
How Did Indonesia and Malaysia Become Majority-Muslim? - jxub
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5o8avu/how_did_indonesia_and_malaysia_become/dchh4ru/
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forkLding
Summarization:

\- South East Asian Royalty adopted Islam due to being likely swayed by rich
Muslim merchants + missionaries and then gradually became popular.

\- South East Asian Peasant populations without strong Buddhist/Hindu
religious influences adopted it to fill void of previous Animist religions or
even just Animist traditions.

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cf498
>TL;DR: Shit was complicated.

>Actual TL;DR: Rulers converted for economic, political, and personal reasons.
Not much work has been done on popular conversion, but so far it seems that
the government and Sufis both helped spread Islam on a popular level. The new
religion was perceived as magic, provided solace in a changing world, and
finally became just a part of life.

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captainperl
Java used to be Hindu, as evidenced by Borobudur and other monuments.

If you're working in Indonesia and your boss is Muslim and you're not, the
fastest way to get ahead is to convert.

That plus other one-way traps reinforces Islam as a dominant religion.

~~~
bodhiandphysics
While Borobodur is many things, it is not Hindu. The friezes on the site are
stories from the life of the Buddha (and his past lives) and the monument
itself is capped by a large number of Buddhist stupas.

~~~
johnsavage
> While Borobodur is many things, it is not Hindu. The friezes on the site are
> stories from the life of the Buddha

Technically, the term "Hindu" as defined by the British just meant non-Muslim.
In fact, it was the British who popularized the term Hindu in the first place
since prior to British influence, there was no such religion, just a broad set
of different religions such as Shivaism, Buddhism, Vishnuism and numerous
others. In many places such as Assam, Buddha is revered by people who are
labeled as Hindu.

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Tycho
Does anyone have a plot showing % of population that is Muslim over time for
different countries?

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thisrod
I doubt that there's enough data to plot. For early modern South East Asia,
only a couple of records per century survive for the total populations of the
main cities, and those are pretty dodgy.

There might not be any quantitative records of religious beliefs. When our
ancestors encountered people of a different religion, it was more about
chopping heads off than about counting them.

~~~
Tycho
Maybe there could be some good proxies though.

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forapurpose
Who is the author? Is this accurate? Is it one guy's theory, a fringe theory,
one of competing mainstream theories, or consensus?

Certainly Reddit and the comment's length are not indicators of accuracy. They
are indicators of an author with a lot of time and motivation, which could be
good or bad.

~~~
Analemma_
In general this is true, but /r/AskHistorians (along with /r/AskScience) is an
exception. It has very high standards for answers (as you can see several
times a day when a the mods nuke an entire thread for not being good enough):
all answers have to cite reliable sources and they have many “verified”
posters who the mods have confirmed are actual historians in their field. I’m
sure misinformation sneaks in on occasion, but overall the posts are reliable
and you can consider them, including this one, to be reliable.

~~~
forapurpose
Thanks. Where can I find out the credentials of who wrote that answer? Also,
as I asked before, how do I know where this theory fits in the domain of
accepted theories?

> It has very high standards for answers (as you can see several times a day
> when a the mods nuke an entire thread for not being good enough):

I'll point out that this practice indicates nothing about the quality; it
depends on the mods and not on the quality. If the mods' taste happens to
correlate with quality, only then would it result in higher quality comments.
For example, mods in a forum that promotes conspiracy theories might also
delete threads that don't match their definition of 'quality'.

I'm a little concerned that the parent comment might represent a Reddit theory
of accuracy, quality and scholarship, but not the real thing.

~~~
Analemma_
Their criteria for an "expert" flair are discussed here:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4p4wl7/rules...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4p4wl7/rules_roundtable_13_what_is_an_expert_what_does/)

As for individual posters, you can probably just message them and they'll be
happy to provide their background. If not, I'm guessing you can message the
mods and ask for some proof that they are who they say they are.

