Chapter 10 Mainland and Insular Southeast Asia 391Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lampur, and Jakarta in the twentieth century. As
minority communities specializing in trade, these diaspora Chinese were visi-
ble and frequent targets of envy and animosity. In some places, like Bangkok,
they took Thai names and attempted to assimilate into Thai society. In other
places, like Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Jakarta, they remained visible as a
Chinese ethnic minority, and often retained their ties to China. It is these, espe-
cially the Chinese of Singapore, who have come to be identified among Asia’s
“Confucian Capitalists.”
Islam. Unlike Buddhism in Southeast Asia, which was associated with
land-based empires ruled by chakravartins, Islam spread among maritime trade
communities. In the fifteenth century, Malacca’s population quickly grew along
with trade from 50,000 to 200,000 persons consisted primarily of Muslim mer-
chants of many ethnicities: Gujaratis, Bengalis, Javanese, and Chinese (Risso
1995). A Hindu chief named Parameshvara converted to Islam and changed his
name to Megat Iskander Shah. His control of the center of trade ensured that
his kingdom would flourish and with it, Islam. From here, the faith spread
throughout the Malay world, joining it to a great religious community stretch-
ing from the Middle East through India and Southeast Asia. Converts took
Arab names, thereby enhancing a growing Muslim identity that transcended
their original cultures. Malacca was not the only coastal, Islamic trading center;
these trading classes spread to other islands and to Java itself, threatening the
older Indic “theater states” with “a tangled crowd of foreigners and locals...
unassimilable to the Indic world view” (Geertz 1968:39). In the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries the balance of power began to shift to these newcomers
whose faith was in Allah. Mosque and market replaced temple and court as
centers of sociopolitical power and cultural growth. The Malacca sultanate pro-
vided Southeast Asia with a prototype Malay state different from the “theater
state” of the Indic model, yet in many ways also a moral, exemplary center.
The sultan was the source of all honors and the defender of the Islamic faith.
Muhammad’s teachings provided a formidable contrast to the Indic world-
view with its rich symbolism. Islam was simple to the point of asceticism. The
many gods of Hinduism were reduced to One God, Allah. Where the rich and
powerful Hindu raja was allowed many wives, a rich and powerful Muslim sul-
tan or merchant could have only four. Drinking and gambling were prohibited.
Religious practice was simplified to the Five Pillars, all obligatory: the confes-
sion of faith, repeated over and over (“There is no God but Allah and Muham-
mad is his Prophet”); the five daily prayers; fasting during specified periods; the
once-per-lifetime pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj); the religious tax, or alms. The
smoky clutter of images, offerings, and clanging bells that make a Hindu or
Buddhist temple a place of such symbolic density was replaced by the austere
mosque, little more than a large room where many worshippers can gather on
their knees in prayer.
Despite this simplicity, Islam was not a world-rejecting religion like much
of Hinduism and Buddhism. The fact that Muhammad actually formed a suc-