New perspectives on Southeast Asian Islam?

Abstract

The heightened public interest in Islam, due mainly to events in Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Egypt, has not only resulted in a boom in publications on Islam and politics in Iran and the Arab world, but has also led to a noticeable, though more modest, increase in the number of books and articles on Islam beyond the Middle East. There is a growing awareness of the peripheral zones of the Islamic world both among Muslims themselves and among outside observers. Such internationally oriented Islamic journals as Crescent International (neo-fundamentalist) and Arabia (liberal) are devoting increasing attention to the Muslim communities in sub-Saharan Africa and South, Southeast and East Asia. In the Islamic vernacular press in the Middle East, the Afghan Mujahidin still score highest in coverage, but the struggles of the Muslim minorities in Burma, Thailand and the Philippines are receiving in-creasing attention, as are the political tribulations of Indonesia's Muslims. Western observers, too -joumalists, politicians and academie area specialists -have turned their attention to the large Muslim