Islamic Nationhood and Colonial Indonesia

The Umma Below the Winds

By Michael Francis Laffan

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About the Book

Drawing on previously unavailable archival material, this book argues that Indonesian nationalism rested on Islamic ecumenism heightened by colonial rule and the pilgrimage. The award winning author Laffan contrasts the latter experience with life in Cairo, where some Southeast Asians were drawn to both reformism and nationalism. After demonstrating the close linkage between Cairene ideology and Indonesian nationalism, Laffan shows how developments in the Middle East continued to play a role in shaping Islamic politics in colonial Indonesia.

Reviews

'All readers should be duly impressed by the considerable achievements of this new book. Laffan's study demonstates impressive erudition, analytical skill, and a supra-regional breadth rarely found in Southeast Asian Studies.' - Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

Table of Contents

Introduction 1. An Ecumene in the 'The Lands Below the Winds' 2. Arab Priests and Pliant Pilgrims 3. The Hijazi Experience and Direct Colonial Visions of the heart of the Ecumene 4. Colonizing Islam and the Western-Oriented Project of Indies Nationhood 5. Reorientation among the Jawa of Mecca 6. The Jawa and Cairo 7. Islamic Voices from Singapore, Java, and Sumatra 8. Towards an Indigenous and Islamic Indonesia 9. Indonesia Visualised as a Fractured Umma below the Winds 10. From the Meccan Discourse of a Jawi Ecumene to the Cairene Discourse of an Indonesian Homeland

About the Author(s)

Michael Laffan obtained his doctorate from the University of Sydney, 2001. He is currently Assistant Professor at Princeton University, where he studies the history of Southeast Asia, focusing on the development of Indonesian nationalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the ongoing conversations between Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Michael Laffan is the winner of the ASAA President's Award 2002.