ABSTRACT
Living far away from the heartlands of Islam, Muslims in Southeast Asia used to be hardly known and seldom heard of. Their expressions of Islam had the reputation for being moderate, pluralist and less influenced by Arabic culture than was the case in some other Muslim countries outside the Middle East. But after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the area suddenly became scrutinized as part of the worldwide networks of Islamic terrorism and burst onto the scene with mostly negative news of bombings on the idyllic island of Bali in Indonesia, the application of the sharī ʿa law in certain Malaysian states, terrorists who were hiding and plotting in Singapore, kidnapped tourists in the Philippines, and an escalation of violence in southern Thailand that remains inexplicable to observers of Thai Islam. These events and the flood of publications analyzing them have not only created negative impressions of the region, but also overshadow the real image and expressions of Islam. These have to be sought in an ongoing struggle to re-establish Islamic religious values and to make Islam a force of change on which to build a just and prosperous society. In fact, a virtual revival is taking place that is expressed in intentional religious observance, in creating new Muslim institutions, in building mosques and schools, and in ever increasing numbers of Southeast Asian pilgrims going on the ḥajj to Mecca.
