![]() ![]() The Chinese court began to receive Muslim emissaries from Arabia in the mid 7th century. Arab, Indian and Chinese Muslims were present early on, it seems without attracting new followers. Scanty evidence opens up questions on who introduced Islam and when this took place. There has been much speculation about the Islamisation of Indonesia. Muslim conversion in the Indonesian context Aru sits on the edge of the same continental shelf as New Guinea and Australia ( Figure 1). Footnote 1 There is a distinct difference between the west coast that faces open sea and the east coast with many small islands, vast intertidal zones, and shallow waters across to New Guinea. The east is often referred to as the Backshores (Indonesian: belakang tanah). These waterways, while difficult to navigate, are still the main arteries for communication between west and east Aru. The Aru archipelago consists of low-lying islands, segmented by a series of tidewater channels. Both Muslim and non-Muslim sources describe how expansion of Islam from the 17th century until the present has caused chains of resettlement of those who chose not to convert. The narratives stress that the introduction of Islam deeply affected both the growing number of Muslims and the non-Muslims interacting with them. Oral traditions about Islamisation in Aru emphasise that conversion had, and still has, a processual character. The main purpose of this article is to explore living oral traditions that describe the coming of Islam to this frontier area. The two islands Wasir and Ujir were at the easternmost reach of Islam in island Southeast Asia. In the 17th century, if not earlier, some indigenous groups in Aru embraced Islam. The enigma is no less the case in the periphery, especially in places without centralised power, such as the Aru islands. This is true for well known historical kingdoms in Indonesia, today the most populous Muslim country in the world. The historian Merle Ricklefs (: 3) has remarked that ‘he spread of Islam is one of the most significant processes of Indonesian history, but also one of the most obscure’. Islamisation is still ongoing in Aru and the character of Islam is changing. While Muslims used to be a small minority in Aru with their main centre on Ujir island, the point of gravity has shifted to Dobo, a fast-growing town with a large influx of mostly Muslims from other parts of Indonesia. In the last 30 years, the population in Aru has grown, especially in the regency capital Dobo. The most recent wave of conversions in Aru to state-approved world religions took place in the 1970s. ![]() By late colonial times (early 20th century), both Islam and the Protestant church had reached remote villages. The coming of Islam forced people to either convert or leave for non-Muslim areas. The oral sources are juxtaposed with European accounts of the 17th century when Muslim and Protestant centres first developed in Aru. We present oral traditions about the expansion of Islam as seen from two locations: Ujir, the historical Muslim centre in Aru on the west coast, and Benjuring, a former stronghold of local ancestral beliefs in the east. We argue that Islamisation in Aru was initially a matter of internal considerations, rather than trade. In the Aru islands, Islam was introduced by the mid 17th century. This assumption is an over-simplification, especially in areas outside the main trade centres. The coming of Islam in eastern Indonesia is generally assigned to the activities of Muslim traders from the late 15th century onwards. ![]()
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