Modern Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world. Together with Malaysia and the Philippine islands, this area is home to over 250 million Muslims. Historically, the region has been referred to as the East Indies, but we will use the term “archipelago” to include the modern nations of Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei and the term “Malay” as a comprehensive term to include the people, language and culture of these three nations.
Geography is a major determinant of history. The vast region extending from the Malayan peninsula to New Guinea is not a part of the interconnecting landmass extending from Morocco to Bengal. Geographic interconnections ensured political military interactions between North Africa, Egypt, West Asia, Central Asia and India. East Asia is separated from this interconnecting landmass by the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal. Due to its remoteness, the political and military events in East Asia were affected only peripherally by the events in the rest of the Muslim world. As a consequence, Indonesia and Malaysia had to forge their own history, which is related to that of the rest of the Islamic world more in its spiritual, intellectual and religious content and only marginally in its military-political content.
The pre-Islamic Archipelago had a Hindu ruling class over a Buddhist-Hindu-animist matrix. The first infusion of Indian elements into the Archipelago occurred during the reign of Ashoka (269-232 B.C.E.). Ashoka was the first to consolidate his power over much of the Indian subcontinent. His early reign was characterized by a relentless war to expand his dominions. However, after the Battle of Kalinga (circa 250 B.C.E.), he was so moved by the slaughter and destruction of the war, that he embraced Buddhism. His capital of Pataliputra (modern Patna) became a principal Buddhist center. Ashoka’s edicts of non-violence, reflecting the teachings of Buddha, were carved into stone and were sent to Sri Lanka, Burma, Afghanistan and the Indonesian Islands.