ABSTRACT

As Malaysia’s economy grows and flourishes, strong new links are being forged with other developing countries in the region and beyond. This book traces the ways in which age-old organizational, political, religious and trade networks between Nusantara, the Malay World, and Central Asia, East Africa and the Middle East have changed in recent years. The book argues that these old links are being revived by new forms of globalization, modernization and knowledge transfer that are developing and implementing non-western models of governance, often in direct reference to Islam. The book goes on to explain how, as Malaysia develops new links with Indian Ocean countries, many of them Muslim countries, a new style trading network is being formed, a network with Islamic characteristics, which echoes Indian Ocean Islamic trading networks of earlier times. Interspersed with interesting methodological insights into the latest network, transnational and spatial theories, the book provides detailed case studies of Malaysia’s and Southeast Asia’s trade and numerous other links with Indonesia, Egypt, Zanzibar, Comoros and Central Asia, and concludes by assessing how Malaysia’s and ASEAN’s new style network is likely to develop and influence wider global networks. Written with a depth of knowledge reflective of the author’s many years of research throughout Asia, this book gives a real insight into how Malaysia’s mentalities, traditions and ways of thinking are being applied to its interactions with its immediate neighbours and the wider world.

chapter |7 pages

Introduction

Trends, visions and concepts in the developing world between the Middle East, the Silk Road and the Lands beyond the Winds

chapter |23 pages

New theoretical meanings?

Transnationalism, networks and the semi-authoritarian state

chapter |19 pages

Sufis, traders, seafarers

Reconsidering nineteenth-century networks between Nusantara, East Africa and the Arab Peninsula

chapter |16 pages

Towards the middle path?

The tectonic shifts in the Islamic world

chapter |15 pages

The Asian Tiger on the Nile

Knowledge transfer, modernization and bilateral linkages between the Middle East and Southeast Asia

chapter |16 pages

Race, patronage and the hybrid authoritarian state

Guyana and Malaysia revisited

chapter |18 pages

The failure to create a networked Islamic space

Malaysia and Central Asia in the 1990s

chapter |15 pages

The Snow Leopard's Vision 2030

Central Asia, the Asian Far East, ASEAN and regional cooperation

chapter |10 pages

Instead of a conclusion

Khilafah, transnational Islamic networks and the Caliphate state in Southeast Asia