Why did the Indonesian people receive Islam?

Answer 1

Initially, in the late 1200s and 1300s, Islamic merchants from Arabia and East Africa had interactions with Indonesian merchants, especially in the Banda Aceh region of northern Sumatra. These contacts resulted in willful and free religious conversions by many Acehnese to Islam. In the following centuries, when Islam was the dominant religion among the Acehnese, the Acehnese Sultante conquered numerous islands in the Indonesian archipelago resulting in discriminatory legal practices against non-Muslims in their empire. This led to large conversions of Indonesians from Syncretic Forms of Buddhism to Syncretic Forms of Islam to avoid these discriminatory treatments.

When the Netherlands colonized Indonesia, they put an end to Islamic hierarchy, but unlike most European colonizers, the Dutch did not impose Christianity on its conquered regions. As a result, the percentage of Muslims in the country increased since being Muslim was seen as a symbol of being non-Dutch. Additionally, the Dutch increased contacts between the western islands where Islam had long been dominant (like Sumatra, Java, and Borneo) with more eastern islands (like Sulawesi and Irian Jaya) where Islam had been weaker allowing for the development of larger and more integrated communities. By the time of Indonesian independence from the Dutch, Islam was over 80% of the Indonesian population.