Reconstructing the Role of Local Actors in the Islamization of East Kalimantan

The History of Indonesian Islamization has always been described as a one-way process, where Islam was brought to Indonesia by and on the initiative of foreign preachers. At the same time, the local community only passively accepted it. This view is typical of colonial scholarship, which stated that Southeast Asian society was backward and could only develop with the help of foreign civilizations. However, archaeological studies challenge this view, which shows that local Southeast Asian society had an advanced life system before the arrival of foreign civilizations. According to these findings, world religions came to Indonesia not at the initiative of foreign preachers but were invited by local rulers for local political interests. This study examines the debate between the two approaches in the case of Islamization in the Sultanates of Kutai and Paser in East Kalimantan. This study utilizes a cross-disciplinary corroborative approach, namely archaeological analysis and local politics, to test the mainstream historical narratives. This study found that the Islamization process in East Kalimantan is part of the local centralization of power and regional struggle for political and economic dominance. The findings of this study have two significances. Firstly, there is a need for criticism of the conventional History of Islamization based on the colonial paradigm. Secondly, methodological innovation and cross-disciplinary corroboration are needed to revive local history studies, which typically have poorly written sources.