Sultans, Shamans, and Saints: Islam and Muslims in Southeast Asia
Howard M. Federspiel
By the fourteenth century the Islamic faith had spread via maritime trade   routes to Southeast Asia where, over the next seven hundred years, it would   have a continuing influence on political life, social customs, and the   development of the arts. Sultans, Shamans, and Saints looks at Islam   in Southeast Asia during four major eras: its arrival (to 1300), the first   flowering of Islamic identity (1300-1800), the era of imperialism   (1800-1945), and the era of independent nation-states (1945-2000). Ranging   across the humanities and social sciences, this balanced and accessible   work emphasizes the historical development of Southeast Asia's   accommodation of Islam and the creation of its distinctive regional   character. Each chapter opens with a general background summary that places   events in the greater Asian/Southeast Asian context, followed by an   overview of prominent ethnic groups, political events, customs and   cultures, religious factors, and art forms.  As Islam gained acceptance   and influence, it became part of birth and childhood rites and marriage and   death ceremonies, usually to sanction customs that were non-Islamic. For a   considerable time Arabic-language literature transmitted via Persia and   India dominated the arts, though this faded with the rise of new indigenous   and Western forms in the twentieth century. More recently modernization and   Westernization have changed the region, and Islam has undergone a   corresponding transformation. Muslims today give considerable attention to   political and social organization and to reaching an accommodation with the   new political systems that have arisen in Southeast Asia. A deepening   emphasis on faith, propelled by a wave of revivalism, has shaped   contemporary Muslim behavior into forms much more compatible with Sunni   standards than what existed earlier, and this has focused more attention on   Islamic scriptures, teachings, observances, and conduct. Islam, this work   concludes, developed in the Southeast Asian context in a way that allowed   its followers to be guided by principles shared by Muslims in other lands   while preserving a unique outlook on the world.  Sultans, Shamans,   and Saints will be of great value to students and researchers   specializing in the study of Islam and the comparative study of Muslim   societies and culture. It will also be useful to those with a world-systems   approach to the study of history and globalization.