South East Asia

No actual non-indigenous Islamic conquests occurred in this region. Some local Islamic rulers did annex other lands, however. The major conversions occurred not by any conquest or the example of local rulers, however, but by the teaching of charismatic Arab merchants and (from around the 12^th Century) the teaching of Sufi mystics travelling in the region. South Arabian trading families had settled agent members in South East Asia before the advent of Islam.

The Malay-Indonesia region was long a trading hub for trade between China and other regions including Arabia. When China entered a period of isolation and Arabs were no longer permitted to live in Guangzhou in China, South East Asia itself became a major producer of spices for export as well as an ongoing hub. Besides this Malay region, Islam also gained a foothold in Thailand.

Muslim traders are known to have visited Sumatra as early as around 910. Al-Mas’udi and Abu Zayd al-Sirafi, both writing in the 10^th Century, discuss Muslim trade with South East Asia. According to the accounts, a town called Kedah (or Kelah) in what is now the Indonesian North Sumatran province of Aceh served as a major Arab and Chinese trade entrepot. There is Chinese evidence (from 1282) of a major Muslim influence in the town and there is archaeological evidence of a Muslim state and burials. Marco Polo (1254 – 1324) was also surprised to find Muslims there in the course of his travels as he reported. Ibn Battuta also visited there and described the court of the Muslim king. From Sumatra, Islam appears to have spread to another crucial entrepot, Malacca, and other parts of peninsular Malaysia as well as to Java. The nature of Islam in the region is today varied owing in part to the archipelagic nature of the region and the Islam of ports also differed from the Islam that tended to develop in inland locales.

This is another of those very brief posts that I would love to 'flesh out' more later. If anybody wants to contribute any interesting stories, please do!