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Preface
This hard cover book runs 497 pages plus 13 pp. of photographs and includes
an extensive Glossary, Index and Biblio. It covers the coming of Islām in
the Archipelago and also includes an important Dr. Denys Lombard and his
wife Professor Claudine Salmon: “Islām and Chineseness”, detailing the
contribution of Chinese Muslims from China to the Islāmization of the area.
It also comprises studies from various scholars in their specific areas of
expertise such as Professor G.W.J. Drewes’ “New Light on the Coming of
Islam?”; Professor C.R. Boxer’s “Portuguese and Spanish Projects for the
Conquest of Southeast Asia”; Dr. Christian Pelras’ “Islāmization in South
Sulawěsi”; Dr. H.E. Neimeijer’s “Dividing Maluku: The Dutch Spice Monopoly”;
and Professor Pierre-Yves Manguin’s “The Introduction of Islam into Champa”.
Islamization of the Indonesian-Malay Archipelago was deliberately stymied by
the colonial powers of the 16th century, violently by the Spanish in what
became the Philippines, and ‘administratively’ by the Dutch, beginning with
Maluku, the ‘Spice Islands’. Where the Dutch claimed the ‘right of
conquest’, they claimed ‘the right to implant churches’. But wherever they
gained a foothold, Islamization was prohibited while Christianization was
allowed. Their policy divided the islands which is violently manifested
today, five centuries later.
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