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The Islamisation of Southeast Asia, Part 2

© John Walsh

In the first article of this series, I presented the conventional approach to the understanding of the Islamisation of Southeast Asia. According to this way of thinking, the people converted to the religion were traders and kings who would be better able to see the personal advantages of the new religion. The common people, meanwhile, carried on with their traditional beliefs, possibly accreting a new layer of belief over the top of their exiting mélange of different creeds and prejudices. But how accurate is this as a picture of the past?

It is certainly true that Islam was thought to be particularly suitable for an itinerant trader. First of all, the practice of merchants was much praised in the Quran and the Haddith. In some Christian cultures, on the other hand, trade was much looked down upon, as it was also in the Chinese tradition. Secondly, existing animist beliefs were strongly tied to the worship or reverence of local natural phenomena such as rivers, trees, mountains and the seasons of the year. The merchant travelling over land and sea is far removed from these local things and so needs a faith that takes care of the wanderer.

However, there is an additional factor to be considered, which is that accepting Islam brought with it access to a wide range of intellectual resources and ideas. For hundreds of years, the Muslim world was the most vibrant part of the world in terms of intellectual achievement. It was impossible for the medieval thinker to be skilled in science or medicine without having at least some knowledge or awareness of Arabic.

Much of island Southeast Asia at the time was sharply divided between urban and rural areas - in fact, it was described as a few civilised cities surrounded by the wilderness of jungles in which lived cannibals. These would seem to be unpromising conditions for religious proselytism and yet, within a few decades, there are reports of societies in some coastal areas changing completely, with the women covered up by clothes when previously they did not see the need to wear anything much beyond a skirt, as well as the abolition of the feared and hated pig - a mainstream of cuisine in the rest of the region. Consequently, we must assume that the religion certainly did appeal to many.

On the other hand, observations of the religious beliefs of some Dayak people suggest that they are politicians, when it comes to their adherence to different types of spirits and gods. They will quite happily play off one set of spirits against another to obtain what they see as obtaining the most power or else in getting the best deal available. In this case, Islam provided another type of supernatural power to throw into the mix where it could contend with the others in making offers of material reward in return for adoration. Other peoples were comforted by the legends of the Islamic Djinnis and the belief that God would give mankind power over all spirits - an important belief in a world in which nature was unpredictable and largely untamed.