Spread of Islam in Southeast Asia

Before Melaka · Treatise · 11 min read

Was It the Indians Who Brought Islam to Southeast Asia?

The answer is close to "yes" — but the India meant here is not today's Republic of India; it is an entire web of Indian Ocean ports, merchants, jurists, and marriage networks

The Islamisation of Southeast Asia was not brought by a single army, nor completed in one act by any single people. The hardest evidence points to harbours: northern Sumatra, Terengganu, the north coast of Java, Melaka. If one sentence is wanted, it would be: "The Indian Muslim networks of the Indian Ocean brought Islam into the ports of Southeast Asia." But that sentence must be tightened at once: not the modern Republic of India, not Hindus, and not only one route through Gujarat. Coromandel, Malabar, Bengal, Gujarat, Arabia, Persia, and local royalty together transformed a merchant quarter's faith into the institutional order of port-states.