AHC: A Unified Indonesia Islamic Empire ala the Ottomans

[Commissar]

As the tin says. This Unified Islamic Empire must wind up controlling ALL of modern day Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and Palawan Island.

It must survive intact with these areas under its control to 1900.

Good luck.

 

[Beedok]

Sounds cool, if only I knew enough to help.

Maybe some Spanish super failure?

 

[kasumigenx]

As the tin says. This Unified Islamic Empire must wind up controlling ALL of modern day Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and Palawan Island.

It must survive intact with these areas under its control to 1900.

Good luck.

Just have the Bruneian Empire survive then conquer Majapahit.

 

[Falecius]

Just have the Bruneian Empire survive then conquer Majapahit.

Or get rid of the Dutch somewhat and have Mataram, or less probably Demak or Aceh, do the job. Malacca also has a chance if you avoid the Portuguese encroachments, but I guess that some European tech could be helpful.

 

[jackalope]

Hate to say it, but what might work best is a Muslim exile group from someplace like the Sindh should work best. Indonesia and all of SE Asia was reoccurring dependent upon Hindu and Muslim immigrants. It makes sense that at least a 2nd generation group or individual would be the unifier for such an innovation. The Turks, of course, came from Central Asia and were much changed in everything but language by the time they hit what is now Istanbul/Bulgaria, etc. Maybe the same approach could work, maybe not. I do not know enough of the Malay thinking. Their language were in the early 20th century already a lingua franca of a great many parts of the ports of Indian and South Pacific Oceans until Malaysia adopted Royal terms for the language, instead of a more pigin.

 

[Falecius]

Hate to say it, but what might work best is a Muslim exile group from someplace like the Sindh should work best. Indonesia and all of SE Asia was reoccurring dependent upon Hindu and Muslim immigrants. It makes sense that at least a 2nd generation group or individual would be the unifier for such an innovation. The Turks, of course, came from Central Asia and were much changed in everything but language by the time they hit what is now Istanbul/Bulgaria, etc. Maybe the same approach could work, maybe not. I do not know enough of the Malay thinking. Their language were in the early 20th century already a lingua franca of a great many parts of the ports of Indian and South Pacific Oceans until Malaysia adopted Royal terms for the language, instead of a more pigin.

The Turks, as well as the mixed groups, usually of Afghan or Turkic Central Asian descent, that formed much the Mughal Empire's elite, were able to establish themeselves as empire-building forces in a context that had just experienced major disruption caused by Mongol invasions. Indonesia has this, it is an archipelago with nothing similar to a nomad-horde-breeding steppe anywhere close. The local loose equivalent should be a naval power of sort. Not sure how this could play out, actually Indian Muslim elites played a major role in Malacca and Demak empire-building and Hindu and Buddhist groups in former large Indonesian polities, but they always lacked the kind of naval power that equalled what the steppe-nomad cavalries was on land, in particular with the Mongols (and the Seljuks to a lesser extent).
The idea of Empire of that kind surely existed, imported from India (both Hindu-Buddhist and Muslim) in Indonesia. The archipelago proved OTL to be too polycentric to sustain such a ting on such a wide scale, though Mataram under Agung did its best actually. The problem was at the point where such an empire was possible in Indonesia, the balance of naval power was already shifted in favor of non-Muslims (one could say that actually the Dutch almost fulfill the OP, except that they were not Muslims)

 

[Ridwan Asher]

The only way I can come up with to fulfill OP's request is to make sure Majapahit won't undergo anything like Paregreg Civil War which IOTL permanently crippled the empire, and that have it later convert to Islam after a temporary decline(which I think would be necessary in order to motivate them converting), than later reemerge as a more centralistic empire.

The problem with using other islands as the basis for such empire OP is requesting is that Java is just to heavy, population wise, and also that it's strategically located within Indonesian archipelago. Even the Dutch, whether you're refering to VoC or Kingdom of Netherlands by saying Dutch, made Java as the center of their rule in Indonesian archipelago, since it was simply logical to strategically.

 

[Ridwan Asher]

Hate to say it, but what might work best is a Muslim exile group from someplace like the Sindh should work best. Indonesia and all of SE Asia was reoccurring dependent upon Hindu and Muslim immigrants. It makes sense that at least a 2nd generation group or individual would be the unifier for such an innovation. The Turks, of course, came from Central Asia and were much changed in everything but language by the time they hit what is now Istanbul/Bulgaria, etc. Maybe the same approach could work, maybe not. I do not know enough of the Malay thinking. Their language were in the early 20th century already a lingua franca of a great many parts of the ports of Indian and South Pacific Oceans until Malaysia adopted Royal terms for the language, instead of a more pigin.

The Turks, as well as the mixed groups, usually of Afghan or Turkic Central Asian descent, that formed much the Mughal Empire's elite, were able to establish themeselves as empire-building forces in a context that had just experienced major disruption caused by Mongol invasions. Indonesia has this, it is an archipelago with nothing similar to a nomad-horde-breeding steppe anywhere close. The local loose equivalent should be a naval power of sort. Not sure how this could play out, actually Indian Muslim elites played a major role in Malacca and Demak empire-building and Hindu and Buddhist groups in former large Indonesian polities, but they always lacked the kind of naval power that equalled what the steppe-nomad cavalries was on land, in particular with the Mongols (and the Seljuks to a lesser extent).
The idea of Empire of that kind surely existed, imported from India (both Hindu-Buddhist and Muslim) in Indonesia. The archipelago proved OTL to be too polycentric to sustain such a ting on such a wide scale, though Mataram under Agung did its best actually. The problem was at the point where such an empire was possible in Indonesia, the balance of naval power was already shifted in favor of non-Muslims (one could say that actually the Dutch almost fulfill the OP, except that they were not Muslims)

It's rather anachronistic to project horse nomad model to archipelagic country to begin with. The requirements for uniting archipelagic country like Indonesia are : 1) Unrivaled navy 2) Convenient source of manpower to draw soldiers from, and 3) Strategically positioned power base.

It's not absolutely necessary to have foreigner party to unite Indonesian archipelago under single rule. Majapahit would take time, but it already had a perfect basis to do it from strategical perspective. Post-Majapahit was kinda to late though since by that time Java was already quite splintered, but still to formidable for anyone without resource bases outside of Indonesia to subdue.

@Jacklope : Bahasa Indonesia is based on the more pidgin form of Malay, based on Riau Malay that has been used as lingua franca in Indonesia region for half a millenium. Malaysian Malay is based on Peninsular dialect.

Depending on the PoD used, we don't really need to use Malay for the main language of this hypothetical empire. As been said, the form of Malay used today was only began to be used as regional lingua franca for the last 5-6 centuries or so, post Majapahit era. There's also one thing to note that due to Majapahit legacy, High Javanese was used as court language in several Sultanates outside of Java, such as Palembang.

 

[jackalope]

Bahasa Indonesia[/URL] is based on the more pidgin form of Malay, based on Riau Malay that has been used as lingua franca in Indonesia region for half a millenium. Malaysian Malay is based on Peninsular dialect.

QUOTE]


The way I read it was that the most extreme pidgin was used all over the
Indian Ocean and a fair amount of the South Pacific in martime trading,
even whites learning it. Shortly after nationhood and instituting their
Malaysian language standard, school educated shipping hands stopped
using this pidgin well and other countries baulked at learning a royal,
formal language.

And under Sukarno/Sukarto, the Indonesian shipping slipped away for
the international shipping, the domestic market not included. Malays
often were part of the shipping, including very large boats, but they
stopped using pidgin. So the language rapidly was replaced by English
for those international shipping areas.

 

[kasumigenx]

Or get rid of the Dutch somewhat and have Mataram, or less probably Demak or Aceh, do the job. Malacca also has a chance if you avoid the Portuguese encroachments, but I guess that some European tech could be helpful.

Brunei had the most chances, It took many colonial western powers to dismember Brunei not a single foreign power can conquer it completely, I think Brunei can expand and stop the European colonization in South East Asia but they did not have the opportunity to do so, I think one factor in the decline of Brunei was the selling of Sabah to Sulu but still they had the Capability after that then came the British and the Dutch.

 

[pa_dutch]

I think a pre-modern Malay empire would ignore New Guinea. It's too far away and has very little infrastructure. The Philippines and southern Thailand are more likely targets.