"This monograph explores the relationship between Islam and Marxism in the Netherlands East Indies (NEI) and Indonesia from the publication of the first Communist periodical in 1915 to the beginning of the anti-communist massacres of 1965-66. It explores various permutations of how Muslim identity and Marxist analytical frameworks coexisted in the minds of Indonesian nationalists, as well as how individuals' Islamic faith and ethics shaped their willingness to employ Marxist ideas. Such confluences have long been obscured by state-driven narratives which demonize Marxism and posit the mutual exclusivity of Islam and Marxism. By examining Indonesian-language print culture, including newspapers, books, pamphlets, memoirs, letters, novels, plays, and poetry, I show how deeply embedded confluences of Islam and Marxism were in the Indonesian nationalist project, even at its highest levels. Ultimately, I argue that these confluences were the product of Indonesian participation in broader networks of intellectual exchange across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, and that such confluences were the result of Indonesians "translating" the world to Indonesia, a project of creative adaptation ambitious in both its scope and depth"--

From 1965 to 1966, at least 500,000 Indonesians were killed in military-directed violence that targeted suspected Communists. Muslim politicians justified the killings, arguing that Marxism posed an existential threat to all religions. Since then, the demonization of Marxism, as well as the presumed irreconcilability of Islam and Marxism, has permeated Indonesian society. Today, the Indonesian military and Islamic political parties regularly invoke the spectre of Marxism as an enduring threat that would destroy the republic if left unchecked. In Ummah Yet Proletariat, Lin Hongxuan explores the relationship between Islam and Marxism in the Netherlands East Indies (NEI) and Indonesia from the publication of the first Communist periodical in 1915 to the beginning of the 1965-66 massacres. Lin demonstrates how, in contrast to state-driven narratives, Muslim identity and Marxist analytical frameworks coexisted in Indonesian minds, as well as how individuals' Islamic faith shaped their openness to Marxist ideas. Examining Indonesian-language print culture, including newspapers, books, pamphlets, memoirs, letters, novels, plays, and poetry, Lin shows how deeply embedded confluences of Islam and Marxism were in the Indonesian nationalist project. He argues that these confluences were the result of Indonesian participation in networks of intellectual exchange across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, of Indonesians "translating" the world to Indonesia in an ambitious project of creative adaptation.

In Republicanism, Communism, Islam, John T. Sidel provides an alternate vantage point for understanding the variegated forms and trajectories of revolution across the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam, a perspective that is de-nationalized, internationalized, and transnationalized. Sidel positions this new vantage point against the conventional framing of revolutions in modern Southeast Asian history in terms of a nationalist template, on the one hand, and distinctive local cultures and forms of consciousness, on the other. Sidel's comparative analysis shows how—in very different, decisive, and often surprising ways—the Philippine, Indonesian, and Vietnamese revolutions were informed, enabled, and impelled by diverse cosmopolitan connections and international conjunctures. Sidel addresses the role of Freemasonry in the making of the Philippine revolution, the importance of Communism and Islam in Indonesia's Revolusi, and the influence that shifting political currents in China and anticolonial movements in Africa had on Vietnamese revolutionaries. Through this assessment, Republicanism, Communism, and Islam tracks how these forces, rather than nationalism per se, shaped the forms of these revolutions, the ways in which they unfolded, and the legacies which they left in their wakes.

The events of September 11, 2001, forever changed the world as we knew it. In their wake, the quest for international order has prompted a reshuffling of global aims and priorities. In a fresh approach, Gilles Kepel focuses on the Middle East as a nexus of international disorder and decodes the complex language of war, propaganda, and terrorism that holds the region in its thrall. The breakdown of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in 2000 was the first turn in a downward spiral of violence and retribution. Meanwhile, a neo-conservative revolution in Washington unsettled U.S. Mideast policy, which traditionally rested on the twin pillars of Israeli security and access to Gulf oil. In Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, a transformation of the radical Islamist doctrine of Bin Laden and Zawahiri relocated the arena of terrorist action from Muslim lands to the West; Islamist radicals proclaimed jihad against their enemies worldwide. Kepel examines the impact of global terrorism and the ensuing military operations to stem its tide. He questions the United States' ability to address the Middle East challenge with Cold War rhetoric, while revealing the fault lines in terrorist ideology and tactics. Finally, he proposes the way out of the Middle East quagmire that triangulates the interests of Islamists, the West, and the Arab and Muslim ruling elites. Kepel delineates the conditions for the acceptance of Israel, for the democratization of Islamist and Arab societies, and for winning the minds and hearts of Muslims in the West.

In this study, Bennigsen and Wimbush trace the development of the doctrine of national communism in Central Asia and the Caucasus. At the heart of this doctrine—as elaborated by the Volga Tatar, Mir-Said Sultan Galiev—was the concept of "proletarian nations," as opposed to the traditional notion of a working class. With such ideological innovations, Sultan Galiev and his contemporaries were able to reconcile Marxist nationalisms and Islam and devise an "Eastern strategy" whereby the national revolution was to be spread. The authors show that the ideas of Muslim national communism persist in the land of their birth and have spread to such developing societies as China, Algeria, and Indonesia. This doctrine is an important factor in the ideological split and increasing tensions between industrial and nonindustrial nations, East and West, and now North and South, which grip the world communist movement.