is the chief imam (prayer leader) of the Campo Muslim mosque. A man of about fifty years of age in 1986, he and his wife are the parents of eight children. Imam Akmad was born in Kalanganan, just a few miles west of Campo Muslim.^[3] He is also an Iranun speaker. Imam Akmad's father, whom he never knew, was a colorful character, and I was told many stories of his exploits as an aristocratic gambler and adventurer. The father of Imam Akmad was the first cousin of the Amirul Umra Sa Magindanao, the noble titleholder who ruled the district of Kalanganan.^[4] Because of this kin relation, he possessed some tribute rights over land in Kalanganan and elsewhere. Imam Akmad related to me the following about his father: "I was told by my father's old friend, the Sultan sa Nunungan [in Lanao] that my father had more than twenty wives living along the shores of liana Bay from Bongo Island to Malabang, and others in Lanao and Sulu. My father would marry a woman, leave her with child and some means of support for a year or so, and move on. He returned once to my mother's house to claim me when I was three years old, but my mother hid me

under a basket when she saw my father approaching." Akmad's father roamed throughout the South evading marital commitments and gambling debts. He fought and won numerous duels and performed many supernatural feats in his travels. "My father possessed many mystical powers. He was able to repel blades and bullets and could travel in mysterious ways. He would sometimes tell a companion to go ahead to a certain place and he would meet him there later. When the companion reached the appointed spot my father was already there and seated."

Imam Akmad's mother farmed her parents' land dressed like a man, wearing trousers and bolo (bush knife), to support her son. Akmad was also reared by his mother's brother, a guru, or traditional religious instructor. His uncle taught Akmad to recite the Azan (call to prayer) and to read the Qur'an. Akmad's vocation as an imam developed gradually. He farmed as a young man. After he married, he moved to Cotabato City to the house of his wife's father, a fairly prosperous smuggler, and went to work for him delivering cigarettes throughout Cotabato. He first served as an imam at the mosque in Katuli, a Muslim community directly across the river from Cotabato City. When the first mosque was built on Bird Island in 1968, he was asked to become the head imam there. After Bird Island was demolished in 1970, Akmad moved his family to Sulun, north of the city, to farm the land of his wife's mother.

In 1973, some of the earliest fighting of the rebellion in Cotabato broke out in Sulun, compelling Imam Akmad to move with his family to Campo Muslim. Campo Muslim was still rather sparsely settled in 1973, and Akmad was able to buy a small house close to the main road through the community—a road that had been built up with sand taken from Bird Island. They enlarged the house as the family grew. Akmad became head imam of the Campo Muslim mosque, a small concrete block structure with a tin roof. It was squat and unadorned but sturdier than most of the houses in the community.