Islam takes root in Southeast Asia

Islam arrives in maritime Southeast Asia slowly, by trade rather than conquest. The earliest firm evidence of a Muslim state is in northern Sumatra: a gravestone dated 1297 marks the death of Sultan Malik al-Salih of Samudra Pasai, and Marco Polo reported Muslim townspeople at nearby Perlak in 1292. In 1345 the Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta visited Pasai and found a sultan who followed Muslim law and debated theology with scholars.¹²

The groundwork was the Indian Ocean trade. Monsoon winds carried Arab, Persian and Indian Muslim merchants to the Strait of Malacca, where Srivijaya and its successors controlled the trade in spices, camphor and aromatic woods. Local rulers who converted gained access to a wide commercial network and partners, and the new religion was often spread by Sufi teachers who blended it with existing customs. Historians still debate which regions of the Muslim world supplied the key carriers of the faith.¹³

From Pasai the faith moved down the coast. Malacca, founded around 1400, became its center after its rulers converted in the 15th century, and the north Javanese port sultanate of Demak defeated the last Hindu-Buddhist ruler of Majapahit around 1527. The Muslim ports of Aceh, Banten and Makassar followed. Bali stayed Hindu, and the Philippines were reached by Islam in the south before Spain arrived. Today Indonesia has the largest Muslim population of any country, about 240 million people, and Islam in Southeast Asia is marked by its gradual spread, local traditions and Sufi roots.¹³