The Coming of Islam to North Sumatra

Abstract

Long before the time of Majapahit there had been small communities of Arab merchants living in South East Asia. Groeneveldt (1880, 14–5) quotes a Chinese source dated 674 A.D. as mentioning an Arab settlement which he believed was on the west coast of Sumatra. By 915 Arab traders had sailed across the Bay of Bengal and discovered a large trade market south of the Isthmus of Kra. But by 1300 Islam had begun to appear east of India as a proselytizing force. Its power was to bring about the downfall of Majapait two centuries later, and politically to change the face of South East Asia.