Shariff Kabunsuan College Inc. is a fully accredited private academic institution of higher learning offering Associate, Bachelors and Masters Degrees in the fields of Education, Business Administration, Agriculture, Secretarial Science and Criminology. It also offers a high school diploma from the high school connected with it. The college is officially classified as non-sectarian because students are not accepted solely on a religious basis. However, the majority of students are Muslims, and Islamic Studies and Arabic are major components of the curriculum at all levels. Furthermore, Islamic rules and regulations, codes of dress and conduct are observed among the teaching staff, technical staff, administration and students. The medium of instruction is English. However, Tagalog and the local Magindanoan dialect are also used.

S.K.C. was officially founded on the 17th of September 1986 by its present president, Mrs. Bay Cabaybay Abubakar, and a group of other teachers who had resigned from the Harvardian College in protest against its unprofessional policies. Within two years the college was granted Government recognition due to the quick pace of its academic development and the fast rise in student enrollment.

In 1989 Dr. Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips visited Cotabato City and gave a series of lectures in the educational institutions stressing the need to develop independent Islamic institutions in which all academic subjects are taught from an Islamic perspective. When Mrs. Cabaybay was elected president of S.K.C. in 1990, she began the process of Islamization. Dr. Bilal was invited to help by conducting a series of Islamic seminars for the staff and students of the college. Dr. Bilal also provided Islamic texts which he prepared for the high school and prepared a curriculum of Islamic studies for the college. He has helped the school to develop one of the best Arabic and English Islamic libraries in the Philippines and has provided instruction for the teachers in how to Islamize the secular subjects.

In order to prepare teaching staff for the newly Islamized college and high school, a graduate school was opened in 1993 offering a M.A. in Education with an Islamic studies major. Dr. Bilal was the main instructor along with Prof. Riaz Ansary ( Islamic University of Madeenah Sharee'ah graduate).