ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the phenomenon of Sufi Islam in South and South East Asia as a type of Gnostic religion chiefly characterized by eclecticism and fusion with endogenous mystical religions. South East Asia was in fact formerly more commonly called Indochina, which describes the region as one where Indic and Chinese influences converge. Despite the rival epistemologies, with gnosticizing ideas about the universality of truth in different traditions as against the claim of one religion being exclusively true or one ethnicity ultra-special, some Sufis support the Islamist agenda. Sufism is taken to be the devotional, spiritual or mystical school within Islam, often regarded as a form of Gnosticism. A commonality across most South and South East Asian majority Muslim states is the presence of significant non-Muslim populations and of generally good relations between different religious communities, which is also part of the Sufi legacy.
