TRADITIONAL AND LEGAL AUTHORITY SYSTEMS IN A MUSLIM SETTING

Abstract

Traditional authority is a vital regulative system of the indigenous social structure. When traditional authority changes, as it does, when it comes in contact with the dominant legal authority system, other elements and relationships within it may simultaneously oe inset observable changes. In three Maranao communities, contemporary Philippine Muslim groups, the overlapping functions of traditional and legal authorities produced a new authority system that in turn induced other changes. The use of coercive, then utilitarian and later identitive powers by the modem state produces changes i in the recruitment and characteristics of leadership needed during the evolution of a new authority system. The new authority system later becomes outdated, hence it becomes traditional, with the coming of a newer hybridized authority system. The hybridized system will later, as the cycle repeats, becomes outdated, too; hence it then can be considered traditional.