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The National Interest
Rooms and Borders
by Russell Seitz
. . . Where Islam has excelled best in its modern expansion is the Indo-Pacific. It proceeded directly from Arabia, whose Omani and Yemeni sea traders are both Sinbad's descendants and ancient forebears. Their seamanship made possible that Hellenistic precursor of Bowditch, The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. Their entrepots along monsoonal trading routes were already doing business when word of Islam arrived from the home offices in the 8th century. Trade then carried the Green Banner before it, soon producing thriving clones of the mother culture from East Africa and Mughal India to the Straits of Sumatra and the Sulu Sea. Colonies and sultanates with blood relatives back in Arabia Felix flourished and wed Arabian brides, and still do so to this day. It is no coincidence that conflict has manifested itself, as in the Bali bombing of October 2002, where extra-peninsular Islam finds itself face to face with the descendants of an earlier Hindu diaspora hosting hedonistic Europeans with a thirst for disco music and cold beer. . . .