Nur Misuari

Nur Misuari (born 1939) is a Moro revolutionary and politician from Sulu, founder and leader of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). A former University of the Philippines lecturer, he led the MNLF's armed struggle from 1972, signed the 1996 Final Peace Agreement with the Philippine government, and governed the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao from 1996 to 2001. His later career brought a failed rebellion in 2001, the 2013 Zamboanga crisis, a graft conviction, and appointment as the Philippines' special economic envoy on Islamic affairs to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in 2019. ^{1 2}

Nurallaji Pinang Misuari was born on 3 March 1939 at Tapul, Sulu, of Tausūg descent, the fourth of ten children of a fisherman. Educated at Jolo Central Elementary School and Sulu National High School, he won a scholarship to the University of the Philippines, took a bachelor's degree in political science in 1962, dropped out of law school, and completed a master's degree in Asian studies in 1964. He lectured in political science at the university from 1966 to 1968. ^{1 3}

Misuari helped establish the Mindanao Independence Movement, from which the Moro National Liberation Front emerged. Under his leadership the MNLF fought the Philippine government from 1972 to 1976; after the fall of Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 he returned from self-exile in Saudi Arabia. The 1976 Tripoli Agreement was carried into a final peace settlement under President Fidel Ramos, concluded at Jakarta in 1996 with Indonesian and OIC involvement, and Misuari became governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. ¹

After his governorship ended in violence — he led a failed rebellion in November 2001, fled to Sabah, and was deported back to the Philippines — Misuari was arrested in 2007 on terrorism charges and later allowed bail. In 2013 his followers fought government forces in the Zamboanga City crisis, after which he lived in self-exile while facing charges; President Rodrigo Duterte declined to have him detained because of his age. In May 2024 he was convicted of two counts of graft over educational-materials procurement during his governorship, a conviction the Sandiganbayan affirmed on appeal. In December 2019 Duterte had appointed him special economic envoy on Islamic affairs to the OIC. No source read for this record names a religious school for Nur Misuari, and this record records none. ^{1 2}

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.