February 20, 2024

Shapers of Islam in Southeast Asia
Muslim Intellectuals and the Making of Islamic Reformism

Southeast Asia is home to one of the largest Muslim populations in the world today. The region has also produced a cohort of reformers who have critiqued the limits of Islamic thought and propounded new lines of thinking with an eye toward constructing a better ummah.

Shapers of Islam in Southeast Asia captures the progressive and pluralistic nature of Islamic reform in Southeast Asia from the mid-twentieth century onward, a period that can now be regarded as the age of networked Islam. Offering a fresh conceptualization, the book shows how several influential Muslim intellectuals have given rise to an “Islamic reformist mosaic” in Southeast Asia. Representing different strands of reformist thinking, these shapers of Islam have constructed a unified and coherent frame of thought that distinguishes itself from the ultra-traditionalist and ultra-secularist leanings. This fascinating study is indispensable to anyone interested in understanding the challenges facing Islam and other religions in the modern world.

Khairudin Aljunied is a Professor of Southeast Asian Islamic and Intellectual History at the University of Brunei Darussalam and Senior Fellow at the Alwaleed Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. A recognized specialist in the study of Islam in Southeast Asia, he is the author and editor of thirteen books, most recently Islam in Malaysia: An Entwined History (2019) and The Handbook of Islam in Southeast Asia (2022).