Introduction: Performance, Popular Culture, and Piety in Malaysia and Indonesia

This book explores the complex intersections of public cultural forms—performing arts and popular culture genres—and Muslim piety in Indonesia and Malaysia, the two largest Muslim-majority nations of Southeast Asia. There is also significant minority populations of Muslims scattered across the region living in Burma, Cambodia, Thailand, Viemam, Singapore, and the Philippines, as well as the small Muslim-majority state of Brunei (see figure I.1). Although Malaysia and Indonesia do not constitute all of Muslim Southeast Asia, they are a highly important segment in terms of political influence and sheer numbers. Indonesia is the fourth largest population in the world and the single most populous Muslim country, with over 200 million Muslims; while Malaysia, with its greater economic development and influence, has often lauded itself, and is often viewed, as a model Muslim nation. There is a growing awareness early in the twenty-first century that these two nations, in particular, and Muslim Southeast Asia, in general, must no longer be sidelined in studies of Islam.