Sun, Sea and ISIS: Insurgency in the Southern Philippines

Gagay Jaire’s proudest moment was making the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. “It was inspiring,” she says, drawing clear, cool water from a cast-iron pump on the northeast rim of Samal Island in the southern Philippines. “It is one of the Muslim dreams to reach Mecca.”

Since she returned from Saudi Arabia, where she worked for fours years, Jaire moved back to her family home next to the island’s Dungas Mosque.