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[Excerpted from The Toyota FoundationOccasional Report, May, 1992, pp. 2-4.]
For over a thousand years the Arabs havemaintained a very special relationship with the Southeast Asia regionand its people. Historically, this relationship has been deep andpermanent; sociologically, it has been extensive and continuous;culturally, it has been rich, manifesting itself in a range of ways;and in every other sphere it has been pervasive and significant. Yethitherto there has been no major documentation evaluating thecontribution of the Arabs to the evolution of the region's politiesand histories. There has been a tendency to view the role of theArabs in Southeast Asia in a geographically compartmentalized contextor in a narrow time frame; their presence in Southeast Asia hasseldom been examined in a cohesive and coherent fashion.
"The Arabs in Southeast Asia: A Historicaland Sociological Study" was undertaken with the help of internationalgrants from the Toyota Foundation in the hope of correcting theimbalance of information on the role of Arabs in the region. Myreconstruction of this role makes use of British, Dutch, Arabic, andvernacular records, both historical and contemporary, from within theregion and beyond. Inevitably, this study raises a number oftheoretical and conceptual questions relating to some of the majorissues pertaining to the phenomenon of Islamization in the region,the dynamics of Arab and Muslim identity, and the pattern ofintegration and assimilation of the Arabs in SoutheastAsia.
A key issue examined in the study is thedefinition of "Arab." One reason it has been difficult to devise acommon and universally applicable definition of the Arabs is theirheterogeneous nature. Furthermore, as a people they have been widelydispersed geographically. Arab identity rarely seems to be based onterritoriality.
The Arabs in Southeast Asia hail from allover the Arab world, but the majority are from Hadramaut, an ancientregion in Arabia Felix, or South Arabia. The Hadarim, or Arabs fromHadramaut, cherish a very strong sense of Arab identity, which seemsto overlap considerably with Islamic identity. In the Islamizedworld of Southeast Asia, Arab and Islamic identity are generallyperceived to be synonymous. The Arab tends to be seen asrepresenting the ideal Muslim. It is this universal popularperception of Arab identity in the region that makes it both potentand dynamic.
The study also confirms two other majorcharacteristics of the Arabs: their obsession with movement, whichillustrates their nomadic proclivities, and their very strong triballoyalties, which manifest themselves in clannishness. The Arabs fromHadramaut have been migratory from time immemorial. They haveemigrated not only to Southeast Asia but also to East Africa, theIndian subcontinent, the Arab world from Morocco and Mauritania inthe west to the Gulf States in the east, and even Europe and China. The harsh political and economic realities in Hadramaut and theIslamic notion of geography, which considered the world to be auniversal unit without territorial frontiers, greatly facilitated themigration of the Hadrami Arabs.
The Hadrami Arabs are proud of their originsalthough they may have been geographically removed from Hadramaut forgenerations. In this connection, it is useful to note that the Arabkinship system is patrilineal. This is especially significant forthe Hadrami Arabs in Southeast Asia, who intermarry with local womena great deal, yet remain almost fanatical about their Arabidentity.
At present, with the exception of a thousandor so first- and second-generation Arabs who remain citizens of Arabcountries, usually either Yemen or Saudi Arabia, the Arabs inSoutheast Asia have become citizens of various nations in the region. The majority have become assimilated into national society. Somehave almost completely lost their objective symbols of Arab identity,but most continue to possess some of these symbols in varying degreesand ways.
The question of Arab identity has been acentral theme in all three of the broad phases of developmentrelating to the role of the Arabs in Southeast Asia: the precolonial,colonial, and postcolonial periods. In the first, long period ofcontact between the Arabs and the region, which stretched from aboutthe ninth century A.D. to around 1800, all kinds of relationshipswith Southeast Asia were established. The Arabs engaged in trade,commerce, shipping, shipbuilding, scholarship, missionary activities,diplomacy, and even local politics.
The movement of Arabs into the region wasgradual, sporadic, and small in scale, though always significant. Inthe traditional international order, which did not interfere witheither freedom of movement or cultural and religious autonomy, Arabcommunities thrived. In fact, because this period coincided with thedominance of Islam, and because Arab identity was generally perceivedas being contiguous with Islamic identity, the Arabs were able tomanipulate their ethnicity to penetrate local society to obtainrewards and benefits disproportionate to their numbers.
The most important method the Arabs adoptedto achieve this was marriage. Often they used their genealogicalclaim to being direct descendants of the Prophet Muhammad to gainacceptance into local polities as members of the nobility or royalty. In some cases they took over or founded ruling dynasties, choosingto exchange their Arab identity for an Islamized indigenous identity. It is therefore not surprising that many of the so-called nationalheroes of the region as well as local ruling houses were actuallyArab in origin. It was the predominance of the political culture ofIslam in the Islamized areas of Southeast Asia thet made thispossible in precolonial times. But the situation was to change withthe advent of colonialism.
In the colonial period, beginning around thenineteenth century, Arabs began moving into Southeast Asia in greaternumbers and at much more frequent intervals than in the precedingperiod. But this time their movement was not as free. The Arabs hadto operate under colonial patronage. Islam, too, was generally indecline, and there were far fewer opportunities for the Arabs toexploit religion to their advantage.
Of course there were various forms ofopposition against colonial rule undertaken by local leaders of Arabdescent, but colonial policy had brought about the emergence of Arabcommunities that prefered to insulate themselves from local societyin exchange for rewards that the colonial administration accordedthem. Although religion continued to be relevant to the Arabs, theygenerally tended to give priority to econonic activities and theacquisition and accumulation of wealth.
It was also the newly acquired wealth of theArabs in Southeast Asia that gave them a new role in their"homeland." Money began to be channeled back to Hadramaut forvarious purposes. Some went into the development of the region, butsome was sent to the Arabs' own tribes to help fund the chronictribal feuds that characterized Hadramaut.
In the postcolonial period the Arabscontinued to have a role in Southeast Asia, but that role became to aconsiderable extent a function of the political systems of thenations they lived in. Throughout Southeast Asia, with the exceptionof Singapore, the Arabs accepted some kind of indigenization andbegan reconciling themselves to their new responsibilities ofcitizenship. But the issue of Arab identity, which of necessity hasbeen played down, continues to be relevant to the Arabs.
Meanwhile, Hadramaut became part of the newPeople's Republic of South Yemen in 1967, which was renamed thePeople's Democratic Republic of Yemen in 1970, and became the firstArab state to espouse Marxism. On May 22, 1990, the People'sDemocratic Republic of Yemen joined the Arab Republic of Yemen (NorthYemen) to become the Republic of Yemen, and Marxism was discarded. Although it would be difficult to attempt to ascribe a role in theserecent development to the Southeast Asian Arabs, they definitelyplayed a part, directly and indirectly, in creating the historicalcircumstances that enabled the above scenario to unfold.
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