Includes bibliographical references (pages 205-239) and indexes.

Networks of the Ùlamāʹ in the seventeenth century Ḥaramayn -- Reformism in the networks -- Seventeenth century Malay-Indonesian networks I : Nūr al-Dīn al-Rānīrī -- Seventeenth century Malay-Indonesian networks II : ʹAbd al-Raʾūf al-Sinkīlī -- Seventeenth century Malay-Indonesian networks III : Muḥammad Yūsuf al-Maqassārī -- Networks of the Ùlamāʹ and Islamic renewal in the eighteenth century Malay-Indonesian world -- Renewal in the network : the European challenge.

"Islamic renewal and reformism is an ongoing process which is commonly thought to have started only in the twentieth century. Professor Azra's meticulous study, using sources from the Middle East itself, shows how scholars in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were reconstructing the intellectual and socio-moral foundation of Muslim societies. Drawing on Arabic biographic dictionaries which have never before been analysed or used as research materials, Professor Azra illuminates a previously inaccessible period of history to show the development of the Middle Eastern heritage in the Indonesian archipelago." "The reader can trace the formation and expression of Indonesian Islam and the adaptation of the Arabic intellectualism into recognisably Indonesian idioms. For the first time we have a description of the actual process of localisation, a process of interest to historians, anthropologists and sociologist, and also a subject of intense contemporary relevance."--Jacket.