T h e establishment of Mahomedanism in Java is
just of 347 years standing; yet even this event,
comparatively so modern, is involved in much of
that fable and perplexity, which are ever inseparable,
from the story of rude people in every age, I
shall, in this chapter, endeavour to glean for the
reader the true circumstances of this transaction,
where they appear of sufficient consequence to
merit narration. The eyent is an important one
in the particular history of the people of whom
I am rendering an account; and so far as it
illustrates the character of a people in a peculiar
stage of civilization,—of consequence in the history
of man in general.
Mahomedanism was predominant in the west-
ern portion of the Archipelago, at least 150
years before it was finally established in Java.
The commerce in spices, for which the western
countries of the Archipelago were the emporia,
attracted thither some adventurers from the Arabian
and Persian Gulfs, at an early period, who,
colonizing on the coasts, became in time fit Sp*
struments for the propagation of the Mahomedan
religion.
No record whatever is preserved of any
early intercourse between Arabia and Java, but
there can be little doubt but the richest and
most civilized country of the Indian islands soon
attracted the curiosity or cupidity of the Arabian
traders or of their descendants, naturalized among
the western natives.
The Hinduism established throughout the Archipelago
was by no means of the same inveterate
character as that of continental India. It had not
laid a strong hold of the imagination, and was not,
as there, interwoven, not only with political institutions,
but with the common duties and offices of
life. * It had by no means superseded the still
grosser local superstitions of the country, and
it was à system in itself too complicated and
subtile to suit a state of society unquestionably
more rude and unimproved than that in which its
baneful empire has been so fully established. In
Java, which contained the most civilized community,
Hinduism, we are warranted in believing,
must have made a deeper impression than in
any other country of the Archipelago ; and to this
we ought, in some measure, to ascribe the long
rejection of Mahomedanism by the Javanese, after
it had been adopted by so many of their neighbours.
Even among the Javanese, however, the
empire of the Hindu religion over the human
mind was very far from being firmly established.
The propagation of Mahomedanism, when once
# Hume’s History of England, Vo!, I.
VOL. I I . XJ