Signs from Allah: History, Science and Faith in Islam
57. Islam Moves East: The Introduction of Islam into Indonesia- Part 1 of 3
By Prof DrNazeer Ahmed, PhD
Concord, CA
Modern Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world. Together with Malaysia and the Philippine islands, this area is home to over 250 million Muslims. Historically, the region has been referred to as the East Indies, but we will use the term “archipelago” to include the modern nations of Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei and the term “Malay” as a comprehensive term to include the people, language and culture of these three nations.
Geography is a major determinant of history. The vast region extending from the Malayan peninsula to New Guinea is not a part of the interconnecting landmass extending from Morocco to Bengal. Geographic interconnections ensured political military interactions between North Africa, Egypt, West Asia, Central Asia and India. East Asia is separated from this interconnecting landmass by the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal. Due to its remoteness, the political and military events in East Asia were affected only peripherally by the events in the rest of the Muslim world. As a consequence, Indonesia and Malaysia had to forge their own history, which is related to that of the rest of the Islamic world more in its spiritual, intellectual and religious content and only marginally in its military-political content.
The pre-Islamic Archipelago had a Hindu ruling class over a Buddhist-Hindu-animist matrix. The first infusion of Indian elements into the Archipelago occurred during the reign of Ashoka (269-232 BCE). Ashoka was the first to consolidate his power over much of the Indian subcontinent. His early reign was characterized by a relentless war to expand his dominions. However, after the Battle of Kalinga (circa 250 BCE), he was so moved by the slaughter and destruction of the war, that he embraced Buddhism. His capital of Pataliputra (modern Patna) became a principal Buddhist center. Ashoka’s edicts of non-violence, reflecting the teachings of Buddha, were carved into stone and were sent to Sri Lanka, Burma, Afghanistan and the Indonesian Islands.
The imperial court of Ashoka maintained diplomatic relations with the Assyrian courts of Persia and Syria, the pharaohs of Egypt, Alexander I of Macedonia and the Tang Dynasty of China. India was also a major player in the trade linking China, India and the Mediterranean. It stands to reason that the emissaries of the emperor would have carried his message to these far-flung corners of the known world. However, Buddhism was slow to expand its influence in the Archipelago and in China, reflecting in part the difficult communications of the age and in part the passive, non-violent approach of Buddhism. It was not until the 3rd and 4th centuries that Buddhism spread rapidly in China, Japan and the Archipelago.
In the 4th century, northern India was consolidated under the Gupta Empire (320-467). Emperor Chandra Gupta II (375-415) extended his kingdom through conquest, marriage and diplomacy over much of the Indian subcontinent. We know a good deal about this period through the writings of the Chinese traveler Fa-Hsien. During this period, Hinduism went through a period of resurgence in India, displacing Buddhism as the dominant religion of India. The well-known poet Kalidasa lived at the court of Chandra Gupta. The patronage of the royal court encouraged Hindu ideas to travel far and wide.
However, it was southern India that was the primary vehicle for the transmission of Hinduism to the Archipelago. Geography as well as politics favored the south. The monsoons connected the sea-lanes of Sri Lanka and the Tamil lands to the Archipelago. Commerce stimulated cultural and religious interactions. Buddhism was the international faith in Asia but Hinduism found favor in the courts of Sumatra, Cambodia and Vietnam. No doubt the commercial advantages of maintaining a common religious bond played an important role. Southern India and Sri Lanka exported cotton, ivory, elephants, brass work and iron to the Archipelago and China. In turn, the Archipelago exported camphor and spices. China exported silk, oil and amber. The products of India and East Asia were exported from the western coast of India to the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean. Dialects of south Indian languages as well as Sanskrit were introduced into the Archipelago and into Indochina.
The south Indian influence grew with time. In the 6th and 7th centuries, the Pallava and Chola kingdoms controlled much of what is today Tamil Nadu, in southeastern India. Both of these kingdoms were predatory and lived off raiding their neighbors. The Cholas, in particular, built a powerful navy and raided as far as the Indonesian islands. In 1025, the Chola navy defeated the navy of the Empire of Sri Vijaya based in Sumatra and became the most powerful naval force in the Bay of Bengal during the first half of the 11th century. Together with the Keralites of Malabar and the Pallavas of the southern tip of India, the Chola-Pallava regions provided an important link in the trade between the Roman Empire, India and China.
The south Indian kingdoms continued to prosper under successive dynasties until the arrival of Malik Kafur (circa 1300), general of AlauddinKhilji’s armies in the Deccan, in southern India. In the thousand years of pre-Islamic interactions with the Archipelago, the temples of Angorwat in Cambodia were built (circa 1000) and the Hindu kingdoms of Sri Vijaya in Sumatra and Majapahit in Java rose and fell, leaving a strong Sanskrit influence on the language, customs, art and architecture of the Archipelago and Indochina.
The introduction of Islam into the Archipelago may be divided into three phases: (1) the first phase extending from the Hijra (622) to 1100, (2) the second phase covering the period 1100 to 1500, and (3) the third phase extending from 1500 to modern times.
The first phase was a product of commercial contacts between the maritime regions of the Indian Ocean. Trade between West Asia and East Asia predates the Islamic period. Merchants from Yemen and the Persian Gulf followed the monsoons to the coast of Malabar and from there to the islands of Sri Lanka, Java and Sumatra. This trade mushroomed with the onset of Islam.
The powerful Abbasids in Baghdad especially encouraged global trade. To the west, trade caravans traversed the Sahara through West Africa deep into what is today Ghana and Nigeria. To the east, the Silk Road to China was brisk with activity. Sea-borne trade was not far behind. Muslim merchants, both Arab and Persian, plied the Indian Ocean and captured the bulk of the trade with India, East Africa, Indonesia and China. Colonies of merchants grew up in Gujrat, Malabar, Sri Lanka, Sumatra, Canton and all along the East African coast. Al Masudi records that in 877, during the reign of the Tang Emperor Hi-Tsung, there was a colony of almost 200,000 Muslims in Canton, China. A peasant rebellion in 887 forced these Muslims to flee and settle at Kheda on the west coast of Malaya. The merchant colonies along the rim of the Indian Ocean grew in size and prospered between the years 750 and 1100.
Impressed by the honesty and integrity of these merchants, a large number of Malays accepted Islam. Intermarriage also played a part in conversions, as happened in Malabar and Sumatra. The immigrants did not force their own customs and culture on the local populations. Instead, they adopted the local culture while introducing the doctrine of Tawhid and the requirements of the Shariah. The Arabs were always a small minority among the Malays but they enjoyed a privileged position in society. They spoke the language of the Qur’an and had a reputation for piety and steadfastness. They were sought after as ideal spouses. Even the rajas and the sultans considered it an honor to have an Arab marry within the family and those with Arab blood were honored as Sayyids, descendants of the Prophet’s family.
This period marked the zenith of classical Islamic civilization. It was during the 8th and 9th centuries that the major schools of Fiqh evolved in Madina and Kufa. The Islam that was carried by the Arab and Persian merchants had a heavy content of Shariah and Fiqh. Early Islam in Indonesia and Malaysia reflected the intellectual currents in West Asia, although the region was outside the political military circle of the Abbasid Empire. The institution of the hajj played an important part in these developments. Most of the Arabs followed the Shafi’i and Maliki Schools that were the dominant schools in Madina and Damascus. Consequently, these were the schools of Fiqh brought back by the hajjis into Indonesia and Malaysia.
(The author is Director, World Organization for Resource Development and Education, Washington, DC; Director, American Institute of Islamic History and Culture, CA; Member, State Knowledge Commission, Bangalore; and Chairman, Delixus Group)
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