This volume is a collection of essays on transregional aspects of Malay-Indonesian Islam and Islamic Studies, based on Peter G. Riddell’s broad interest and expertise.

This highly informative and insightful study opens numerous windows into the history of Islamic religious thought in the Malay-Indonesian world from the thirteenth to the late twentieth century. The author begins by addressing theological issues relevant to the wider Islamic world then examines Malay-Indonesian Islamic thought in the pre-twentieth century period and Islamic religious thought in Southeast Asia in the modern era.

Professor Azra's meticulous study, using sources from the Middle East itself, shows how scholars in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were reconstructing the intellectual and socio-moral foundation of Muslim societies.

Despite their close geographic and cultural ties, Indonesia and Malaysia have dramatically different Islamic education, with that in Indonesia being relatively decentralized and discursively diverse, while that in Malaysia is centralized and discursively restricted. The book explores the nature of the Islamic education systems in Indonesia and Malaysia and the different approaches taken by these states in managing these systems. The book argues that the post-colonial state in Malaysia has been more successful in centralising its control over Islamic education, and more concerned with promoting a restrictive orthodoxy, compared to the post-colonial state in Indonesia. This is due to three factors: the ideological makeup of the state institutions that oversee Islamic education; patterns of societal Islamisation that have prompted different responses from the states; and control of resources by the central government that influences centre-periphery relations. Informed by the theoretical works of state-in-society relations and historical institutionalism, this book shows that the three aforementioned factors can help a state to minimize influence from the society and exert its dominance, in this case by centralising control over Islamic education. Specifically, they help us understand the markedly different landscapes of Islamic education in Malaysia and Indonesia. It will be of interest to academics in the field of Southeast Asian Studies, Asian Education and Comparative Education.

In Malay Court Religion, Culture and Language: Interpreting the Qurʾān in 17th Century Aceh Peter G. Riddell undertakes a detailed study of the two earliest works of Qur’anic exegesis from the Malay-Indonesian world. Riddell explores the 17th century context in the Sultanate of Aceh that produced the two works, and the history of both texts. He argues that political, social and religious factors provide important windows into the content and approaches of both Qur’anic commentaries. He also provides a transliteration of the Jawi Malay text of both commentaries on sūra 18 of the Qur'ān (al-Kahf), as well as an annotated translation into English. This work represents an important contribution to the search for greater understanding of the early Islamic history of the Malay-Indonesian world.

The largely Arabo-centric approach to the academic study of tafsir has resulted in a lack of literature exploring the diversity of Qur'anic interpretation in other areas of the Muslim-majority world. The essays in The Qur'an in the Malay-Indonesian World resolve this, aiming to expand our knowledge of tafsir and its history in the Malay-Indonesian world. Highlighting the scope of Qur'anic interpretation in the Malay world in its various vernaculars, it also contextualizes this work to reveal its place as part of the wider Islamic world, especially through its connections to the Arab world, and demonstrates the strength of these connections. The volume is divided into three parts written primarily by scholars from Malaysia and Indonesia. Beginning with a historical overview, it then moves into chapters with a more specifically regional focus to conclude with a thematic approach by looking at topics of some controversy in the broader world. Presenting new examinations of an under-researched topic, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Islamic studies and Southeast Asian studies.

Indonesian Islam is often portrayed as being intrinsically moderate by virtue of the role that mystical Sufism played in shaping its traditions. According to Western observers--from Dutch colonial administrators and orientalist scholars to modern anthropologists such as the late Clifford Geertz--Indonesia's peaceful interpretation of Islam has been perpetually under threat from outside by more violent, intolerant Islamic traditions that were originally imposed by conquering Arab armies. The Makings of Indonesian Islam challenges this widely accepted narrative, offering a more balanced assessment of the intellectual and cultural history of the most populous Muslim nation on Earth. Michael Laffan traces how the popular image of Indonesian Islam was shaped by encounters between colonial Dutch scholars and reformist Islamic thinkers. He shows how Dutch religious preoccupations sometimes echoed Muslim concerns about the relationship between faith and the state, and how Dutch-Islamic discourse throughout the long centuries of European colonialism helped give rise to Indonesia's distinctive national and religious culture. The Makings of Indonesian Islam presents Islamic and colonial history as an integrated whole, revealing the ways our understanding of Indonesian Islam, both past and present, came to be.