Transcending Borders: Arabs, Politics, Trade and Islam in Southeast Asia

Huub de Jonge and Nico Kaptein (editors)
Paperback, 246 pages
9789067181846

Arab immigrants to Southeast Asia and their descendants have not received much attention in comparison with immigrants from other parts of the world such as the Chinese, Indians and Europeans. Numerically the Arabs as they are called up till now, have always paled into insignificance besides other foreign minorities, in particular in the colonial period. Even today their presence is hardly noticed. Yet, they have exercised a great influence on economic, political, social and religious developments in the region for centuries.
This book contains ten articles form the perspective of various disciplines: history, sociology, anthropology and Islamology. These essays discuss the interrelationships within the various Arab communities, as well as between these communities and society at large, in the fields of politics, trade and Islam.

Contents
• The Arab Presence in Southeast Asia
• Before Parochialization
• Conflicting Political Loyalties of the Arabs in Malaya before World War II
• Colonial Fears, 1890-1918
• Murder as an Aid to Social History
• Arab Merchants in Singapore: Attempt of a Collective Biography
• Horse Trading: The Economic Role of Arabs in the Lesser Sunda Islands
• Forging a Modern Arab Identity in Java in the Early Twentieth Century
• The Conflicts about the Income of an Arab Shrine
• An Arabic Manuscript on the Life and Career of Ahmad Muhammad Surkati and His Irshadi Disciples in Java
• Contradictory and Against the Grain: Snouck Hurgronje on the Hadramis in the Dutch East Indies