The origins and development of Sufi orders (tarekat) in Southeast Asia

Abstract

Any theory of the islamization of the Malay Archipelago will have to explain at least why the process began when it did, instead of some centuries earlier or later. Foreign Muslims had probably been resident in the trading ports of Sumatra and Java for many centuries, but it is only towards the end of the 13th century that we find traces of apparently indigenous Muslims. The first evidence is from the north coast of Sumatra, where a few tiny Muslim kingdoms or rather harbour states arose, Perlak and the twin kingdom of Samudra and Pasai. During the 14th and 15th centuries, Islam gradually spread across the coasts of Sumatra and the Malay peninsula, to the north coast of Java and to the spice islands in the east.