1. Islam – Malaysia – History 2. Islam – Indonesia – History This essay presents a bold - even radical - configuration, perhaps for the first time, setting forth the outlines of a general theory of the Islamization of the Malay-Indonesian Archipelago. The author's vision of the past with reference to the history of Islam in the Archipelago, and his assessment of the cultural impact of Islam therein, may yet clarify the vagueness and obscurity that pervade the subject and, further, effect fundamental changes in the historical appreciation of the role of the Malay civilization, hitherto only fragmentarily and inaccurately formulated, in the history of Islam in the Archipelago.