Özay, Mehmet
(2022)
Understanding of the Islamization process of the Malay Archipelago in a ‘systemic way’.
In: HISTORIOGRAFI ISLAM: SILANG PENDAPAT MASUKNYA ISLAM DI INDONESIA, 5TH OCTOBER 2022, MEDAN.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
This paper deals with Islamization process which is the dissemination and propagation of the religion of Islam throughout the centuries in distinct geographies, in particular, among the Malay societies living in the Archipelago and some relevant regions in the continental Southeast Asia. Since the major theories of Islamization process are well-established and their importance is no doubt recognized to some or larger extent by academic circles. Besides, there have been certain degrees of deliberation upon this theme by the scholars from diverse backgrounds since the 1960s onwards by revisiting former theories for consolidation and presenting critical approaches. In this regard, the researchers and academicians have mostly focused on the origin of immigrants’ and/or muballighs’ places -either religious scholars or traders- in the limitations of historical perspective. On the other hand, it also implicitly evokes a question in the minds where the Malay communities’ place and importance in this process. Commencing from this question, this paper tries to explore comprehension of the role and function of the Archipelagic people. Anthropologically, the importance of Malay societies -either in the forms of individual smaller units of social groups or even state structures cannot be disregarded or de-emphasized during the whole Islamization process. Pertaining to this, the object of this research is to talk about Islamization which is based on multiple social factors. In this context, I offer, in a general sense, two phenomena. The first one is the role and function of the Archipelagic peoples’ during the whole conversion processes. The aim of this approach focuses on the actorship of the indigenous peoples as receivers of a new religious belief system. The second one is about the consideration of Islamization process as a system which contains distinct social aspects of this longue durée process. As such, Islamization has no doubt initiated novel epistemological change, religious practices and brought new religious institutions into life in the Archipelagic societies. Thus, it has made possible the reconstitution of pre-Islamic social system into a more systematic organization and development which is consistently structured social system responding to the needs of the autochthonous. This is an attempt in the context of social-anthropological point of view which is believed to help formulate the phenomenon of Islamization in a larger scope. In another saying, discerning of Islamization is, I think, related to a sytem and because of this, it is right to name it as system of Islamization. It includes a) knowledge of Islam with its numerous branches; b) organization of Islamic practices in the form of institutions; c) diversification and expansion of cosmopolitanism. The above-mentioned both phenomena are pertinent because Islam/ization is a living system. There has been no any frozen structure historically and sociologically in Islamization process, with the exception of the observed stagnations in certain times and spaces. But continuous flow of interactions have been the reality. In the inception one should emphasize that Islamization process confirms the phenomenon of cosmopolitanism which was the feature of the Archipelago to be expanded and established more. This work is methodologically based on analytical and interpretative perspectives by reaching certain primary and secondary sources acquired via documentation research conducted in diverse libraries in distinct institutions.
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