islamic-jihad-legacy-of-forced-conversion-imperialism-slavery

Propagation of Islam: By Force or Peacefully?prominent Makassarese leader ‘defiantly declared that he would not bow to Islam even if the rivers flowedwith blood, as long as there were pigs to eat in the forests of Bulo-bulo. Miraculously, the story goes, all thepigs disappeared that very night, so the chief and all his men were obliged to convert.’ 315 One would becredulous in the extreme to believe that the pigs disappeared just like that miraculously. What, in actuality,might have led to mass conversion of the Makassarese is the threat of violence or a real war.According Hikayat Banjar, the chronicle of Banjarmasin (Indonesia) dating mid-seventeenthcentury, ‘the Islamization of Banjarmasin was effectively determined when opposing claimants to the thronedecided on single combat to avoid a civil war.’ 316 This again proves that Muslim rulers of Southeast Asiawaged wars for the express purpose of converting the subdued people; when they won, conversion of themasses was a compulsion, not a choice. Based on such examples, argues MC Ricklefs, ‘Conversion by armsmay have occurred (in Java) when a Muslim dignitary defeated a non-Muslim, whereupon the vanquishedand his people would presumably embraced Islam.’ 317The numerous Jihadi expeditions the Malacca and other Sultanates in Southeast Asia embarked uponfor their territorial expansion undoubtedly yielded great multitudes of slaves, who generally had to embraceIslam. Enslavement became most extensive in the region after the Muslim capture of power. When thePortuguese came to Islamic Southeast Asia, they found it hard to hire men for work on wage, because almostall the people were slaves to one master or another. Persian chronicler Muhammad ibn Ibrahim wrote in 1688that ‘‘It is their custom to rent slaves. They pay the slave a sum of money, which he gives to his master, andthen they use the slave for that day for whatever work they wish.’’ Similarly, Portuguese author Joao deBarros wrote in 1563: ‘‘You will not find a native Malay, howsoever poor he be, who will lift on his own backhis own things or those of another, however, much he be paid for it. All their work is done by slaves.’’ 318Hwang Chung, a Chinese traveler reported in 1537 that the people of Melaka “say that it is better to haveslaves than to have land, because largely slaves are a protection to their masters.” 319 According to Reid,‘many members of the slave-owning merchant class had strong roots in the Islamic world, which had a clearbody of law on slaves as property.’ 320 This suggests that it is Muslim merchants who had promoted slavery inMuslim Southeast Asia so extensively.When Ibn Battutah visited the Samudra Sultanate, the sultan presented to him two slave girls and twomen servants. 321 Battutah also mentions of slaves owned by the infidel ruler of Mul-Jawa, who entertainedBattutah for three days; one of his slaves sacrificed himself with his own hands, says Battutah, ‘for the love ofhim (the ruler).’ 322 This means that slavery obviously existed in pre-Islamic Southeast Asia. The citizens ofthe Thai Kingdom had to work for the king for half of their time, notes Reid. 323 This was a kind of slavery,too. In pre-Islamic Southeast Asia, slaves were probably owned by the rulers and high officials, not bycommon merchants; the latter became widespread under the Muslim rule. Most importantly, slaves owned byMuslims generally had to convert to Islam, which was not the case previously.Raiding non-Muslim territories became a constant phenomenon after Muslim powers wereestablished in Southeast Asia. It was ‘a period of Javanese history characterized by almost incessantwarfare,’ says Ricklefs. 324 A substantial part of the population, the so-called savages, lived in the hills. Overfive centuries after Muslims came to power in the early fifteenth century, those animist hill peoples315. Ibid, p. 35316. Ibid, p. 124317. Ricklefs MC (1979) Six Centuries of Islamization in Java, in N. Levtzion ed., p. 106–07318. Reid (1988), p. 131319. Ibid, p. 129320. Ibid, p. 134321. Gibb, p. 275322. Ibid, p. 277–78323. Reid (1988), p. 132324. Ricklefs in N. Levtzion ed., p. 106106