Bruneian Sultanate (1368–1888) in the context of "Bandar Seri Begawan"

The recorded pre-colonial history of the Philippines, sometimes also referred to as its "protohistoric period" begins with the creation of the Laguna Copperplate Inscription in 900 AD and ends with the beginning of Spanish colonization in 1565. The inscription on the Laguna Copperplate Inscription itself dates its creation to 822 Saka (900 AD). The creation of this document marks the end of the prehistory of the Philippines at 900 AD, and the formal beginning of its recorded history. During this historical time period, the Philippine archipelago was home to numerous kingdoms and sultanates and was a part of the Indosphere and Sinosphere.

Sources of precolonial history include archeological findings; records from contact with the Song dynasty, the Brunei Sultanate, Korea, Japan, and Muslim traders; the genealogical records of Muslim rulers; accounts written by Spanish chroniclers in the 16th and 17th centuries; and cultural patterns that at the time had not yet been replaced through European influence.

Islam in the Philippines is the second largest religion in the country, and the faith was the first-recorded monotheistic religion in the Philippines. Historically, Islam reached the Philippine archipelago in the 14th century, through contact with Muslim Malay and Arab merchants along Southeast Asian trade networks, in addition to Yemeni missionaries from the tribe of Ba 'Alawi sada of Yemen from the Persian Gulf, southern India, and their followers from several sultanates in the wider Malay Archipelago. The first Sunni Sufi missionaries then followed in the late 14th and early 15th centuries. They facilitated the formation of sultanates and conquests in mainland Mindanao and Sulu. Those who converted to Islam came to be known as the Moros, with Muslim conquest reaching as far as Tondo that was later supplanted by Bruneian Empire vassal-state of Maynila.

Muslim sultanates had already begun expanding in the central Philippines by the 16th century, when the Spanish fleet led by Ferdinand Magellan arrived. The Spanish referred to Muslim inhabitants of the Philippines as "Moros," after the Muslim "Moors" they had regarded with disdain in Iberia and the Maghreb. The subsequent Spanish conquest led to Catholic Christianity becoming the predominant religion in most of the modern-day Philippines, with Islam becoming a significant minority religion.