ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the academic field of Indian Ocean studies. Buddhism and Islam as well as the East India companies and colonial rule, including their respective legal norms, all too some extent created and held together different Indian Ocean worlds. The mobility of people, goods, and ideas in its own right, and migration in particular, are vital for Indian Ocean history. Adopting an Indian Ocean studies perspective makes networks and connections visible beyond the epistemological templates and territorial confines of nation-states as well as beyond the conventional areas of area studies. Thus, it enables transnational and transregional comparative research to be carried out within the Global South. Several pioneers in the field did not originate from area studies, having developed their interest in the Indian Ocean world within the research tradition of early modern maritime and mercantile history. Islam occupies a special position in the transition of Indian Ocean studies.
