Introduction

Abstract

Despite the rapid growth of scholarly studies on Islam and Muslims in Southeast Asia, some problematic tendencies are still discernible. Among these are partial regionalism, methodological nationalism, diffusionism, and the notion of exceptionalism. This introduction explains the ways in which this handbook remedies such problems in the scholarship on Islam in Southeast Asia. Featuring both established and emerging coming scholars based in institutions across different continents, this volume offers a survey of the field and up-to-date approaches. Each chapter underlines the overarching thesis that Southeast Asian Islam is far from peripheral in the wider terrain of global Islam. Rather, studying Muslims in Southeast Asia could provide us with a window to understanding how one of the fastest growing religions has embedded itself deeply in local societies while exhibiting universality, inclusivity, and shared features with Islamic expressions and manifestations found elsewhere. Three main themes, which form the organizing structure of this handbook, are explained in this introduction: Muslim global circulations, marginal narratives, and refashioning pieties. These themes should be viewed as mutually supportive, each flowing into and influencing one another to broaden our understanding of the different careers of Islam in Southeast Asia.