Keywords
VOC
EIC
Colonialism
Empire
How to Cite
Abstract
This review discusses a book that explains the condition of Muslim societies in the Indian Ocean region from 1775 to 1945. In broad terms, this book narrates the involvement of imperial powers with Muslims in the Indian Ocean region starting from the 1770s. The historical account begins with the British East India Company (EIC) seizing Cape Town and the Moluccas, which were then controlled by the Dutch through the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, VOC). It proceeds through the period when the Ottoman Empire partnered with Britain and concludes with the Japanese occupation that overthrew Western powers in Southeast Asia in the 1940s. The strength of this book lies in its extensive use of primary sources to explore the lives of Muslims in the Indian Ocean and their interactions with colonial powers.References
Alavi, Seema. 2015. Muslim Cosmopolitanism in the Age of Empire. Cambridge (Mass.) London (GB): Harvard University Press.
Bishara, Fahad Ahmad. 2017. A Sea of Debt: Law and Economic Life in the Western Indian Ocean, 1780–1950. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781316659083.
Kooria, Mahmood. 2022. Islamic Law in Circulation: Shafi’i Texts across the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781009106825.
Laffan, Michael Francis. 2003. Islamic Nationhood and Colonial Indonesia: The Umma Below the Winds. London and New York: Routledge.
Laffan, Michael Francis. 2022. Under Empire: Muslim Lives and Loyalties Across the Indian Ocean World, 1775–1945. New York: Columbia University Press.
Van Bruinessen, Martin. 2024. “Under Empire: Muslim Lives and Loyalties across the Indian Ocean World, 1775–1945 By Michael Francis Laffan.” Journal of Islamic Studies 35(2): 275–78. doi:10.1093/jis/etad059.
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