Revue des Livres/Book Reviews 171

Andrew C. S. Peacock, Annabel Teh Gallop (ed.)

From Anatolia to Aceh: Ottomans, Turks, and Southeast Asia, Oxford, Oxford
University Press (« Proceedings of the British Academy »), 2014, 300 p. ISBN:
9780197265819.

The economical, social, political, religious as well as cultural relations between

Ottomans on the one hand, and maritime Southeast Asia on the other, have a
long and complex history. During the early decades of the sixteenth century,
the connections were strengthened in the commercial domain. Aceh, at that
time was among the most powerful and influential Islamic polities in Southeast
Asia. With the Iberian expansion in the region after the Portuguese conquest
of Malacca, in 1511 and coeval Ottoman arrival to the Red Sea and Persian Gulf,
the balance of power in the India Ocean was reconfigured in favor of the new-
comers. Consequently, two political realms, Anatolia and Aceh, which col-
laborated in the sphere of trade, extended this cooperation to the sphere of
military technology and naval engineering as well as shipbuilding. Since then,
the role and influence of the Ottomans in Southeast Asia expanded into other
spheres which could be witnessed through achievements in the arts and reli-
gion, trade and education. During the period of European colonial expansion
in the nineteenth century, once again Malay states turned to Istanbul for help.
It now appears that these demands for intervention from Southeast Asia may
even have played an important role in the development of the Ottoman policy
of Pan-Islamism, positioning the Ottoman emperor as Caliph and leader of
Muslims worldwide and promoting Muslim solidarity.
Little has been published on the wider context of this relationship. If po-
litical and, although in a lesser quantity, economic aspects of this relation
aroused some interest from the beginning of the twentieth century, a thorough
book encompassing multifarious facets of this relationship had never been
published. A. C. S. Peacock and Annabel Teh Gallop accomplished this task. A
historiographical introduction to the subject and an overview of the research
by Anthony Reed, one of the pioneers of the subject, are followed by three
well-organized parts.
In the first part, The Political and Economic Relationship from the Sixteenth to
the Nineteenth Century, four articles cover a variety of subjects in an unequal
manner. Jorge Alves’ discusses the role played by Jewish and New Christian
Networks in Aceh-Ottoman relations during the 1550s-1570s. Andrew Peacock’s
survey of seventeenth-century economic relations, which deals with both
Ottoman imports from Southeast Asia (spices) and exports (carpets, horses,
coffee) to that region, as well as a survey of the presence of Ottoman visitors and
expatriates. Kathirithamby-Wells concentrates on the role played by Hadhrami

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/19585705-12341355

172 Revue des Livres/Book Reviews

merchants through their involvement in Sufi orders, khutba networks, and

pilgrim traffic, or as diplomatic emissaries and claimants of Ottoman protec-
tion against British and Dutch colonial authorities; as well as Isaac Donoso’s
study of Ottomans contacts with the Sulu and Maguindanao Sultanates of the
Southern Philippines.
The second part, namely Interactions in the Colonial Era, covers an in-
depth study of William Clarence-Smith’s on the nature of relations between
the Philippines, the new American overlords and Ottoman emissaries active
there between 1898 and 1919. In two separate and well-informed articles, İsmail
Hakkı Kadı and İsmail Hakkı Göksoy elaborate on the deployment of Ottoman
pan-islamic policies by concentrating on several unpublished sources covering
Southeast Asian rulers appeals to Ottoman protection. The chapters by Amrita
Malhi and Chiara Formichi, on British Malaya and the Netherlands East Indies
respectively, bring into the twentieth century the study of Southeast Asian
interest in the Ottoman Empire as well as that of the contemporary Turkish
Republic.
In the final part, Cultural and Intellectual Influences, Vladimir Braginsky
analyses Turkic influences in the traditional Malay literature, especially that
of Ibrahim al-Kurani (1616-1690). Oman Fathurahman elaborates on a lesser
known figure but an important cultural broker, i.e. Baba Dawud al-Jawi al-
Rumi. In the last and richly illustrated chapter, Ali Akbar examines copies of
Ottoman Qurans in Southeast Asia. This well-prepared and thorough volume
will doubtlessly provide a stimulating reading for researchers working on Asian
diplomacy, cultural transfers, colonialism, connected history, global history art
history in Early Modern as well as Modern period.

Güneş Işiksel

Studia Islamica 112 (2017) 149-174