Description:
"This book is a major contribution to our understanding of Indonesian Islam. Laffan's methodical and exhaustive research provides us with a well of information and insights that will be mined by scholars and students for years to come. The Makings of Indonesian Islam establishes a new benchmark for scholarship on the subject."--Barbara Watson Andaya, coauthor of A History of Malaysia
"The Makings of Indonesian Islam is the best available overview of Islam in the Netherlands East Indies. Laffan offers an original and exciting way of studying the subject."--Nico Kaptein, coeditor of Transcending Borders: Arabs, Politics, Trade, and Islam in Southeast Asia
Review Quotes: "This well-written, deeply erudite history by Princeton historian Laffan, a prominent scholar of Islam in Southeast Asia, explores the development of Islamic learning in the islands of what is now Indonesia as well as how the faith came to be understood and explained by Dutch scholars during the colonial period. As such, the book offers a compelling parallel history of Indonesia, setting up an engaging new narrative separate from the one most commonly presented, wherein the imposition of colonial rule and later emergence of nationalist consciousness follows a more secular path. . . . The analysis of this intellectual life, along with the thorough understanding of local religious authorities' deeply felt faith, offers a new vision of Indonesian lives under colonial rule."-- "Choice"