Chapter 9 - Islamic Literary Networks in South and Southeast Asia

Summary

Abstract

Networks of travel and trade have often been viewed as pivotal to understanding interactions among Muslims in South and Southeast Asia. What if we thought of language and literature as an additional network, one that crisscrossed these regions over centuries and provided a powerful site of interaction and exchange facilitated by the dissemination of stories, ideas and beliefs? This chapter presents a history of such networks in Southeast India and the Indonesian-Malay world, drawing on sources in Javanese, Malay and Tamil. Drawing on Pollock's theory of the Sanskrit Cosmopolis of 300-1300 AD it argues for a later, partially overlapping Arabic Cosmopolis in some of the same regions. Within this cosmopolis, literary networks contributed to the adoption of modes of expression and creativity common across great geographical and cultural spaces.

Keywords: Islam; literature; networks; Indonesia; India; translation

From its birthplace in Arabia, in the seventh century, Islam spread over vast geographical and cultural distances, emerging as a cosmopolitan religion. Through broad networks of travel, trade and learning, combined with a shared faith and legal system, people from multiple world regions joined in a universal community. This community had a beating heart in the form of the sacred city, for “daily and annually across time and space, the history of Islam flows from Mecca and back to Mecca. It flows through myriad networks. They connect individuals and institutions, at once affirming and transforming them.”

Although the central status of Mecca cannot be disputed, in this chapter I highlight a different yet pivotal part of the Muslim world and the history of its networks, which, too, have served to connect and transform. South and Southeast Asia have been, and remain, crucially important in terms of linguistic and cultural diversity as well as intellectual and literary output. They are also home to the world's majority of Muslims. A better understanding of the nature of contacts, exchange and transmission between and within these regions offers insight into the broad contours of Islamic history as well as its very local manifestations.

In my discussion I focus primarily on the Tamil-speaking region of Southeast India and the Indonesian-Malay Archipelago with stress on Sumatra and Java.