Maguindanao Sultan dies, 71

COTABATO CITY - Sultan Abdulaziz Guiwan "Datu Salem" Mastura Kudarat V died early Friday. He was 75.

The sultan’s younger brother Prince Datu Mama Mastura said Sultan Datu Salem, who was born on December 5, 1948, in Barangay Salaman, Lebak, Sultan Kudarat (formerly North Cotabato) died early Friday of a lingering pulmonary disorder he had been long medically diagnosed with.

Last November, Sultan Salem took part in an international online conference hosted the Care for Humanity calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, Palestine.

Sultan Mastura had told friends of what he said was the glad tidings that the Magindanao Sultanate became part of an international forum that he thought then was winning the transnational advocacy for peace in Gaza.

Before Sultan Mastura was crowned in 2005 as the 26th Sultan of Maguindanao, Datu Salem was genealogically the heir-apparent to his father the late Sultan Abdulaziz Giwan Mastura Kudarat IV. The tradition of succession had then been split to families laying legitimate claims to the throne since the time of siblings Sultan Bayanul Anwar and Sultan Muhammad Ja'far Sadiq Manamir in 1705.

Still, another split reoccurred last July when a son of royal Iranun roots in Calanugas attempted to ascend to the throne.

In the genealogical list released by the Magindanao Sultanate, Sultan Salem Mastura is the 26th Sultan of Magindanao from Rajah Laut Buisan, the father of Philippine Muslim hero Sultan Muhammad Dipatuan Kudarat (1581 – 1671).

Most of those Sultans in the list are traceable on Wikipedia, which cites the history book authored by the late Dr. Casar Adib Majul titled, “The Muslims in the Philippines” (1973). Majul was an eminent Muslim scholar and the first dean of the University of the Philippines Institute of Islamic Studies. Nash B. Maulana