The Islamization of Southeast Asia

Abstract

Like any other religious tradition, Islam in Southeast Asia presents us with both inside and outside evidence about its history. The inside evidence of Muslim sources themselves is necessarily of a pious nature, as is, for example, the internal evidence about the conversion of Britian to Christianity. No historical event could more obviously be a part of God's purpose for man, and therefore the aspects of the story recalled by Muslim writers are naturally those which show the Divine purpose at work. While almost all the Southeast Asian chronicles describe supernatural events which accompany the conversion of a state to Islam, the differences between the type of Divine intervention is certainly instructive. Malay chronicles like those of Pasai, Melaka and Patani do not differ markedly from accounts from other parts of the world. They emphasize Divine revelation through dreams such as those of the rulers of Pasai and Melaka in turn; or the miraculous powers of a holy man of God such as Shaikh Sa'id of Pasai in his healing of the ruler of Patani.1