Islam in Southeast Asia: Reflections and New Directions

"The Study of Islam in Southeast Asia" is an expression with a compelling ring. It suggests a well defined field of research, a tradition of scholarship, adequate points of orientation, and an authoritative structure of monographs, articles in learned journals, and more general works. The reality however is more complex and at the same time more limited than the expression "Southeast Asia" suggests. In practice it has generally meant a study of Islam in those areas which lie within the ambit of the new nation states of Indonesia and The Federation of Malaysia, although there are significant Muslim communities in Thailand, Burma and among the Chams in Cambodia. It is, however, only in Malaysia and Indonesia that Islam exists in any strength and is shared by a wide range of ethnic groups and social classes. And despite the very substantial volume of painstaking and important scholarly writing devoted to the subject, it is still not possible to present a definitive picture of the role of Islam in the past and present of the region.