The publication of vernacular Islamic textbooks and Islamization in Southeast Asia <Muslim networks and movements in Asia. Part1:'Jawi' and ideas of community in Southeast Asia>

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries witnessed a fresh wave of Islamization in Southeast Asia, marked by both a considerable increase in the number of pilgrims to Mecca and the emergence of Islamic schools (pesantren, surau, and dayah) in local villages.The business of publishing Islamic textbooks called "kitabs," also flourished in Southeast Asia during this time.Today, there are pesantrens throughout the Indonesian archipelago, and many of them still use kitab kunings (yellow kitabs) as textbooks, even though they have been threatened by the appearance of "white books".This paper examines how the business of publishing kitabs has spread in Southeast Asia and mainly Indonesia, what the contents of the kitabs were during this process, and what role the published kitabs have come to play in Southeast Asian society.