ABSTRACT
This essay first examines Southeast Asia’s long involvement in the vibrant international east-west maritime trade, which brought not only commodities but also new religions and philosophies, including Islam, into the region. While early scholarship focused almost wholly on the foreign bearers of Islam, more recent works have rightly attributed to local converts a dominant role in the spread of the religion. This essay suggests that it was the prior relationship often of a powerful political center to a subordinate client polity that determined the path of conversion. Another factor in Islam’s success was Sufism, whose appeal to both elite and commoners promoted the spread of the religion while strengthening communal bonds. Finally, since the early years of Islam the religion evolved through a multi-directional circulation of ideas throughout the Muslim world, of which the Southeast Asian (Jawi) Muslim scholars and students were an integral part.
