Tausūg people

The Tausug (also spelled Tausog; natively Tau Sūg, Jawi: تَؤُ سُوْݢْ) are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the Sulu Archipelago and northeastern coastal areas of Borneo, which spans present-day Philippines and Malaysia. Large Tausug populations are also found in the cities of mainland Mindanao, in particular Zamboanga City, Cotabato City and Davao City, and the island of Palawan. Smaller Tausug communities can be found in North Kalimantan in Indonesia.

Following the introduction of Islam to the Sulu Archipelago in the 14th century, the Tausug established the Sultanate of Sulu, a thalassocratic state that exercised sovereignty over the islands that bordered the Zamboanga Peninsula in the east to Palawan in the north. At its peak, it also covered areas further inland in northeastern Borneo and southwestern Mindanao. During the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines, Tausug soldiers resisted repeated Spanish invasions and the Sultanate of Sulu remained a de facto independent state until 1915, following the Moro Rebellion which resulted in the state being annexed by the United States.

Following the independence of the Philippines in 1946, the Philippines has acted as the successor state of the Sultanate of Sulu, which has led to tensions with neighboring predominantly-Christian ethnic groups. Today, the Tausug form a part of the wider Muslim-majority Moro political identity in the Philippines, and have continued their shared struggle for self-determination. This has culminated in a decades-long insurgency in Mindanao, and a territorial dispute between Malaysia and the Philippines. In Malaysia, ethnic Tausug people are known by the exonym Suluk and have more recently formed a distinct socio-political identity from Tausug refugees arriving in Malaysia due to continued conflict in the southern Philippines.