Anthony Milner

JMBRAS, JUNE 2023 VOL 96 PART 1, NUMBER 324, pp.
21–50
The Timing of Islamization

in Southeast Asia: Local Agency,
and the Challenge of Analysing
Religious Conversion
Anthony Milner
Abstract
Although much has been written on Islamization in Island Southeast Asia, scholars
have puzzled about why conversion did not take place before the 13th century.
Taking a history of ideas approach, this essay seeks to examine the process from
the perspective of the local rulers—noting the centrality of monarchy in the socio-
political configuration of the region. It argues that in early Islamic history, some
doctrines influential in Muslim communities were hostile to monarchy and bound
to be distasteful to Southeast Asian rulers. When monarchy began to be viewed
more positively as an institution in the wider Muslim world—partly because of the
impact of Persian ideas, and also influenced by the Sufi idea of the ‘Perfect Man’—
significant obstacles to conversion were removed.
Having argued why conversion did not take place earlier, the later part of the
essay reviews the debate about why the rulers converted at all. After considering
political and economic drivers, the question is asked why scholarly analysis has
given relatively little attention to specifically religious motivations for conversion.
Keywords
Malay, Islam, Islamization, conversion, monarchy, Sufism, Perfect Man, religious
motivation, Island Southeast Asia, history of ideas
The Author
Anthony Milner is Visiting Professor, University of Malaya; Professorial Fellow,
University of Melbourne; and Professor Emeritus, Australian National University.
Email: Anthony.Milner@anu.edu.au
22 | anthony milner
Why did Islam take hold in Island Southeast Asia1 when it did—starting in the
late thirteenth century—and not earlier? The question raises a range of issues
concerning the process of Islamization—about how and why the religion spread,
and the initial impact it had on the societies of the region.
As Martin van Bruinessen has noted, ‘foreign Muslims had probably been
resident in the trading ports of Sumatra and Java for many centuries, but it
was only towards the end of the 13th century that we find traces of apparently
indigenous Muslims’.2 Why is this the case? Farid Alatas has also wondered why
‘at least four centuries passed’ until the ‘beginning of wide-spread Islamization’.3
When Geoff Wade asked the question more recently, in the Routledge Handbook of
Islam in Southeast Asia, he admitted the issue ‘remains an enigma’.4
The matter of timing has not received the attention it deserves. There has
been more focus over the years on where Islamic influences came from—the Arab
countries, some or other region of India, China and so forth—and on the networks
of scholars that developed in later centuries.5 The discussion of timing is important
because it calls attention to the possible changing ways in which the religion was
viewed over time in the Archipelago. It highlights the history of ideas and invites
questions about whether Islamization was a bottom-up or top-down process, and
about whether it was driven by local initiative. In this essay, my main concern is to
explain why the conversion of Southeast Asians to Islam was delayed for so many
centuries. In the final section, however, I concentrate on a second issue: why they
converted at all? This is an even more difficult question. An attempt to identify the
positive drivers in Islamization, it will be suggested, raises issues not only about
the nature of historical evidence but also about social science methodology.
Some interpretations
There is certainly strong evidence, including archaeological evidence, of Muslims
being active in Southeast Asia long before the 13th century. Arabs travelled
through the Archipelago to China. Envoys sent from Southeast Asian countries
to China sometimes had Muslim names. Barus in North Sumatra was renowned
among Arabs for its camphor, at least since the 8th century. In the early 10th
century a Persian writer noted the report that in the Sumatran kingdom of Srivijaya
This article is based on a lecture to the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society on 10
December 2022. For assistance of one type or another with the lecture or the article, I would
like to thank Danny Wong Tze Ken, Helen Ting, Tan Miau Ing, Peter Borschberg, Shamsul
Amri Baharuddin, Philip Koh and Rey Ileto.
1
I am using ‘Island Southeast Asia’ here—but will sometimes write of the ‘Malay
Archipelago’, the ‘Archipelago’ the ‘Malay world’ or ‘Malay’. There are problems in fact
with using the term ‘Malay’, discussed in Milner (2008, chapter 4). The phrase ‘people
below the wind’ was often used within the region in a way roughly equal to ‘Island
Southeast Asia’. Milner (2008, 96); Laffan (2009, 42–47).
2
Bruinessen (1994, 1).
3
Alatas (1985, 164).
4
Wade (2022, 72). See also van Leur (1955, 168–69); Roff (1985, 18); Alatas (1963, 78).
5
For introductions to these discussions, see Hall (1978); Drewes (2001); Bruinessen (1987);
Feener (2019).
The Timing of Islamization in Southeast Asia | 23
the parrots spoke in both Arabic and Parsi.6 In the 12th century a Muslim writer
explained that when China was in turmoil Muslim merchants tended to head
for harbours in the Archipelago.7 In recent times, Geoff Wade—who has worked
closely with Chinese sources—has concluded that in the 8th and 9th centuries
‘Islamic traders were regularly passing through and perhaps sojourning in the port
polities of South East Asia.’8
This early presence of Muslims in the ports of Island Southeast Asia might well
have led to local conversion—as it appears to have done in Yunnan and Canton in
China, from the 7th century.9 But this did not happen in the Malay Archipelago.
What explanations have we had for this 13th-century timing in Southeast Asia?
1) Geoffrey Benjamin has suggested that there may have been a link with
socio-economic change underway at that time. The ‘most significant
change that Malay society underwent parallel to its adoption of Islam
was its progressive peasantisation.’10 What he means by ‘peasantisation’ is
that ‘ordinary Malays came to feel themselves not only under the political
sway of the rulers of their own state, but also under the sway of indirect
and only vaguely understood economic forces emanating from the world
at large.’ Following the ‘standard version of Malayan history’, this process
would have started with the development of Melaka as an ‘international
trading post.’ Islam, says Benjamin, was ‘the first religion to arrive on the
Malayan scene that could provide an adequate cosmological analogue of
the socio-economic circumstances that were developing at the “real world”
level.’ Catholic Christianity—‘centred as it in Rome’—could ‘equally well
have served the same purpose….’11 Benjamin reinforces this analysis by
noting that Temiar (Orang Asli) people have continued to reject Islam. Their
‘socio-economic situation’, says Benjamin, does not bring them ‘so fully into
the wider world system that they would be predisposed to seek a world
religion.’ These are people who remain ‘substantially in control of their own
day-to-day undertakings, through the ease with which they can fall back
on traditional, non-cash, “subsistence” methods of livelihood.’ By contrast
those Orang Asli who have ‘become peasants’ do ‘seek membership in a
world religion….’12
In developing this argument, Benjamin refers to analysis from Paul
Wheatley and Clifford Geertz. As Geertz saw it, in cosmopolitan Melaka—
with its ‘peripatetic peddlers buying and selling in many markets’—the
‘spiritual equality’ in Islam would have been ‘more congenial’ than the
‘spiritually graded hierarchy’ of Hinduism.13 Wheatley added that Islam
6
Wolters (1970, 39).
7
Wade (2022, 71).
8
Wade (2010, 368). See also Tibbetts (1956); Tibbetts (1979); Mohammad Redzuan Othman
(2009); Di Meglio (1970).
9
Aljunied (2019, 33).
10
Benjamin (2014, 275).
11
Ibid.
12
Ibid., 276.
13
Geertz (1956, 90–91).
24 | anthony milner
‘brought the Malays into an ideological comity that was international,

it made them citizens of the world instead of subjects of a god-king in a
narrowly circumscribed river valley’.14
This is stimulating analysis—but one difficulty arises from whether
Melaka, or other polities from that period, did in fact usher in a new socio-
economic development in which the ruler and his subjects became entangled
in ‘a wider world system’. True, it has been argued that a new ‘age of
commerce’ commenced in Southeast Asia in the 15th century, integrating
local communities into a global trade system.15 But other research suggests
that the region had in fact been engaged with international economic forces
over a far longer period.16 A further problem concerns whether Islamization
developed in an egalitarian, urban context. As will be discussed below, the
new religion seems rather to have been adopted in the context of the royal
court. What is more, Malays continued to be subjects of a ‘god-king’—or a
ruler approximating that status—well after they became Muslim.
2) Did the advance of Christianity stimulate or provoke Islamization ?17 There
does seem to be evidence in more recent times of Christian missionary
activity inspiring religious leaders, or ulama, to revitalize their teaching
and authority18—but Christianity arrived too late in the region to have an
influence on developments in the 14th and 15th centuries. It is also not clear
that members of the royal elites in the Archipelago were always antagonistic
toward representatives of Christian powers who arrived in the region.
Portuguese documents published recently by the National Archives of
Malaysia indicate that certain Malay leaders reached out to the Portuguese,
hoping to establish friendly relations.19
3) Another 13th-century development said to have benefited Islamization
was the decline of the South Indian, Hindu Cola dynasty. It had possessed
influence in the Archipelago—reinforced by military raids in the 11th
century and perhaps also through Tamil guilds established in the region.20
The dynasty’s decline could have assisted other networks, including Muslim
networks, to compete for attention in Southeast Asia.21 To explore further
the relationship between Cola developments and Islamization, however, we
would need to know more about the dynasty’s relations with Muslims. Ken
Hall, citing evidence from reports in the Geniza archive, has explained that
Muslim merchants had long operated in the Cola domain.22 Also, Michael
Pearson, writing about Coromandel, has warned that ‘we must avoid any
14
Wheatley (1964, 186). See also Peacock (2017, 8), citing R. H. Horton.
15
Reid (1988).
16
Wolters (1999, 170–71); Wade (2009).
17
Wertheim (1958, 198); Schrieke (1957).
18
Drewes (1955, 302); Milner (2002, 153–56).
19
Pintado (2012, 363, 397, 399); also, Drewes (2001, 141).
20
Karashima (2009).
21
Hall (1978, 218); Wade (2010, 378–79, 384–85).
22
Hall (1978, 219–20).
communal tinge in our discussion; thus Muslims happily served in the

armies of Hindu rulers such as the Pandyas.’23
Where developments in Southern India might also have been relevant
in the Islamization period was in conveying a sense of Muslim dynamism.
Janet Abu-Lughod has written of an ‘interregnum’ between 1279, when Cola
power ended, and ‘about 1350’, when the Hindu ‘Vijayanagar military state’
succeeded the Colas.24 It was to a large extent a Muslim interregnum. During
these years the armies of Sultan Alauddin Khalji—the ‘greatest Muslim
conqueror to sit on the throne of Delhi’25—defeated forces from numerous
states in central and South India, often imposing tributary relations. Devagiri
was subdued in 1313 and later became a Muslim capital.26 Alauddin’s
successor attacked Ma’bar (the Coromandel Coast)—which continued to
be Muslim-ruled into the 1370s.27 When Muhammad bin Tughluq became
Delhi Sultan in 1325 much of the Deccan and South India ‘acknowledged the
sovereignty of the Delhi sultanate.’28 By the 1330s the Muslim rulers faced
strong resistance, including from Hindus who would later establish the
Vijayanagar empire—but a number of Muslim kingdoms remained powerful
for decades.29 In this interregnum period—for instance, on the Coromandel
coast, with its close trading relations with Southeast Asia—conversions to
Islam began to take place in ‘great numbers.’30 Traders to the Archipelago,
one imagines, brought news of these developments—and they would have
given Islam what Alan Strathern has termed ‘civilizational glamour.’31
4) Was the change taking place in China’s trade policy relevant? In the 12th
and 13th centuries, as described by Oliver Wolters, Southern Sung policies
led to an expansion of Chinese mercantile activity in Island Southeast Asia.
Large numbers of Chinese ships went out to the Archipelago, trading in one
small port after another, bypassing the old tributary framework anchored in
such ports as Palembang and Jambi.32 The major tributary states—on which
trade with China had been based—were unable to continue to control the
commerce, which provided an opportunity for independent initiatives on
the part of smaller states. In this competitive and generally unstable context,
states around the Archipelago were competing with one another, seeking
trade from every direction. A question here is whether administrations—
governing such places as Kampe and Aru in Sumatra, or Kedah on the
Peninsula—would have seen the adoption of Islam as helpful in this ‘time
of lively international relations’ ?33 The discussion in 2) and 3), it must be
23
Pearson (2011, 361). See also Prange (2009, 31).
24
Abu-Lughod (1991, 277).
25
Rizvi (2003, 42).
26
Ibid., 41.
27
Ibid., 43, 76.
28
Sastri (1976, 233).
29
Ibid., 236; Chapters XI and XII.
30
Pearson (2010, 361).
31
Strathern (2017, 36).
32
Wolters (1970, 42–46); Milner, McKinnon and Luckman Sinar (1978); Prange (2009, 35).
33
Wolters (1970, 43); Wang (1984, 2–5).
26 | anthony milner
said, does warn against assuming rulers needed to be Muslim themselves to

attract Muslim traders.
5) The link between trade and conversion is a well-established theme in writing
on Islamization—and it may be significant that the Muslim component of
regional trade was growing in the 13th and 14th centuries. G. W. J. Drewes,
for instance, has declared that it is an ‘incontestable fact that the Muslim
trader is the most common missionary of Islam in foreign parts.’34 He also
cited the pioneering Dutch scholar, Snouck Hurgronje, regarding the way
‘traders and dealers’ settled and married, and eventually became related to
‘prominent families of the land.’35 Islamization, so this narrative conveys, was
a bottom-up process—beginning with merchants and gradually influencing
state elites.
As to the expanding Muslim role in trade, Mohammad Redzuan
Othman has suggested that by the 13th century Srivijaya and Kuala Brang
(in Terengganu) were ‘being regularly visited by Arab traders.’ These
traders had begun to discover that ‘many of the commodities that were
demanded by China, India, the Arab World, and (via the latter) Europe
could be found in (the Malay World).’36 Michael Pearson has concluded that
by the 13th century the ‘trade east from India’ was increasingly ‘controlled
by Indian Muslims…’37—and Herman Kulke has suggested the establishing
of the Delhi Sultanate in 1206 was significant in this development.38 Geoffrey
Marrison long ago stressed the growing role of Muslims in the trade from
the Coromandel Coast of South India, towards the end of the 13th century.39
At the China end of this trade, Muslims seem increasingly to have become
key players. In Alexander Wain’s words, the ‘Chinese Yuan and early Ming
dynasties (1272–1433) saw China’s Muslim communities dominate [China’s]
maritime trade.’40
Apart from trade developments, Geoff Wade has reported an influx
of Muslims from China in the 14th century—resulting from an anti-Islamic
purge carried out in Fujian. This ‘flight of Muslims’ to Southeast Asia, he
believes, ‘was to greatly stimulate the spread of Islam in the Southeast Asian
region.’41
A problem with stressing the Muslim merchant in the turn to Islam in
the 1300s, as already noted, is that Southeast Asian interaction with these
people—although clearly growing—had been going on for centuries. It is
striking that even the persistent presence of Muslims does not seem to have
been sufficient to bring about Islamization. In addition to the discussion
34
Drewes (2001, 129); Drewes (1955, 286).
35
Hurgronje (2001, 135–36).
36
Redzuan (2009, 84–85).
37
Pearson (2011, 322).
38
Kulke (2009, 130).
39
Marrison (1951, 35).
40
Wain (2017, 420–21). See also Feener (2011, 472); Feener and Laffan (2005, 191–92), 193;
Jacq-Hergoualc’h (2002, 483); Borschberg 2022, 353).
41
Wade (2022, 75, 81).
above on South India, Wade cites the example of several Javanese states
where Muslims are known to have been present over a considerable time—
and yet the ‘local people’ did not convert to their religion.42 In Mainland
Southeast Asia there were influential Muslim groups in Ayudhya and
Cambodia in the 16th and 17th centuries, but these countries were not
converted—perhaps in part because of increased European influence43 and/
or the growing strength of Theravada Buddhism.44 It is not enough, therefore,
to note the expanding presence of Muslim traders and then assume it to be
an ‘incontestable fact’ that this would lead to local conversion. We need to
know more about the process of Islamization, especially to determine why
it took place when it did.45
6) Another factor in the 13th century is specifically concerned with religious
imperatives—which, surprisingly, are sometimes overlooked in studies
of Islamization in Southeast Asia. In the past, Dutch scholars wrote of the
importance for Southeast Asia of the ‘mystic turn’—the advance of Sufism—
in Islam;46 and recently, A. C. S. Peacock has noted that the 13th century
was something of a turning point in Sufi activity. Before that time, ‘concrete
examples’ of Sufis playing a role in ‘converting non-Muslims’ are ‘hard to
come by.’47
Anthony Johns has done much to highlight the Sufi dimension of
Islamization. The ‘Sufi movement’, he has suggested, was ‘in fact, almost
identical with the Islamic world during a period of 500 years, from the
13th to the 18th centuries.…’48 Islam ‘could not and did not put down roots
among the people of the Indonesian states or win their rulers until it was
preached by the Sufis, the wandering derwishes.…’49 The approach the Sufis
took to the religion, according to Johns, was in tune with existing religious
attitudes in the region. In Southeast Asia they faced ‘the Shiva-Buddha
mystics on equal terms as mystic to mystic.…’50 The Sufis ‘represented a
type of teacher and taught a pattern of doctrine with which the Indonesians
were familiar.’51 They were, John declares, the ‘primary impulse’,52 or ‘an
active element in the spread of Islam in Indonesia.’53 That is, the expansion
of Islam was externally, not internally, driven. Also, it was in Johns’s view
a bottom-up process.
42
Wade (2010a, 14); also, Reid (1984, 25); Robson (1981, 275).
43
Reid (1984, 25–33).
44
Strathern (2017, 35–36); Strathern (2013).
45
See also Roff (1985, 19).
46
Drewes (2001, 142); Drewes (1955, 287–88).
47
Peacock (2017, 5).
48
Johns (1961, 13).
49
Ibid., 14.
50
Ibid., 17.
51
Ibid., 22.
52
Ibid., 14.
53
Ibid., 22.
28 | anthony milner
The Sufis, Johns suggested, travelled to the Archipelago with trade

guilds—and lived with these guilds or corporations in the Archipelago port
cities. The Sufi orders were a ‘very much sophisticated urban phenomenon.’54
In certain circumstances, however, ‘teachers of the Sufi type’ might ‘by
virtue of their charismatic authority and magical power’, have begun to
marry ‘daughters of Indonesian nobility…’—and so conversion of the royal
elites could follow.55
One problem with this approach to Islamization, according to Martin
van Bruinessen, is that it is ‘doubtful whether the foreign Muslim traders
with Southeast Asia were ever organized in anything resembling guilds.…’56
There is also ‘no recorded mention of any of the [Sufi] orders until several
centuries after the beginning of Islamization.…’57 When these orders did
eventually become established, added van Bruinessen, they seemed to find
a following in ‘court circles’ and only at a much later stage did they ‘filter
down to the population at large.’58 Just how Sufism came to have influence
in court circles, therefore, requires analysis if the growing global role of this
dimension of Islam is to be viewed as decisive in the expansion of Islam
in Southeast Asia. My emphasis then is on a top-down process, and I am
concerned to know why the rulers turned to Islam—and, in particular, why
it took until the 13th century for them to do so.
The ruler and Islamization

Van Bruinessen’s focus on rulers not merchant guilds—arguing against the view
that the spread of Sufism was a bottom-up development—brings me back to
research I undertook some time back. I noted then that Russell Jones was one of
the few scholars to highlight the central role of local rulers in the Islamization of
Southeast Asia, doing so partly through examining the positioning of rulers in
conversion myths in Malay/Indonesian literary works.59
54
Ibid., 21.
55
Ibid., 15–16. Johns modified his views later (1993), including by placing greater emphasis
on the role of ulama and on the emergence of sultanates in the Muslim world. See
endnote ix below. He concluded that there was ‘little reason to regard the Muslims of
Southeast Asia overall as being necessarily more legalistic, more mystical or more prone
to “syncretism” than other peoples of the Muslim world.’ Johns (1993, 60). Johns now
considered that the ‘generalization that the Indies became Islamized due to the spiritual
appeal of Sufism’ was ‘too broad.’ Ibid., 58.
56
van Bruinessen (1994, 5); also, Drewes (2001, 142); Feener (2019).
57
van Bruinessen (1998, 201).
58
van Bruinessen (1994, 13); see also Mohd. Taib Osman (1980, 7).
59
Jones (1979); see also Hall (1978, 225–26); Milner (1981). Levtzion (1979, 14) notes that
in West Africa as well as Island Southeast Asia ‘traditional accounts emphasise the
centrality of the rulers as the early recipients of Islamic influence and the subsequent
continuity of these ruling dynasties from the pre-Islamic to the Islamic periods.’
The historical evidence, such as it is, suggests that Islamization did not
generally entail conquest, or the replacement of existing rulers with Islamic
ones.60 According to the chronicle of the kingdom of Pasai—the Hikayat Raja-Raja
Pasai—the ruler of that North Sumatran polity received Islam on instructions from
Mecca. He was also sent ‘all the regalia and panoply of royalty’ from Mecca and
then invested as sultan by the Caliph’s representative. After the ruler accepted
Islam his chiefs and people ‘great and small’ followed him.61 This narrative, as
Kenneth Hall has observed, places stress ‘not on a community of faithful Muslims
(ummah) governed by law (shari’a) as appropriate to Islamic orthodoxy, but on a
ruler-centred, ritually bound community.’62
In the chronicle of the Melaka rulers—the Sulalatus Salatin (‘Genealogy of
Kings’), commonly (and misleadingly) referred to as the ‘Malay Annals’—the ruler
was again the first person in his polity to be converted to Islam. Having taken the
name Sultan Muhammad, he then ‘commanded’ all the people of Melaka, ‘whether
of high or low degree’, to become Muslim.63 The early 16th century Portuguese
account of Melaka by Tome Pires, which contains stories he gathered from the
earlier sultanate period, agrees that once the monarch had converted to Islam ‘he
made all his people do the same.’64 Pires adds that the ruler, influenced by ‘mollahs’
(religious scholars) with whom he talked,65 instructed other rulers in the region ‘in
the things of Muhammad, because he knew all about them.’66
Accounts from numerous other parts of the Archipelago, such as Kutai
(Borneo) and Patani, on the Peninsula, also portray rulers displaying leadership
in the propagation of Islam.67 Certainly, in the narratives which Malay hikayat
(prose epic) literature contain—narratives which were themselves ‘veritable tools
of Islamisation in Southeast Asia’68—rulers were ‘usually the first to be converted
to Islam, followed by their subjects.’69
When we consider what is known about pre-Islamic Southeast Asia, this
prominence of the ruler is not surprising. The centrality of monarchy is a long-
term distinguishing feature of the region—and, as Louis Dumont has argued, a
feature that marks a strong contrast between Southeast Asia and India, where the
caste system highlights brahman rather than ruler.70 The role of monarchy in the
pre-Muslim, Indianized period in the Archipelago is suggested by the way Arab
60
But see Reid (1984: 29–32) for instances of the exercise of force in the Islamization process
in Southeast Asia.
61
Hill (1960, 58).
62
Hall (2001, 208).
63
Winstedt (1938, 84).
64
Pires (1990, 242).
65
Ibid., 241.
66
Ibid., 251.
67
Jones (1989, 141–43, 147–48); Milner (1983, 30–31); Jajat Burhanudin (2018, 258–62);
Aljunied (2019, 36–37); Strathern (2017, 21); Gibson (2007, 16).
68
Bruckmayr (2017, 476).
69
Aljunied (2019, 49). In 1993 Johns supplemented his earlier emphasis on the role of
Sufism—stressing that the establishing of the ‘new institution of the Sultan’ by the 13th
century was significant in the Islamization of Southeast Asia. Johns (1993, 49).
70
Dumont (1980, 215).
30 | anthony milner
texts describe the Sumatra-based state of Srivijaya as ‘the empire of the Maharaja’,
‘the country of the Maharaja’, ‘the land of the Maharaja’ or ‘the islands of the
Maharaja’.71 A pre-Indian term sometimes translated as ‘kingdom’ gives a sense of
the centrality of monarchy having deep roots. The ruler was sometimes called—for
instance, in 7th century writing—a ‘datu’ and the term ‘kedatuan’ was also used.
The latter might be defined variously as ‘kingdom’, ‘province’ or ‘palace’ and is
perhaps best understood to mean ‘the condition of having a ruler’.72 There would
be an exact parallel here with the later, and Indianized, term ‘kerajaan’.73 In both
cases these terms convey the pivotal position of monarchy in conceptualizing the
state or polity. An equally powerful highlighting of the monarch’s centrality is the
way Malay texts describe the implications of not having a ‘raja’. In the absence of a
ruler, they stress, there must be ‘utter confusion’ (huru hara).74
The pre-Muslim ruler was as central in religious as in political and social
matters. This will be discussed in further detail later in this article, but Oliver
Wolters has noted that the Malay Annals portrays the pre-conversion ruler of
Melaka as a bodhisattva—the Buddhist conception of an enlightened religious
leader, who postpones his own spiritual liberation to assist the religious progress of
his people. The founder of the Melaka dynasty, so the Annals relates, materializes
on Bukit Siguntang, a hill near Palembang in Sumatra. The top of the hill gives
off ‘brilliant rays’—‘a familiar attribute of bodhisattvas’. The ruler later ascends a
‘lion-throne’ and wears a ‘special headgear, with five ornaments’—in both cases
symbolic of a bodhisattva figure.75 Strengthening the impression that this was an
influential concept in the Malay world, a further example from Sumatra concerns
a 14th century ruler of Melayu. He is described in an inscription as a ‘manifest
incarnation of Lokesvara’—a particular name for a bodhisattva.76
The monarchical state, the kerajaan, is a topic which I have considered at some
length.77 It is enough to stress here that one might expect the ruler to have been
central in the process of Islamization. One implication in the historical sources is
that royal subjects would have been unlikely to enter a religious structure in which
their ruler was not central. This may be why we see little indication of Malays
converting to Islam while their polities remained non-Islamic. By contrast, as
Khairudin Aljunied has pointed out, Chinese ‘converted to Islam as early as the
seventh century during the Tang dynasty, largely upon encounters with Arab and
Persian missionaries.’78
Another consequence of the monarch’s pivotal role was the continuity it
helped to give in the conversion process. The rulers investigated, elaborated, and
implemented the package of Islamic religious doctrines in their own way. They
provided leadership in appropriating Islamic doctrine and law, and in the creation
71
Milner (2008, 30–31); Tibbetts (1979); Laffan (2009, 26–27).
72
Milner (2008, 30).
73
Ibid.
74
Milner (2008, 67–68).
75
Wolters (1970, 128–31).
76
Drakard (1990, 254); see also Guy (2010).
77
Milner (2016); Milner (2008, Chapters 2–4).
78
of administrative machinery—and presumably in the design of mosque architecture

and gravestones, and the writing of chronicles. They retained pre-Muslim titles
while adopting new titles and epithets from the Muslim world. They also endorsed
social hierarchies—spelt out in various court writings—which modified the early
egalitarian aspirations of the religion.79
The monarch was even portrayed as central in the laws of his land. In the text
of the ‘Melaka Laws’—which included specific elements of Islamic Law along
with local laws—the ruler is described as ‘owning the laws’ and it is proclaimed
that ‘whosoever transgresses’ these laws will be ‘guilty of treason against His
Majesty.’80 In the inscription on the 14th-century Terengganu stone, the ruler is
called ‘the expounder on earth’ of the laws, and these laws also contained non-
Islamic elements.81 The royal texts produced in Malay royal courts spelt out an
approach to the adoption of Islam that continued to highlight raja leadership.
They convey that the pre-Muslim Malay royal polity—the kerajaan system—by no
means ended with Islamization. This point has been elaborated in recent times, for
instance, by Jajat Burhanudin82 and Khairudin Aljunied83—and it bears on a debate
concerning the impact of Islamization.
With respect to scholarly disagreement about whether Islam brought radical
or gradualist change,84 highlighting the continuing role of monarchy obviously
supports the latter view. By the 17th century, however, Islamic doctrines—advocated
by scholars determined to defend God’s Law (shari’a) against monarchical or any
other modification—did radically challenge the status quo. The Archipelago rulers
then faced a reformist movement which, in Azyumardi Azra’s words, aimed at the
‘socio-moral reconstruction of Muslim societies.’85
To return to the initial period of Islamization, and the immediate purpose of
this article, one critical advantage of identifying royal importance in Islamization
is that doing so offers an analytical opportunity. We gain a vantage point—a
human reference point—for seeking some form of internal understanding of the
propagation of Islam in Southeast Asia. For an historian influenced by the type
of history writing that philosopher R. G. Collingwood urged—and the Southeast
Asian historian, Oliver Wolters, practiced—the quest to understand events in terms
of the thinking of the historical actor is uppermost. What did Islamization mean to
the people engaged in the process? Although much of the writing on Islamization—
with its stress on economic patterns, network interaction among Sufi teachers and
so forth—is immensely valuable, it also seems abstracted, not sufficiently rooted
in specific human experience. M. C. Ricklefs asked the right question in his study
of the spread of Islam on Java. He wanted to know ‘what any Javanese thought
about the new faith, how they understood the meaning of Islam’s message and
79
Milner (2022); Aljunied (2019).
80
Milner (1981, 49).
81
Ahmat Adam (2017); Milner (1981, 49).
82
Burhanudin (2006; 2017; 2018).
83
Aljunied (2019). See also Milner (2008, Chapters 2 and 3).
84
See Milner (2008, 40–46); on gradualism, see also Ricklefs (1979), Brakel (2004) and
Braginsky (2004); for emphasis on radical change, see Reid (1993) and Al-Attas (1978).
85
Azyumardi (2004, 1–2); Milner (2002, Chapter 6).
32 | anthony milner
its implication for them.’86 Among other advantages, such an approach helps the
study of the propagation of Islam to contribute to the history of ideas.
What was it then that drove the rulers forward in Islamization—and, in
particular, why did they resist Islamization before the 13th century? An obvious
starting point for considering the ruler’s perspective is the narrative told to Tome
Pires. He was informed that in the case of the Melaka monarchy, ‘Mollahs and
priests learned in the sect of Mohammed’—ulama, whom he said were ‘chiefly
Arabs’—had come to the port with ‘Moorish Merchants’ before the ruler converted.
These ‘Mollahs’ tried to convince the ruler to ‘turn Moor’ and eventually he came
to ‘like them (Cortesão 1990, 240–41).’87 This account is consistent with the way
other sources highlight encounters between monarch and ulama.88 In 14th-century
Semudra (North Sumatra) it was reported by the Moroccan traveller, Ibn Battuta,
that the recently converted ruler was a ‘lover of jurists.’89 In court, ‘men of learning’
were on the ruler’s ‘right and left’;90 when the ruler rode on his horse or elephant
‘the theologians [were] on his right.’91
Focusing on the Melaka case, why then did the ruler eventually come to ‘like’
the ulama? What did he learn that made him finally opt for conversion? His point of
view, we might assume, would be at least partly concerned with leadership.
A galaxy of monarchies
One dimension of leadership likely to have interested an Archipelago monarch
was the matter of status. Concern about the status of monarchy is evident in the
Indianized titles rulers already possessed—‘raja’, ‘maharaja’, and also ‘Lokesvara’
(‘Lord of the World’)92—and it is clear from the earliest inscriptions that these
Archipelago polities were hierarchically structured.93 Preoccupation with status
is suggested also in the way, soon after conversion, monarchs adopted lofty
titles and epithets favoured by the new religion—‘sultan’, ‘shah’, ‘God’s Shadow
on Earth’, ‘The Helper of the World and of Religion’—using some of them, for
instance, on coins.94
There is evidence as well that Archipelago rulers, probably even back to the
period before Indianization, took serious interest in supernatural or magical
knowledge, including medical knowledge—what Strathern terms ‘empirical
demonstrations of efficacious spiritual force.’95 In more recent times, a possibly
parallel case may be the way Dayaks in Borneo made shrewd judgements about
the relative spiritual powers available in Islam and Christianity. They sought to
determine the merits of the different ilmu (knowledge) in assisting to control ‘the
86
Ricklefs (2003, 12).
87
Cortesao (1990, 240–41).
88
Burhanudin (2018, 260–61); Jones (1979, 147–48).
89
Gibb (1994, 877).
90
Ibid., 878.
91
Ibid., 879.
92
Wolters (1970, 131).
93
Casparis (1956, 37, 39).
94
Milner (1981, 52, 66 n66); Laffan (n.d.).
95
Strathern (2017, 24); Aljunied (2019, 55).
spiritual forces around them…’96 Going back to a time long before Islamization,
inscription writing from 7th-century Srivijaya indicates the value rulers placed on
shaman-like powers, some with Sanskrit names.97
When rulers did begin to engage with Muslim religious specialists, Malay texts
stress that they were keen to learn about supernatural powers.98 From a broader
regional perspective, Oliver Wolters has suggested that it is a characteristic feature
of the Southeast Asian region that rulers wanted to be up-to-date respecting the
latest spiritual knowledge.99 This helps to answer an issue raised by Alan Strathern.
He has asked: if kings ‘ground their legitimacy in religious terms’ then how can
they manage to ‘convert to a different religion’ before their subjects accept that
religion?100 The word ‘convert’ may distort the situation. In the early period of
‘Islamization’, such a ruler might be seen by his subjects as doing exactly what he
ought to be doing in the religious sphere: investigating new spiritual knowledge
from any direction, engaging in pragmatic experimentation rather than ‘conversion’
or ‘switching’ religions (as Strathern has put it).101
In general terms, the bodhisattva concept—discussed above—highlights well
the religious dimension, especially the religious responsibilities, of Malay-world
rulership. The concept of an enlightened leader assisting the spiritual progress of
his people is captured to some extent in the Muslim description of a ruler as ‘The
Helper of the World and of Religion’—an epithet considered appropriate to be
used on coins from 15th-century Melaka.102
Noting royal concern about status, spiritual powers and religious responsibilities
helps to recover a framework through which rulers might have assessed Islam.
Another long-established royal perspective was a determined search for trade.
In Malay court texts the successful ruler was often someone who could attract
large numbers of traders.103 Also, Pierre-Yves Manguin has noted that the actual
founding of kingdoms such as Barus (Sumatra), Chirebon (Java) and Kutei (Borneo)
is presented in Malay writings as being linked to the arrival of foreign trade.104
At least in the Archipelago monarchs’ concern about dignity and powers,
there do seem to be specific reasons why they embraced Islam in the 13th century
and not earlier. These reasons relate to changes underway in the wider Muslim
world. A strength of Johns’s writing on Islamization is that it viewed Archipelago
developments in this wider context—stressing that it was only from the 13th
century that Sufism took hold in Muslim societies more generally. I shall return to
how Sufism advanced in the Archipelago—including to examine further Johns’s
view that Sufis were the ‘active element’ in the process. An issue to consider first
96
Reid (1984, 23); Miles (1976, 80).
97
Casparis (1956, 36, 45–46); Winstedt 1947).
98
Burhanudin (2018, 261); Mozaffari Falarti (2022, 59); Strathern (2017, 26–27, 31).
99
Wolters (1999, 19–20, 114, 134, 139, 148).
100
101
Ibid., 34.
102
Milner (1981, 52).
103
Milner (2016, 41).
104
Manguin (1991, 42–45).
34 | anthony milner
is what other changes in the Muslim world might have influenced ulama dialogue
with an Archipelago ruler?
One development was in the way the institution of monarchy was viewed. A
comment by Jean Gelman Taylor touches on this issue. The form of Islam that was
eventually adopted in Southeast Asia, she says, ‘was not the Islam of the seventh-
century Arabian desert.’105 There was an egalitarianism—a lack of respect for social
hierarchy—in early Muslim society that would have troubled a Southeast Asian
ruler. A suspicion of worldly authority, for instance, is indicated in a statement
from the Prophet Muhammad that ‘whenever a man accedes to authority he drifts
away from God.’106 The 9th century religious scholar, Abu Bakr al-Asamm, was
known for his extreme discomfort with worldly authority, describing the ‘ideal
community’ as a ‘community of just men, which therefore has no need of political
leaders.’107 S. D. Goitein has quoted a 10th century thinker who condemned scholars
who ‘draw near to the rulers and take part in the dealings of this world’—and
another who said that ‘a religious man who goes to see a ruler loses his religion.’108
Goitein asked what accounted for this negative attitude, ‘found in so many
statements of the most authoritative expounders of Islam’: he suggested that
‘the spirit of freedom and even anarchy prevailing among the pre-Islamic Arab
tribes was revived in Islam on religious grounds in the form of opposition to the
established government.’109
Encountering such scepticism toward rulership and hierarchy in general,
Malay monarchs might understandably have viewed Islam with suspicion. By the
13th century, however, the situation had altered. Apart from the rise of Sufism,
a second development concerned the status of rulership. Persian perspectives on
monarchy had gained influence. The Caliphate itself began to be given a more
imperial character and, in addition, a wide range of other monarchies emerged.110
In the 11th century the Saljuq rulers took a new title, ‘Sultan’, and were also called
‘Shadow of God on Earth’. They have been described as adopting Persian ideas of
kingship. In Delhi, royal subjects had to prostrate themselves before the monarch,
who also came to be called ‘Shadow of God on Earth’. Not far away, the relatively
less important rulers of Bengal took the Persian title, ‘Shah’.111
Around the time Archipelago rulers decided to adopt Islam, therefore, they
would have been made aware of an expanding galaxy of Muslim monarchies.112
Also, rulership itself was attracting greater respect. In the 14th century, even Ibn
Taymiyya—renowned for condemning the continuation of pre-Islamic practices
(including the veneration of saints) which he believed to contravene Islamic law—
105
Taylor (2005, 154).
106
Goitein (2010, 206).
107
Mozaffari and Vale (1986–87, 30).
108
Goitein (2010, 206).
109
Ibid., 210. See also Hodgson (1974 Book 2, Ch. 3); Milner (1981, 53).
110
For further discussion of the impact of Persian ideas on Muslim monarchs, see Milner
(1981, 53–54), including references. Also, Azyumardi (2005).
111
Milner (1981, 53–54).
112
Ibid., 54; Laffan n.d. preferred the phrase, ‘patchwork of sultanates’. In 1993, Johns wrote
that Sultanates had ‘sprang up like mushrooms’ across the Muslim world. Johns (1993,
49).
wrote powerfully of the value of rulership. The Prophet, he said, had ‘ordained
that there should be a leader at the head of the smallest group of voyagers;’ also,
Ibn Taymiyya suggested that ‘sixty years with an unjust imam’ was preferable to a
‘single night without a sultan.’113
Here then is one reason why an Archipelago ruler might have begun to ‘like’
what he heard from ‘Mollahs’: embracing Islam would no longer entail acceptance
of a belief system hostile to monarchy. Conversion might be understood rather
as joining a world of kingdoms—some possessing similar features to those of the
long-established, ruler-centred monarchy of the pre-Islamic Archipelago.
It is one matter to say, however, that the new religion would no longer present
impediments to Malay royal priorities. But what positive advantages might the
Archipelago ruler have seen in conversion? The scholarly literature often focuses
on royal legitimacy—highlighting the instrumental value of Islam.114 I will return
to the matter of instrumentalist explanations, but what needs to be recognized first
is that the Archipelago rulers had long possessed legitimation—based on Hindu-
Buddhist or pre-Indian thinking. The old Malay title ‘Yang di Pertuan’ (‘One who is
made Lord’) or the Sanskrit ‘Raja’ and ‘Maharaja’ are not necessarily less magisterial
than ‘Sultan’.
The Perfect Man Doctrine

The other 13th century development in the wider Muslim world, the rise of
Sufism introduced above, might also have been viewed by Archipelago rulers
in instrumentalist terms—or at least partly so. To ask what Sufism could have
meant to them makes particular sense when we recall van Bruinessen’s suggestion
that the Sufi influence was not a bottom-up process but filtered down from the
royal court. Rulers, as we have seen, were keenly interested in efficacious spiritual
forces: and Malay writings—for instance, from Pasai, Melaka, Patani and Kutai—
describe them focusing on magical powers demonstrated by Sufis.115 The Islamic
religion may well have offered new ways of harnessing supernatural energy—
but can we assume rulers believed these ways more efficacious than the Hindu-
Buddhist or autochthonous powers that their royal ancestors deployed, going
back to Srivijaya times?
A Sufi doctrine that is likely to have attracted Malay rulers is that of the ‘Perfect
Man’. Increasingly influential in Mughal India and elsewhere in the Muslim
world,116 it is the concept of a saintly figure who realizes ‘his essential oneness
with the Divine Being.’117 In the manner of the Buddhist bodhisattva, the Perfect
Man has been portrayed as assuming responsibility for the spiritual progress of
his followers. He is believed able to bring ‘relief to the distressed’ and ‘spiritual
guidance to those who entrust their souls to his care….’118 Rulers would also have
113
Mozaffari and Vale (1986–87, 30); see also Lambton (1974).
114
For example, Hall (1978, 218, 225); Van Bruinessen (1994, 16); Strathern (2017, 22).
115
Hill (1960, 74); Aljunied (2019, 53–56); Jones (1979).
116
Milner (1981, 56–57); Binbas (2016).
117
Nicholson (1921, 78); Riddell (2003, 70, 75).
118
Nicholson (1921, 78).
36 | anthony milner
been aware that the Perfect Man doctrine was part of the Sufi knowledge that
offered access to supernatural or magical skills.119
There is indication of royal interest in the Perfect Man in the 14th century Pasai
court. In the Pasai chronicle, when an Indian yogi meets with the first Muslim ruler
of Melaka and begins to demonstrate magical skills he simply falls to the ground—
overwhelmed by the ruler’s keramat, or sanctity. The term ‘keramat’ comes from an
Arabic word for the magical powers of Sufi saints—of people likely to be on the
path toward becoming a Perfect Man.120 Khairudin Aljunied has pointed to another
significant element in the Pasai text. In the account of the ruler’s conversion to
Islam, it is said that the ruler in a dream encounters the Prophet who ‘teaches him
the tenets of Islam and the Qur’an.’ In Sufi thought, Aljunied notes, the person
who receives knowledge from the Messenger of God attains ‘the status of saint’,
becoming ‘an embodiment of the Insanul Kamil (Perfect Man)’, with the capacity to
direct others in religious matters.121
In the case of Melaka, in the mid-15th century Sultan Mansur is said by
the Malay Annals to be impressed by a certain religious scholar who was ‘very
knowledgeable in the science of Tasauwuf’ (or mysticism). A question which the
ruler asks this scholar has been identified as indicating knowledge of the writings
of the mystic scholars who developed the idea of the Perfect Man.122 In a later episode
in this text a successor to Sultan Mansur appears again to have engaged with the
Perfect Man idea. During a heated battle against the Portuguese, the Melaka ruler
is described as mounted on an elephant—’amid a hail of bullets’—studying the
doctrine of the ‘unity of God’ (tawhid). The scene is not comical when we note
that this spiritual preoccupation with tawhid—of achieving the ‘inner experience’
of being ‘at one with God’123—is typical of the Perfect Man. What is more, a Perfect
Man could be expected to possess the saintly power of invulnerability.124
The evidence for the influence of the Perfect Man in the Malay world is not
abundant.125 But Malay court writings also suggest rulers, or those ulama with
whom they spoke, displayed interest in the writings of the 15th century mystic al-Jili
and his 13th century predecessor, Ibn al-Arabi—who were together responsible for
developing the Perfect Man doctrine.126 Influenced by these scholars, some Malay-
language writings explain that there are ‘seven grades of being’ along which a
seeker ‘realises his potentialities’ and ‘becomes the Perfect Man’.127 Not only are ‘all
119
Schimmel (1975, 211, 242); Milner (1981, 54).
120
Milner (1981, 54).
121
Aljunied (2019, 51–52).
122
Milner (1981, 55).
123
al-Attas (1963, 20).
124
Milner (1981, 55). See also Archer (1937, 108–109).
125
It was initially examined by me in Milner (1981, 54–56). In Aceh we see the possible
Perfect Man influence again when a poem by the famous 16th-century Sufi writer,
Hamzah Fansuri, refers to the ruler as a saint or ‘wali’—what an authority on Sufism
describes as ‘the popular type of Perfect Man’. al-Attas (1966, 44). The same ruler was
described elsewhere as ‘My Perfect Lord’ (Sayyidi al-Mukammil). Brakel (1975, 58–66).
126
Milner (1981, 55); Drewes (1955, 291, 299–300, 309); Johns (1975, 44, 45, 49); see also
Feener and Laffan 2005, 203).
127
Bousfield (2003, 116); Riddell (2003, 104–116).
the prophets from Adam to Muhammad classed as Perfect Men, but also the most
saintly among the Sufis.’128 Potentially, an Archipelago ruler—such as the Sultan of
Melaka, poised on his elephant—could aspire to this status, becoming ‘vice-regent
of God’.129 As Peter Riddell points out, he might certainly see in such Sufi thinking
the opportunity to obtain ‘semi-divine heights in the eyes of his subjects’, that is,
to enhance ‘the popular perception of his kingship as one sanctioned, blessed and
in-dwelt by God130.’
Focusing on the political relevance to rulership of the Perfect Man, we might
take account of an observation by van Bruinessen. Given the supernatural benefits
offered by this doctrine and other aspects of Sufi thinking, it is not surprising that
Sufism was initially an elite project. Assuming rulers saw Sufism as ‘a source of
spiritual power, at once legitimizing and supporting [their] position’, comments
van Bruinessen, it would not have been in the interests of such rulers to ‘make the
same spiritual powers available to their subjects.’131 The issue remains of how far
Islam was perceived by rulers in such political terms.
Viewing the emergence of the Perfect Man doctrine, like Persian influence on
rulership, as making the Islamic religion more acceptable to Archipelago monarchs
would seem to help answer the question: why the 13th century? More thought
needs to be given, however, to positive factors—to the issue, why convert at all?
I have questioned whether new Muslim thinking about monarchy or spiritual
powers would have been understood to offer political advantages beyond the
kerajaan’s inherited cultural tradition. Continuing to approach Islamization from an
instrumentalist point of view, what advantages would royal courts see in moving
from a bodhisattva to a Perfect Man ideal? A further and critical matter is whether
it is appropriate to analyse Islamization in this manner, highlighting its possible
instrumental usefulness rather than its intrinsic religious value.
Why convert at all—methodological anxieties

Looking back to the question asked at the outset, about why Islamization did not
occur earlier in Southeast Asia, we have focused on the perspectives of Archipelago
rulers—and emphasised the role of ideas, and the contest of ideas. This is an aspect
of Islamization that has received too little analytical attention—though the writing
of Christian Pelras on Sulawesi is an important exception. He too focused on
monarchy and insisted that it is not sufficient to observe that Islam had at first been
resisted by rulers, one ‘has to understand how and why that resistance subsided.’132
He assessed that South Sulawesi rulers found in Islamic teachings ‘certain aspects
which they feared would jeopardize social order and threaten their power.’133
Eventually, as in the case of Melaka and other West Archipelago monarchies, these
128
Johns (1957, 18).
129
Ibid.
130
Riddell (2003, 112).
131
van Bruinessen (1994, 16–17).
132
Pelras (2001, 218).
133
Ibid., 221.
38 | anthony milner
rulers found what Pelras called a ‘medieval Persianized “Islamic” idea’ that could
serve as a new ‘basis’ on which ‘aristocratic power’ might rest.134
Adopting the monarch’s standpoint in the present essay has not been a random
choice. The evidence suggests that rulers were critical in Islamization. Conversion,
it would seem, tended to be a top-down development—not one filtering up from
marketplace to royal court. Also, a history of ideas approach—focusing on what
Islamization might have meant to a ruler—has provided a partial corrective to
Johns’s conclusion that the Sufis who came to the region were the ‘active element’
in Islamization. Placing stress on the significance of Sufism makes good sense—
but there are advantages in examining how it might have influenced, or been
appropriated by, rulers. To do so draws attention to the role of local agency:
Archipelago rulers engaging in dialogue with foreign ulama, weighing up what
they have learnt about changing Islamic doctrines and then—taking account of
long-held royal priorities—deciding to convert.
It is that decision which we will examine more closely in concluding this article.
My primary concern at this point will not be why conversion was delayed but why
it was undertaken at all. The issue, I will suggest, raises analytical difficulties.
One positive reason given for royal conversion takes us back to the trader-
Islamization nexus—and the reasons I gave for caution. The attracting of foreign
traders, as noted already, was a long-term royal priority. The specific issue here is
whether rulers, noting a growing number of Muslim merchants coming to their
port, and perceiving Islam no longer as an ideological threat to the hierarchical
kerajaan, would have seen commercial advantage in replacing or supplementing
old Hindu-Buddhist concepts with Muslim terminology and ideology. The
Archipelago monarch could then describe his role and responsibilities in terms that
Muslim visitors would understand, and probably respect. In the words of Oliver
Wolters, discussing 15th century Melaka, the ruler—’anxious to attract Moslem
traders to his port’—could show himself ‘to be an unmistakeable Moslem prince.’135
Taking the side of those we have seen to be wary of economic explanations for
Islamization, Syed Hussein Alatas focused directly on the ruler’s perspective. He
asked, if economic or political motives were the ‘main cause’ of conversion, why
did the 13th-century ruler of Pasai—one of the earliest royal converts to Islam—not
embrace ‘Chinese culture and religion’, as China was ‘the most formidable power
in that period engaged in trade and economic activity.’136 To ‘gain profit in trade’,
he argued, it ‘has never been necessary for any ruler to change his religion….’ As
noted already in this essay, there is evidence for Alatas’s conclusion that over the
centuries ‘Muslims had profited from trade with Malaysia and China, without the
need to convert the regions into Islam.’137
134
Pelras (2001, 231); see also, Gibson (2007, 39–42). On the ‘weighing up of two rival world-
views’ in Makassar, see also Reid (1984, 23). In focusing on the monarch, Pelras (2001,
231) draws on my 1981 analysis of the monarch’s role—as does Kenneth Hall in his
discussion of Islamization. Hall (2001, 208–209).
135
Wolters (1970, 164).
136
Alatas (1963, 79).
137
Ibid., 78, 80.
Another line of argument regarding the Archipelago monarch’s attraction

to Islam concerns political legitimacy—his authority as a ruler, in the minds of
his own people. With its growing ‘civilizational glamour’, Islam represented a
‘new source of prestige’ for rulers.138 In this political analysis, there really were
advantages to becoming a Persianized ‘Sultan’—or projecting a Perfect Man
rather than boddhisattva status. To use Islam in such a way, so numerous scholars
have argued, added to the monarch’s ‘legitimacy’.139 The Indonesian historian,
Jajat Burhanudin, has even suggested that Islam may have provided ‘a religious
justification for the rise of the absolutist kingdom of the archipelago.’140 To support
this political explanation, as suggested already, we need to be sure that emerging
Islamic doctrines were assumed to offer monarchy even more ideological support
than Hindu-Buddhist doctrines had done.
A further problem with such a political approach to conversion—as with
the stress on trade as a driver—is in a sense methodological. The highlighting
of royal preoccupation with trade or political legitimation, the foregrounding of
instrumentalist perspectives, seems to sideline the role of specifically religious
considerations in religious conversion. Avoiding such sidelining, of course, is
difficult. When we argue that monarchs in the ‘pre-modern world’ took every
opportunity to ‘ground their legitimacy in religious terms’,141 we approach
Islamization in a political register—and this is the register in which so much
modern social and historical analysis is written. Some years ago, historian Lucien
Febvre suggested that all activity in mediaeval Europe was ‘saturated with
religion’, so that it was virtually impossible to conceive of ‘unbelief’.142 Today, it
might be argued, we are saturated with politics—and struggle to find words to
conceptualize religious experience.
In his later writing, Oliver Wolters resisted to some extent the instrumentalist
emphasis. Although his 1970 analysis of the Melaka ruler’s conversion stressed
the quest for trade, his writing on Indianization highlighted what he termed
‘localization’. ‘Indian materials’, he argued, in a much-quoted passage, ‘tended
to be fractured and restated and therefore drained of their original significance’
when they were embraced. They were ‘localized in different ways’ to ‘fit into
various local complexes of religious, social, and political systems and belong to
new cultural “wholes”.’143 In the case of Hindu ideas being adopted in Cambodia,
Wolters suggested Khmers—while ‘continuing to perform their ancient roles’—
came to ‘see themselves as living in a “Hindu world”.’144 This was a ‘process … of
138
Hall (1978, 225).
139
See for example, Hall (1978, 218); van Bruinessen (1994, 16); Aljunied (2019, 63); Andaya
(2022, 1); Burhanudin (2006, 40); Lambourn (2008, 279); Gibson (2007, 16); Wain (2017,
431).
140
Burhanudin (2017, 235).
141
142
Febvre (1982, 343).
143
Wolters (1999, 55).
144
Wolters (1979, 437).
40 | anthony milner
empathy’145—and in the past, I have wondered whether something similar may

have happened in the advance of Islam, at least by the 13th century.146
Certainly, a stress on empathy—on fitting the new religion into local idea
complexes—helps to explain the gradualism that many note in the Islamization
process. If the new Muslim thinking could meld so easily with pre-Islamic ideas,
however, we must continue to ask what would drive a leader to adopt the new? A
helpful aspect of the ‘localization’ approach is the way the monarch’s conversion
to Islam—like the Indianization of centuries earlier—is not necessarily viewed as
the strategic appropriation of foreign ideas, driven by political-economic needs.
It is possible rather to portray Islamization as a process of understanding. In
their dialogue with the ‘Mollahs’—representatives of an increasingly prestigious
civilization—the Archipelago rulers might well have found themselves gaining a
new understanding of political and religious life. Although ‘continuing to perform
their ancient roles’ they perhaps began to conceptualize their royal status and
responsibilities—including their religious role—in Islamic terms. They would
come to ‘see themselves as living in a Muslim world.’
This endeavour of understanding would by no means have ignored religious
concerns. Spiritual issues were intrinsically important for both ruler and subject.
In writing about early Cambodia, Wolters suggested that political allegiance
‘expressed by personal loyalty, was no more than the sum total of the personal
religious concerns of the territorial chiefs who believed that an overlordship was
providing them with additional means of earning merit and satisfying their death
wishes.’147 It is possible to argue that similar spiritual priorities—expressed in the
quest for nama (reputation or status in this world and the next)—operated at the
heart of the Malay so-called ‘political system’, or kerajaan system, even after the
arrival of Islam. It was a quest animated by spiritual aspirations on every side.148
The monarch, positioned as the fulcrum of this system, would have had a
profound religious significance for his people—and religious responsibilities
toward them. We cannot merely assume that the bodhisattva role was a cynical
endeavour—in which rulers sought to appropriate ‘efficacious spiritual knowledge’
for the purpose of social control. Also, viewing Islamization as a ‘process of
understanding’, the ruler could be perceived as acknowledging a longstanding
responsibility to investigate all types of potentially beneficial spiritual knowledge.
He was learning—and not merely strategizing. However, having countered in this
way the instrumentalist approach to Islamization—insisting that rulers may have
been interested in the intrinsic religious merits of Islam—we are still left with the
question, why did rulers not merely investigate Islam but also convert?
145
Ibid., 440.
146
Milner (1983, 44). For a perceptive discussion of ‘localization’ with reference to
Islamization, see Braginsky (2004). But note that Braginsky sees Sufis insisting that yogis
made only futile attempts to attain mystical union with the ‘Supreme Reality’; in Islam,
Muhammad had achieved such union.
147
Wolters (1979, 441).
148
Milner (2016).
Personal religious aspirations cannot be discounted. There is reason to believe

that Malay rulers were not narrowly interested in the supernatural or magical
powers that Islam might offer—or even merely the responsibilities they had
toward their subjects. The Malay Annals relate that the religious scholar consulted
by Sultan Mansur of Melaka ‘commended [the ruler’s] aptitude and the progress
he made with his studies.’149 The Sultan, according to the text, was also troubled
by a question: Do those in heaven abide there for ever? And do those in hell abide
there forever? He even sends a mission to Pasai to consult the ulama there on
the matter.150 The Malay Annals does not report the answer from Pasai—but the
question itself suggests the ruler had genuine spiritual concerns.151
One recension of the Malay Annals adds that ‘at the time all the inhabitants
of Malacca had a genuine interest in speculations about after-life.’152 It is perhaps
not surprising that the ruler and his subjects had such concerns, assuming their
religious heritage included the concept of samsara—the endless cycle of birth and
rebirth in which all beings were supposedly engaged. One view was that a soul
spent a period in heaven or hell as a part of this process—and much attention in
Hindu-Buddhist thought is given to how a person can achieve a better position in
the afterlife, including eventual rebirth in a higher not lower status. The problem
of how to influence one’s status in the next as well as this life also continued to be a
strong theme in Malay court writings, right into the Muslim period.153
There is occasional documentary evidence—from various periods—of the
wide spiritual interests of Archipelago rulers. In the case of the ‘question to Pasai’,
discussed above, the different versions of the Malay Annals suggest rulers not
only had an intense interest in the issue but also possessed profound esoteric
knowledge. 154 We might also ask what type of spiritual questioning could have
been conveyed by an early 15th century ruler of Brunei to lead the Venetian
explorer, Antonio Pigafetta, to judge that the ruler might be ‘easily converted to the
faith of Jesus Christ.’155 In the 18th century, Sultan Muhammad Alimuddin of Sulu
investigated Christianity—and eventually converted—and the reports of some
Catholic priests suggest his spiritual concerns were sincere.156 In the next century,
although Western government officials reveal little of the rulers’ religious interests,
there are glimmers of evidence in Christian missionary reports. Thus, a Protestant
missionary wrote of his conversation with the Sultan of Terengganu, who asked
‘what our books said about the judgement day and the world to come.’ The ruler
added that Chinese people were ‘utterly ignorant of such matters.’157 Another
149
Winstedt (1938, 127).
150
Ibid.
151
Milner (1981, 55); Overbeck (1933, 237); Roolvink (1965).
152
Roolvink (1965, 138).
153
Milner (2016). For a discussion of the way Islamic thinkers could address longstanding,
Buddhist–influenced religious concerns in Java, see Johns (1966). For focus on the
‘dialogue’ between Sufism and Tantrism, see Braginsky (2004).
154
Roolvink (1965, 131, 134). The different recensions of the text disagree about whether the
Pasai or Melaka ruler possessed superior knowledge. Roolvink (1965).
155
156
De La Costa (1965).
157
Milner (1979/1980, 5).
42 | anthony milner
missionary, based in Penang during the 1830s, talked frequently with the former
Sultan of Kedah, who had been expelled from his office by Siamese forces. The
missionary described the ruler as displaying a genuine interest in church services,
missionary tracts and comparisons between the New Testament and the Koran.
There is no serious suggestion that the ruler would convert, but the reports do give
a sense of the range of his religious concerns.158
How then do we assess the role of religious drivers in Islamization? A
‘localization’ approach to religious change places too much stress on continuity. It
suggests that a ruler’s initial engagement with Islam might be seen as essentially
an exercise in relabelling—defining his longstanding status and responsibilities
in Muslim terms. But can we discount the possibility that a monarch’s personal
conversion to Islam was driven by a transformative religious experience?
Does a ‘localization’ approach obscure the possibility that there was something
powerfully and intrinsically attractive that might have driven conversion? Like
Geoffrey Benjamin, quoted in the early part of this essay, I continue to wonder
what developments might have occurred in royal thinking to make Malay rulers
‘predisposed to seek a world religion’. In this respect, Syed Hussein Alatas has
asked whether the Malays’ ‘traditional faith’—the mixture of indigenous and
Indian ideas that had long been their perceptual framework—no longer met the
‘requirements of the time.’ This would become ‘more glaring’, he said, when
‘another faith’ was positioned ‘side by its side as an object of comparison.’ Such
‘large scale religious changes’, suggested Alatas, were ‘always prepared by an
internal crisis within that particular society, in particular from among the elites.’159
It is right, of course, that historians have put emphasis on the ways in which
Islamic religious scholars communicated their ideas to Malay rulers: Sufis
representing ‘a type of teacher’ and teaching ‘a pattern of doctrine’ with which
Malays would be familiar. Aljunied says the fact that Sufis gained influence had
much to do ‘with the beauty of words, metaphors, and allegories used in their
writings...’160 They were also ‘master synthesisers’.161 But could Sufi thinking be
transformative? Of all writers on Islamization in Southeast Asia it is perhaps Syed
Naguib al-Attas and his brother, Syed Hussein Alatas, who have concentrated
most sharply not only on style and process, but on the message. ‘Sufi metaphysics’,
Syed Naguib has said, did not come to ‘harmonize Islam with traditional beliefs
grounded in Hindu-Buddhist beliefs and other autochthonous traditions.’162 The
Sufis came to ‘revolutionis[e] the Malay-Indonesian world view, turning it away
from a crumbling world of mythology.’163 They addressed ‘the ever increasingly
persistent question and demand for clarification of the nature of Being.’ They
offered ‘a new conception of Being.’164
158
Milner (1979/1980).
159
Alatas (1963, 80–81). For an example of Sufis comparing the Islamic faith favourably
with another, see note xii above.
160
161
Ibid., 42.
162
al-Attas (1978, 171).
163
Ibid., 165.
164
Ibid., 169.
Just how important personal spiritual revelation may have been in leading
Archipelago rulers toward Islam is probably impossible to determine.165 We do know
more about the setting in which the decision was made. Rulers were encountering
ever more Muslim merchants from both West Asia and China; they were learning
of the growing political power and prestige of Muslim kingdoms, including in
India; they were living in a time of turmoil in their region, with old hegemons in
decline and new smaller polities rising and competing with one another. To what
extent might the Archipelago ruler have sensed around him ‘a crumbling world
of mythology’—and felt the desire for a ‘new conception of Being’? Did rulers
conclude that their inherited beliefs were failing, especially when compared to the
teaching of Islam? How can we determine if rulers in the 13th and 14th centuries
sensed ‘internal crisis’? We are ending with questions not answers.
It is not only challenging to conceptualize religious experience—but the Malay
textual evidence tends to be opaque. Writings from kerajaan polities tend to give
little insight into individual consciousness. In this respect, let us turn finally to
the great narrative of the sultanate of Kedah—the Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa.
Discussing the way this text deals with the conversion of the Kedah ruler, Aljunied
notes that a Sufi mystic delivers what he (the Sufi) calls ‘the final message of God
to humankind…’166 The Sufi tells the ruler that the religious ideas of the past are
‘all astray, and not true’ and so the Devil has been able to create ‘total chaos’ (haru-
biru). The Sufi conveys, as Aljunied says, that Islam ‘nullifies all other religions that
came before it.’167 The ruler replies immediately—‘if this is the case, teach us about
this new religion.’168
This account gives the sense of a lightening moment—the resolution of ‘internal
crisis’, perhaps personal. One wonders whether Islamic teachings were indeed
perceived to answer urgent questions about the afterlife, the ‘nature of Being’. The
text does not reveal such detail. Religious considerations of one type or another,
however, are certainly in operation—though they struggle to find a place in most
modern analyses, so often written confidently in a politico-economic register.
To conclude, it seems impossible to be certain about what drove conversion—
yet even to admit the problem of identifying a suitable analytic framework could
be a step forward. There is more certainty in ascertaining why the religion was
not adopted earlier. Here I have highlighted the critical role of rulers—noting that
they as well as foreign Sufis were ‘active elements’ in Islamization. In seeking to
comprehend Islamization from the monarchs’ perspective, I have suggested that
they did not move earlier because of a clash of ideas regarding monarchy. The
ideas that held rulers back, in my view, are relatively easy to access. The pull factors
remain a challenge—and one of methodological as well as historical significance.
165
Note the way de la Costa (1965) struggles with this issue. I am grateful to Rey Ileto for
drawing my attention to this article.
166
167
Ibid.; Dzulkifli (1973, 144).
168
Dzulkifli (1973, 144).
44 | anthony milner
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JMBRAS, JUNE 2023 VOL 96 PART 1, NUMBER 324, pp.

The Timing of Islamization

‘brought the Malays into an ideological comity that was international,

communal tinge in our discussion; thus Muslims happily served in the

said, does warn against assuming rulers needed to be Muslim themselves to

The Sufis, Johns suggested, travelled to the Archipelago with trade

The ruler and Islamization

of administrative machinery—and presumably in the design of mosque architecture

The Perfect Man Doctrine

Why convert at all—methodological anxieties

Another line of argument regarding the Archipelago monarch’s attraction

empathy’145—and in the past, I have wondered whether something similar may

Personal religious aspirations cannot be discounted. There is reason to believe

Bruinessen, Martin van (1987). ‘New Perspectives on Southeast Asian Islam?’,

project ‘History of translations into Indonesian and Malaysian languages’, led

Overbeck, H. (1933). ‘The Answer of Pasai’, JMBRAS, XI, 11: 254–60.

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