South+East+Asia

Islam and South East Asia




 * **How did Islam spread?**
 * Southeast Asia was dominated by the **Srivijaya** Empire, a trading empire based on the island of Sumatra, south of Malaya, current day Indonesia, from presumably the late 600s A.D. to its fall in the 13th century. Prior the Srivijayan trade, South East Asia was an entrepot that involved trading from Japan to China to the Arabian Peninsula to Rome These trade routes were critical in spread of Buddhism that swept South East Asia during the 5th~6th century C.E. In the 7th and 8th century, Mahayana Buddhism was the official religion of the kingdom. During the same centuries, the Srivijaya Empire came into power as a trading empire that exported luxuries as far the Mediterranean world. However, post 8th century, the Muslims slowly gained control of Indian coastal trade and began to influence the trading of Srivijayan traders. However, Islam held no appeal to Srivijayans since they were devout Buddhists. Once the empire started to decline in the 13th century did Muslims establish trading centers and missions.Muslim missions peacefully converted the islands with Sufi mysticism and the credentials of their religious empire.
 * The religious conquest began in the late 13th century in northern Sumatran ports then into Malaya and the ** Malaccan ** Empire, who succeeded the fallen Srivijayan empire. From Malacca, it spread to east Sumatra and ** Demak **, the strongest Javanese port. The trend of conversion is connected to interdependence of trade; if one trading community converted, especially a powerhouse like Demak, it was advisable for the surrounding cluster of ports to convert as well to maintain a socioeconomic unity.
 * In certain areas like ** Bali ** and ** Ceylon **, the deep rooted religions of Hinduism and Buddhism, like the Srivijayans, resisted conversion, even from Sufi mysticism.
 * __ Islam spread because of the pacific conversions and tolerance for local animistic, Hindu, and Buddhist beliefs. __


 * **Growth of Trade within the Islamic world and Urbanization**
 * With the conversion of SE Asian ports, the ports of Malaya, Java, and the other islands became connected with the global economy spanning from west Africa to India to itself. Port cities like Malacca grew exponentially due to the growing connectivity with international Islamic trade.


 * **Syncretism and Islam**
 * To accommodate the animist, Hindu, and Buddhist beliefs of the indigenous people, Sufism and Islam infused many of their rituals into their own. Sufis, who were already notorious to the ulama, religious experts, for their divergence from strict orthodox Islam, permitted pre-Islamic beliefs like mytical properties of a local knife know as krises.

Images courtesy of []:
 * **Architecture throughout the Islamic world**
 * Islam was also syncretic with the design of mosques, the archetype of Islamic architecture. In Indonesia, there are examples, provided below, that only incorperated Muslim architecture and their conquered area's architecture and others that took from the Buddhist pagoda architecture. One can notice the nuances since Islamic mosques are cubic in dimensions whereas outer influences incorperate domes (Byzantine), spiral tops (Turks and Indians), and towers (from pagodas).




 * **Reactions to Islam**
 * Buddhist and Hindu devotees, like the Balinese, Ceylonese, and Srivijayans, were not inclined to convert.
 * Exposure to the worldliness and the material wealth of Muslims, many traders and merchants converted.
 * Once a powerful trading community converted, the cluster of communities around it also converted.
 * Some inland fighting, but kept to a minimal; Muslims relied on missions not coercion.