- 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.
>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.
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.
This image [1] comes from "Converson to Islam in the Medieval Period" by Richard Bulliet [2]. The percentages inferred by Bulliet roughly track a sigmoidal curve. He makes an argument in analogy to the spread of a disease through a social network.
It should be noted that the deta is from Iran, but presumably the same arguments apply for Southeast Asia.
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.
> 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.
> If you're working in Indonesia and your boss is Muslim and you're not, the fastest way to get ahead is to convert.
This is hyperbole. While Im sure there are businesses where it's true (there are millions of them in Indonesia), it's not common at all, at least in my experience in Java/Sumatera. There are glass ceilings based on ethnicity in some companies, but it's rarely related to religion and more based on cultural cliques.
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.
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.
I find that /r/AskHistorians values length of answers and the formation of a narrative there within to be valued above pretty much any other concern. Citations are rare, and its even rarer that anyone checks out of they match up. Stuff isn't really vetted, although occasionally really outrageous stuff gets called out.
I would not classify it as reliable, even if accurate and knowledgeable people post there.
AskHistorians is definitely not about the length of answers, except in that it takes a fair bit of writing to communicate complicated histories. The format does encourage a narrative, but that's reflective of the fact that most of the people reading are laypeople, not scholarly peers who can be expected to know unstated background. If you personally find it easy to teach laypeople the breadth of a field of discourse without narrative simplification, you have a very rare skill.
That said, I think many people misunderstand the discourse that's happening there. It's not academic, but instead a touchpoint between academics(-ish) and laypeople. The kinds of questions being asked are decidedly not the sorts of questions discussed in literature. Flairs in turn have to give an educated answer that actually communicates with the asker. Citations don't really fit well into what's happening for either side. They're time consuming to produce and no one reads or even understands them, nor do they provide particularly relevant information. You can't usually cite a consensus, after all.
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.
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.
Really shows the power of poor culture and civilization. Compare these places to Thailand for example. The latter is a very peaceful and harmonious society. But as soon as you get to the southern tip of Thailand, or any of these Islam based societies, things get very nasty very quickly.
I did not realize that YC News had religious trolls making random assertions on how a certain region is harmonious and another is not simply because they follow another religion.
Don't exactly agree on that assertion. History shows that one can make that argument about a lot of religions. It is more so to do with the geopolitical ambitions of nation states at respective times.
In the modern era - many nation states have fallen behind on a lot of indicators - human development index, scientific innovation, education etc., and all of them directly / indirectly contribute to instability.
The OP is just saying that, because of a not-too-far-in-time religion shift among people of a certain part of that country, there are conflicts. The rest is just your imagination.
It is factual to say that some cultures more than others are more conducive to the general well being of everyone, especially if we can agree on the baseline that the worst possible suffering for everyone is BAD, and everything else is better and you build up from that.
Some scriptures have seriously bad ideas in them, such as direct calls for violence against certain minority groups and people professing different beliefs from the majority. Some cultures are so integrated or intwined with these scriptures that it would be intellectually dishonest to say they do not influence and play a major part in the culture. The link is stronger in some cultures than what we are used to in a modern mostly secular west. Currently some cultures are simply not the best place for women or non heterosexuals to be in, that is a fact.
Change towards bettering these cultures can not happen if ideas can not be discussed openly and the cultures and some of their core tenets can not be criticized. It is not racism or racist or whateverphobic to criticize islam the religion and certain similar aspects of cultures surrounding it in muslim majority countries.
That is not to say that other cultures don't have issues but for example Buddha did not call for killing gays and unbelievers and spreading the faith through violence, even if some people in countries that profess being majority buddhist do cause violence. [1] I just don't think it's feasible to throw the Pali canon or core tenets of buddhist thought at someone to manufacture suicide bombers of them.
Majid Nawaz, a former radical islamist who was jailed in Egypt for being part of what could be called an extremist (or even terrorist?) organization has been making rounds talking about having a 'war of ideas' and the need for reforming islam. [2] He co-authored a book with Sam Harris called 'Islam and the Future of Tolerance'. The book explores islam and some of its dangerous doctrines and how the muslim world needs to embrace reform to bring their culture to the 21st century. [3]
> But as soon as you get to the southern tip of Thailand, or any of these Islam based societies, things get very nasty very quickly
There's an Islamic insurgency / independence movement in the south of Thailand. It's far from the poorest region. Once you get into Malaysia any distance, it's as peaceful as the rest of Thailand again, if not more so. Hard to know what point you're making, other than your unfamiliarity with Northern Malaysia? Nearby you have countries with fairly recent Buddhist-led, Hindu-led, and avowedly secular conflict.
Also, the main driver for the insurgency is that the "peaceful and harmonious" Kingdom of Siam (now Thailand) conquered what was then the Sultanate of Pattani in 1785 and have been trying to forcibly assimilate it ever since.
I spent a few weeks traveling the length of Malaysia, and it was far less sketchy than some (touristy) parts of Thailand I was in the previous few weeks. The folks I met seemed quite peaceful, even when we discussed the international news at the time (brexit, donald and his talk of a muslim ban in the US, etc) and local politics.
36 comments
[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 51.1 ms ] thread- 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.
>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.
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.
It should be noted that the deta is from Iran, but presumably the same arguments apply for Southeast Asia.
[1] http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-69BqAL9ARKg/T1WBF0NwxeI/AAAAAAAAAB...
[2] http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674732810
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.
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.
[1] https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/642
This is hyperbole. While Im sure there are businesses where it's true (there are millions of them in Indonesia), it's not common at all, at least in my experience in Java/Sumatera. There are glass ceilings based on ethnicity in some companies, but it's rarely related to religion and more based on cultural cliques.
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.
I would not classify it as reliable, even if accurate and knowledgeable people post there.
That said, I think many people misunderstand the discourse that's happening there. It's not academic, but instead a touchpoint between academics(-ish) and laypeople. The kinds of questions being asked are decidedly not the sorts of questions discussed in literature. Flairs in turn have to give an educated answer that actually communicates with the asker. Citations don't really fit well into what's happening for either side. They're time consuming to produce and no one reads or even understands them, nor do they provide particularly relevant information. You can't usually cite a consensus, after all.
> 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.
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.
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
Some scriptures have seriously bad ideas in them, such as direct calls for violence against certain minority groups and people professing different beliefs from the majority. Some cultures are so integrated or intwined with these scriptures that it would be intellectually dishonest to say they do not influence and play a major part in the culture. The link is stronger in some cultures than what we are used to in a modern mostly secular west. Currently some cultures are simply not the best place for women or non heterosexuals to be in, that is a fact.
Change towards bettering these cultures can not happen if ideas can not be discussed openly and the cultures and some of their core tenets can not be criticized. It is not racism or racist or whateverphobic to criticize islam the religion and certain similar aspects of cultures surrounding it in muslim majority countries.
That is not to say that other cultures don't have issues but for example Buddha did not call for killing gays and unbelievers and spreading the faith through violence, even if some people in countries that profess being majority buddhist do cause violence. [1] I just don't think it's feasible to throw the Pali canon or core tenets of buddhist thought at someone to manufacture suicide bombers of them.
Majid Nawaz, a former radical islamist who was jailed in Egypt for being part of what could be called an extremist (or even terrorist?) organization has been making rounds talking about having a 'war of ideas' and the need for reforming islam. [2] He co-authored a book with Sam Harris called 'Islam and the Future of Tolerance'. The book explores islam and some of its dangerous doctrines and how the muslim world needs to embrace reform to bring their culture to the 21st century. [3]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Rohingya_persecution_in_M...
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wE2jHf3RKk
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_the_Future_of_Tolera...
There's an Islamic insurgency / independence movement in the south of Thailand. It's far from the poorest region. Once you get into Malaysia any distance, it's as peaceful as the rest of Thailand again, if not more so. Hard to know what point you're making, other than your unfamiliarity with Northern Malaysia? Nearby you have countries with fairly recent Buddhist-led, Hindu-led, and avowedly secular conflict.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html