Ahmad Domocao Alonto

Ahmad Domocao Alonto (1 August 1914 – 11 December 2002) was a Muslim lawyer, educator, traditional leader and politician from Lanao del Sur in the Philippines, a senator of the Philippines and the founder of the archipelago's first Islamic university. ^{1 2}

He was born at Ditsaan-Ramain, Lanao del Sur, the eldest of six children of Senator Sultan Alauya Alonto and Bai Hajja Amina Bariga Alangadi; the prize's page gives Marawi as his birthplace. His mother taught him the fundamentals of Islam; he attended government schools in Lanao (1921–1931), earned a BA and a doctorate in law at the University of the Philippines in Manila, and passed the bar in 1938. ^{1 3}

He taught school, then served as a first lieutenant in the Philippine Army at the start of the Second World War; under Japanese occupation he was mayor of Dansalan (now Marawi) and then governor of Lanao, and the article says he secretly supported the resistance. Elected representative for Lanao del Sur in 1953, he chaired a special committee on the 'Mindanao problem'; as a senator from 1955 to 1961 he wrote the laws creating the Mindanao Development Authority, Mindanao State University and the Commission on National Integration, and had Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha recognised in the 1959 Civil Service Law. ¹

In 1954 he founded the Mindanao Islamic University (Jami'at al-Filibbin al-Islamiyya), the first Islamic university in the archipelago. As the only Muslim in the Philippine delegation to the Bandung Conference (1955) he built links with the Muslim world and secured scholarships for students from Mindanao and Sulu at al-Azhar and elsewhere. After the Jabidah massacre (1968) he co-founded the Ansar El Islam movement. The prize's page says he led Islamic work in his country for over thirty years and preached non-violence and peaceful coexistence between Muslims and Christians. ^{1 3}

He represented Lanao del Sur at the 1971 Constitutional Convention and was assistant floor leader of the 1986 Constitutional Commission, where he proposed the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao for the 1987 Constitution, preferring that every lawful means be exhausted to settle the conflict. ¹

He received the King Faisal Prize for Service to Islam in 1988. ^{3 1} He died at his home in Marawi on 11 December 2002. ^{1 2}

Wikidata listed articles on him in four Wikipedia editions on 7 November 2026. ²

• English Wikipedia article, revision of 18 August 2026. ¹

• Wikidata item Q12963474. ²

• The laureate's page on the King Faisal Prize's official site, read on 7 November 2026. ³