The Islamic community in Southeast Asia is widely regarded as one of the most moderate and tolerant in the Muslim world. While most of the region's Muslims are Sunni and fairly orthodox, the Islamic faith as practised in the region has historically been a syncretic blend of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and folk religions. The syncretic roots of Southeast Asian Islam also underscores the pluralistic nature of Islam in the region today, where Muslims have generally lived peacefully in religiously mixed communities, even in areas where they constituted a large majority.

Alongside these pluralistic trends in Southeast Asian Islam are some alternative streams of social-political activism that threaten its traditionally inclusivist character. While most Southeast Asian Muslims are known for their moderation, there has historically been a very small but vocal minority who have been drawn to the more puritanical or extremist variants of the faith. In addition, there is a gradual but clearly discernible trend of conservatism among the general Muslim population, particularly in Malaysia and Indonesia, which has given rise to exclusivist attitudes towards non-Muslims.

The material gathered in Volume I of this new Routledge collection focuses on the historical, cultural, sociological, theological, and intellectual aspects of Islam in Southeast Asia. Volume II, meanwhile, assesses trends in Muslim politics in Southeast Asia, investigating the success and failure of political Islam in the Muslim-majority cases of Indonesia and Malaysia, as well as the Muslim-minority contexts of Thailand, Philippines, and Singapore.

Volume III identifies and analyses the primary actors and agents that are involved in the formation and development of a burgeoning pan-regional parallel civil society network bringing together religiously inspired Islamist NGOs, civil society actors and agencies, the media, professionals? associations, and political parties; the work collected here charts out a virtual map of the new Islamist activist geography of Southeast Asia. Finally, Volume IV examines the nexus between Islam, politics, and terrorism in the aftermath of the Bali bombings of 2002. It also interrogates the interaction between mainstream political Islam and more extremist fringes of the Islamic communities across the region, as well as domestic and international factors driving radicalism.

Fully indexed and with an introduction newly written by the editors that comprehensively places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, this new Routledge Major Work is an essential research and teaching resource.

Michael Leifer, who died in 2001, was one of the leading scholars of Southeast Asian international relations. He was hugely influential through his extensive writings and his contacts with people in government and business in the region.

In this book, many of Leifer 's students, colleagues and friends come together to explore the key themes of his work on Southeast Asia, including the notion of order, security, maritime law and foreign policy. The book concludes with an overall assessment of Leifer 's background, worldview and impact on his field.

A scholarly and personal volume devoted to Leifer's vast contributions to the discipline of international relations, this text is a must-read for students and scholars specializing in the region.

Michael Leifer, who died in 2001, was one of the leading scholars of Southeast Asian international relations. He was hugely influential through his extensive writings and his contacts with people in government and business in the region. He also inspired many new students of the region, an impressively large number of whom are now leading figures in their own right in the study of Southeast Asian international relations.
In this important book many of Michael Leifer's students, colleagues and friends come together to explore the key themes of Michael's work, and to discuss the contributions he made. The particular themes explored include the notion of 'order' - a key theme in Michael Leifer's work, a concept never fully defined; the institutions concerned with regional order, especially ASEAN and the ASEAN Regional Forum, which Michael viewed as being only limited in their effectiveness; maritime security and its management, a little studied, but highly important, aspect of Southeast Asian Security, where the interests of China potentially conflict with those of Southeast Asian states; and the making of foreign policy within particular states, where Michael Leifer emphasised the important role of the different worldviews of different states. The book concludes with an overall assessment of Michael Leifer's contribution to the study of Southeast Asian international politics.