06-22-2007, 04:56 AM
Dr. Jack Wheeler: Will Indonesia Save Islam?
© October 27, 2006, ToThePointNews.com
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There are 245 million folks in Indonesia. 88% of them, or 215 million, are Moslem, comprising the largest Moslem population on earth. Just 8% of Indonesians are Christian, 2% are Hindu, and only 1% are Buddhist.
Yet the most famous landmark of Indonesia - the archaeological wonder of Borobudur - is Buddhist. In fact, it is the world's largest Buddhist monument. Indonesia's most famous tourist destination and most famous culture is the island of Bali. The people of Bali are not Moslem. They are Hindu.
Indonesia used to be Buddhist and Hindu, and is a long ways from Arabia. How did this place become Moslem?
People have been living in Indonesia since before they were people. "Java Man," so-called because his 500,000 year-old bones were first discovered on Java, belonged to humanity's evolutionary precursor, Homo erectus.
By around 200 BC, Hindu kingdoms had emerged on Indonesia's two largest islands, Java and Sumatra. They co-existed with Buddhist kingdoms such as the Srivijaya thalassocracy (sea-based trading empire) that rose around 200 AD, and the Sailendra kingdom in central Java that built Borobudur between 778-824 AD.
They were all subsumed by the Majapahit empire, a Hindu kingdom that ruled over Java, Bali, Sumatra, Borneo, and much of the Malay Peninsula from 1300 to 1500. Then came the Moslems.
Islam in Indonesia begins with an eccentric Javanese adventurer named Parameswara, who lived from 1344 to 1424. He claimed he was a Hindu prince and a descendant of Alexander the Great. In 1402, he was able to establish a small trading town on the Malay Peninsula right across from Sumatra, calling it Malacca. Then he sailed off to China to make a deal with the Ming Emperor, Yongle.
Every trading ship from India and Arabia on its way to China had to sail through the narrow straits between Sumatra and Malaya - the alternative was a huge detour around Sumatra. Yongle was happy to support Parameswara in securing protection and control of the passage, which to this day is called the Strait of Malacca.
Now in his 60s, Parameswara became rich and powerful - but he proved no match for the charms of a young lady from Pasai. About a hundred years before, Moslem traders from Gujarat on the west coast of India had built a trading post on the northwest tip of Sumatra that had grown into a small Sultanate called Pasai.
In 1414, Parameswara met a girl whom the chronicles describe as "young," "beautiful," and a "princess." The 70 year-old man was a goner and begged for her hand. She was a Moslem, she said, so the only way for her to accept would be for him to convert to Islam.
He did, they were married, he renamed himself Raja Iskander Shah ("Iskander" is the Arabic name for Alexander), declared his kingdom to be the Sultanate of Malacca, and demanded all his subjects become Moslem. Then he decided to go on Jihad against the now idolatrous Hindus of the Majapahit Empire.
The Majapahits finally succumbed to Parameswara's successors, and by 1500 the Majapahit aristocracy, artisans, and followers fled to Bali establishing a Hindu redoubt that has resisted Islam right up to now.
In the wake of the Hindu retreat came a flood of Moslem missionaries demanding the Hindus and Buddhists of Java and Sumatra convert. This resulted in ambitious warlords-to-be constructing Islamic kingdoms such as the Sultanate of Mataram in central Java, which under its Sultan Agung (r. 1613-1645) controlled almost the entire island.
By the time the traders of the Dutch East India Company arrived in the mid-1600s, attracted by the spice trade in the archipelago, most of what was to become Indonesia had been Moslemized.
Far from being Christian Crusaders, the Dutch were only interested in creating a commercial empire in the "East Indies," monopolizing the spice trade, and keeping competitors like the Portuguese and British out. They made minimal attempts at converting the Javanese or Sumatrans to Christianity.
With Islam forced upon them and the Dutch offering no enthusiastic alternative, the Indonesians coped by adopting a variant of Islam known as Sufism. They deeply resented the imposition of a foreign faith, and for over a century referred to Islam not by name but only as "the Arab religion." Sufism was their way out.
Sufis (sue-feez) - the People of the Platform (named after disciples of Mohammed who met on the platform -- suffe in Arabic -- of the first Moslem mosque at Medina) - were Moslems who rejected Jihad and Islam as a Religion of the Sword.
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© October 27, 2006, ToThePointNews.com
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->
There are 245 million folks in Indonesia. 88% of them, or 215 million, are Moslem, comprising the largest Moslem population on earth. Just 8% of Indonesians are Christian, 2% are Hindu, and only 1% are Buddhist.
Yet the most famous landmark of Indonesia - the archaeological wonder of Borobudur - is Buddhist. In fact, it is the world's largest Buddhist monument. Indonesia's most famous tourist destination and most famous culture is the island of Bali. The people of Bali are not Moslem. They are Hindu.
Indonesia used to be Buddhist and Hindu, and is a long ways from Arabia. How did this place become Moslem?
People have been living in Indonesia since before they were people. "Java Man," so-called because his 500,000 year-old bones were first discovered on Java, belonged to humanity's evolutionary precursor, Homo erectus.
By around 200 BC, Hindu kingdoms had emerged on Indonesia's two largest islands, Java and Sumatra. They co-existed with Buddhist kingdoms such as the Srivijaya thalassocracy (sea-based trading empire) that rose around 200 AD, and the Sailendra kingdom in central Java that built Borobudur between 778-824 AD.
They were all subsumed by the Majapahit empire, a Hindu kingdom that ruled over Java, Bali, Sumatra, Borneo, and much of the Malay Peninsula from 1300 to 1500. Then came the Moslems.
Islam in Indonesia begins with an eccentric Javanese adventurer named Parameswara, who lived from 1344 to 1424. He claimed he was a Hindu prince and a descendant of Alexander the Great. In 1402, he was able to establish a small trading town on the Malay Peninsula right across from Sumatra, calling it Malacca. Then he sailed off to China to make a deal with the Ming Emperor, Yongle.
Every trading ship from India and Arabia on its way to China had to sail through the narrow straits between Sumatra and Malaya - the alternative was a huge detour around Sumatra. Yongle was happy to support Parameswara in securing protection and control of the passage, which to this day is called the Strait of Malacca.
Now in his 60s, Parameswara became rich and powerful - but he proved no match for the charms of a young lady from Pasai. About a hundred years before, Moslem traders from Gujarat on the west coast of India had built a trading post on the northwest tip of Sumatra that had grown into a small Sultanate called Pasai.
In 1414, Parameswara met a girl whom the chronicles describe as "young," "beautiful," and a "princess." The 70 year-old man was a goner and begged for her hand. She was a Moslem, she said, so the only way for her to accept would be for him to convert to Islam.
He did, they were married, he renamed himself Raja Iskander Shah ("Iskander" is the Arabic name for Alexander), declared his kingdom to be the Sultanate of Malacca, and demanded all his subjects become Moslem. Then he decided to go on Jihad against the now idolatrous Hindus of the Majapahit Empire.
The Majapahits finally succumbed to Parameswara's successors, and by 1500 the Majapahit aristocracy, artisans, and followers fled to Bali establishing a Hindu redoubt that has resisted Islam right up to now.
In the wake of the Hindu retreat came a flood of Moslem missionaries demanding the Hindus and Buddhists of Java and Sumatra convert. This resulted in ambitious warlords-to-be constructing Islamic kingdoms such as the Sultanate of Mataram in central Java, which under its Sultan Agung (r. 1613-1645) controlled almost the entire island.
By the time the traders of the Dutch East India Company arrived in the mid-1600s, attracted by the spice trade in the archipelago, most of what was to become Indonesia had been Moslemized.
Far from being Christian Crusaders, the Dutch were only interested in creating a commercial empire in the "East Indies," monopolizing the spice trade, and keeping competitors like the Portuguese and British out. They made minimal attempts at converting the Javanese or Sumatrans to Christianity.
With Islam forced upon them and the Dutch offering no enthusiastic alternative, the Indonesians coped by adopting a variant of Islam known as Sufism. They deeply resented the imposition of a foreign faith, and for over a century referred to Islam not by name but only as "the Arab religion." Sufism was their way out.
Sufis (sue-feez) - the People of the Platform (named after disciples of Mohammed who met on the platform -- suffe in Arabic -- of the first Moslem mosque at Medina) - were Moslems who rejected Jihad and Islam as a Religion of the Sword.
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