Sultan Ibrahim Ajibul Mohammad Pulalun In Jolo Island

Sharif Ibrahim Ajibul Mohammad Pulalun, the Sultan of Sulu and North Borneo

The Sultanate of Sulu was a Muslim state that ruled over much of the islands of the Sulu Sea, in the southern Philippines. The sultanate was founded in the 1457 (other sources claim earlier) and is believed by Muslim historians to have existed for a few centuries although most sources mention that the sultanate was conquered by the Spanish in the 17th century.

The Philippines was later annexed by the United States, in 1898, as a result of the Spanish-American War. Only North Borneo went to the British, and later became part of Malaysia as Sabah in 1963.

At its peak, it stretched over the islands that bordered the western peninsula of Mindanao in the east, to North Borneo, currently known as Sabah, in the west and south, and to Palawan in the north. Today significant number of Tausug have been living in Sabah. During the MNLF and Philippines war in the early 1970s, the number increased...(Read more)