Examines the role, relevance and challenges, as well as the political and strategic dimensions of Islam in contemporary Southeast Asia.

Islam is a major religion in Southeast Asia, with Indonesian Muslims comprising the largest Muslim population in the world. Events and developments since 11 September 2001 have added greater attention to Islam and its adherents in this part of the world. This general survey of Islam in Southeast Asia is intended to inform, explain and update readers about the more significant aspects of Islam in Southeast Asia, then and now. These include the following: the geographical origins and sources by which the faith spread in this region; the social, economic and political profiles of the Muslim communities; relations between Muslims and non-Muslims and between Muslims and the State; the strands and trends that shapes the role of Islam and the Muslims in the national body politic; and the challenges confronting Muslims in confronting the vicissitudes of their lives in this era of rapid change, characterized by modernization, capitalism, secularization and globalization. The discussion will begin with an overview of the broad picture of Islam and the Muslims in the region as a whole, covering both Muslim-majority and Muslim-minority countries. This will be followed by case-study analysis of Islam and the Muslims in individual countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Given the difficulty of writing on such a complex and contentious topic, this book attempts to present the subject matter in a manner that is sufficiently objective to scholars and yet simple and accessible enough to be readily understood by ordinary readers.

This ebook is a selective guide designed to help scholars and students of Islamic studies find reliable sources of information by directing them to the best available scholarly materials in whatever form or format they appear from books, chapters, and journal articles to online archives, electronic data sets, and blogs. Written by a leading international authority on the subject, the ebook provides bibliographic information supported by direct recommendations about which sources to consult and editorial commentary to make it clear how the cited sources are interrelated related. A reader will discover, for instance, the most reliable introductions and overviews to the topic, and the most important publications on various areas of scholarly interest within this topic. In Islamic studies, as in other disciplines, researchers at all levels are drowning in potentially useful scholarly information, and this guide has been created as a tool for cutting through that material to find the exact source you need. This ebook is a static version of an article from Oxford Bibliographies Online: Islamic Studies, a dynamic, continuously updated, online resource designed to provide authoritative guidance through scholarship and other materials relevant to the study of the Islamic religion and Muslim cultures. Oxford Bibliographies Online covers most subject disciplines within the social science and humanities, for more information visit www.aboutobo.com.

"One of the largest Muslim populations in the world today resides in Southeast Asia. The region has also produced its own pedigree of reformers who have critiqued the limits of Islamic thought and propounded new lines of thinking in the road to construct a better ummah. This book captures the progressive and pluralistic nature of Islamic reformism in Southeast Asia from the mid-twentieth century onwards, a period can now be regarded as the age of networked Islam. Offering a fresh conceptualization that could be well applied in the parts of the Islamic world, the author shows how several influential Muslim intellectuals have given rise to an "Islamic reformist mosaic" in Southeast Asia. Representing different strands of reformist thinking, these shapers of Islam form a unified and coherent frame of thought that distinguishes itself from the ultra-traditionalist and ultra-secularist leanings. This fascinating study is indispensable to anyone interested in understanding the challenges facing Islam and other religions in the modern world"--

Tan Ta Sen has modestly suggested that, as a book to illustrate the peaceful impact of culture contact, he is concerned to show how such cultural influences not only led to transmissions, conversions and transferences involving Inner Asian Muslims from China and Yunnan Muslims, Chams, Javanese, Malays, Arabs and Indians, but also enabled many Chinese in the Malay world to retain their non-Muslim cultural traits. In placing Cheng Ho's voyages in this context, the author offers a fresh perspective on a momentous set of events in Chinese maritime history. Professor Wang Gungwu, National University of Singapore.Tan Ta Sen's book on Cheng Ho and Islam in Southeast Asia is not the first one on the subject, but it is the first book that puts Cheng Ho's voyages in the larger context of "e;culture contact"e; in China and beyond. He has garnered numerous sources, from published documents to architectural sites and buildings, to support his arguments. He has done much more than previous scholars writing on this subject. - Professor Leo Suryadinata, Chinese Heritage Centre (Singapore).This long-awaited book is welcomed by the academic community ... Tan Ta Sen has used historical facts to strengthen the argument on the existence of the "e;Third Wave"e;, i.e. "e;the Chinese Wave"e;, in the spread of Islam in the Southeast Asian region. Until now, we only know two major waves, i.e. the India-Gujarat Wave and the Middle East Wave through the development of trade relations. - Professor A. Dahana, University of Indonesia (Jakarta).

This handbook explores the ways in which Islam, as one of the fastest growing religions, has become a global faith for both Muslims and non-Muslims in Southeast Asia with its universality, inclusivity, and shared features with other Islamic expressions and manifestations. It offers an up-to-date, wide-ranging, comprehensive, concise, and readable introduction to the field of Islam in Southeast Asia. With specific themes of pertinent contemporary relevance, the contributions by experts in the field provide fresh insights into the roles of states, societies, scholars, social movements, political parties, economic institutions, sacred sites, and other forces that structured the faith over many centuries. The handbook is structured in three parts: Muslim Global Circulations Marginal Narratives Refashioning Pieties This handbook stands out as a single and synergistic reference work that explores the ebb and flow of Islam seeking to decenter many existing assumptions about it in Southeast Asia. It will be an indispensable resource for scholars, students, and policymakers working on Islam, Muslims, and their interactions with other communities in a plural setting.

The volume is the first comprehensive compilation of texts on gender constructions, normative gender orders and their religious legitimizations, as well as current gender policies in Islamic Southeast Asia and contributes on current debates on gender and Islam.

The Islamic world, often regarded as an anathema to civil society, in fact has rich traditions of associational life pursuing “common good”. These religious resources have been reinterpreted for the enhancement of civic virtues and participatory politics in contemporary context, that is, democratization. Such pioneering efforts have been clearly observable in Muslim Southeast Asia. In November 1999, the Sasakawa Peace Foundation invited ten Muslim activists and scholars from the region to Japan for exchanging views and experiences among themselves and with Japanese participants. Here their papers and discussions are compiled into a book, Islam and Civil Society in Southeast Asia.

This volume of selected readings on Islam is a portrait of the Southeast Asian Islamic mosaic, with emphasis on the contemporary period. The collection of articles also serves to reflect the broad thematic interest of scholars — not only indigenous and foreign, but also Muslim and non-Muslim — who have contributed to an understanding of Islam in Southeast Asia.