Re: Majapahit and Islam

Dear Tadao,

Betty's not on this list, but I will forward your post to her,
although she leads a very busy social plus a very warm family life,
she will answer you as soon as she finds the time, I'm certain.  In
fact I'll show her this today if she comes to the discussions, looks
like some fine historical forays coming up for us!

Amara


--- In palistudy@..., ppp <miyamoto@...> wrote:
> Hi, Betty:
> Sometime ago you mentioned that the presence of the
> Mon people was (one of) the main reason(s) why
> the penunsula SEAsia wasn't overtaken by Islam
> while the island SEAsia was overtaken by it.
> As you know that histroically Indonesia had two
> great powers; one being Srivijaya and the other
> Majapahit. Both of these political powers cutivated
> (Hinduism and) Mahayana Buddhism. By the 14th century,
> however, Majapahit's power embedded due possibly
> to the raising of many local rulers, who
> established their own lucative trading networks,
> (which was part of the international network)
> undermining the economic ground of the kingdom.
> These local rules all seem to have SO EASILY
> adopted Islam as their religion. The question
> I would like to ask you is why did these local rulers
> adopt Islam? I know that it is very easy for one
> to covert to Islam. All one has to do is to profess that
> he is a Muslim. This fact does not, however, explain
> why these local rules adopted Islam so easily. Do you
> know whether at that time in Indonesia there were any
> political, economical, social reasons/benefits due to
> which these rules converted their religion to Islam?
> tadao