Contemporary Madrasa Mobility, Fragmentary Literary Geography

This paper explores the role of the Malaysian madrasa as a fertile example incorporating both a physical site and a conceptual locus where, seen in one way, regional migration narratives intersect with literary geography. Positioned within Southeast Asia’s historic maritime networks, Malaysian Islamic madrassas have long functioned as central points for transnational Muslim scholars, student mobility, and diaspora communities across Southeast Asia, specifically the Malay world. By examining literary representations and to a certain extent the madrasa’s inhabitants and visitors’ oral stories surrounding a madrasa, this paper elaborates how madrasa could reconsider spatial identity and collective memory as pertinent to building a memory of madrasa as a possible site where literary geography narratives and mobility intersects. It demonstrates how peaceful social and cultural Muslim centers could generate a sacred geography production that transcends postcolonial state borders, transforming local educational spaces into dynamic hubs of transregional culture. By focusing on said madrasa, the paper argues that integrating literary geography with migration narratives reframes the Malaysian madrasa not merely as a traditional institution of faith, but as a liminal space where spatial mobility and identities belonging continuously negotiate and redefine one another.