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Contention has surrounded the status of minorities throughout Indonesian history. Two broad polarities are evident: one inclusive of minorities, regarding them as part of the nation's rich complexity and a manifestation of its "Unity in Diversity" motto; the other exclusive, viewing with suspicion or disdain those communities or groups that differ from the perceived majority. State and community attitudes towards minorities have fluctuated over time. Some periods have been notable for the acceptance of minorities and protection of their rights, while others have been marked by anti-minority discrimination, marginalisation and sometimes violence. This book explores the complex historical and contemporary dimensions of Indonesia's religious, ethnic, LGBT and disability minorities from a range of perspectives, including historical, legal, political, cultural, discursive and social. It addresses fundamental questions about Indonesia's tolerance and acceptance of difference, and examines the extent to which diversity is embraced or suppressed.

Interlinear translations from Arabic into Malay and Javanese have been produced in Southeast Asia since at least the sixteenth century. Such translations included an Arabic original with its lines spaced out on the page and a word for word translation appearing between the lines, attempting to replicate the Arabic down to the smallest detail. This essay engages with the theme of World Literature and translation by (1) considering the interlinear text as microcosm: a world of intent and priorities, of a transfer of meaning, of grammar and syntax in translation, of choices and debates, and (2) by thinking of Arabic writing during an earlier period as a world literature sought after in many regions, whose translation in diverse forms and tongues had a vast impact on languages and literary cultures.

The question of Shi'ism in Muslim Southeast Asia is a thorny and complicated one, encompassing broad religious and political implications. Did Shi'ism, for example, exert an influence on a particular writer? Should a certain book be classified as Shi'i or not? Such inquiries , important as they may be, are often too dichotomous or simplistic to answer in the context of our current state of knowledge. This is certainly the case when Javanese manuscript literature, which is the focus of this chapter, is considered.

Indonesia today is the world's second most linguistically diverse country and home to the world's largest population of Muslims. Taken together these two statistics have meant that within the gradual yet profound process of Islamization in Southeast Asia, and in what is currently the nation-state of Indonesia, translation was of pivotal importance. Through ongoing contact and exchange with people and texts from the Middle East and South Asia from the sixteenth century onwards, local literatures written and recited in Javanese and Malay (among other languages) were transformed, introducing to the speakers of these languages new genres, words, stories, and characters as well as a new way of understanding the past. This essay outlines three translation paradigms employed by those translating Arabic texts into Malay and Javanese and explores what they tell us - together and separately - about religious and linguistic change, the transmission of knowledge, and particular translation traditions.

This essay explores how a small diasporic Muslim community in the colonial era-known today as the Sri Lankan Malays-maintained its culture through the preservation of language, the transmission of literary and religious texts, the cultivation of genres and of a script. Beginning in the late seventeenth century and throughout the eighteenth, the Dutch United East India Company (VOC) used the island of Ceylon as a site of banishment for those considered rebels in the regions under Company control in the Indonesian archipelago. Criminals from these territories were also sent to Ceylon, as were native troops who served in the Dutch army, and others employed in various capacities. After their takeover of the island in 1796, the British too brought to Ceylon colonial subjects from the archipelago and the Malay Peninsula, primarily to serve in their military. I examine issues of cultural encounter and religious developments through an analysis of a Malay manuscript written in Colombo in the early years of the nineteenth century. I emphasize the referencing of titles and names as well as the texts multilingual character. Through this discussion I question the notion of distinctly defined centres and margins as they pertain to the Sri Lankan Malays-situated physically and figuratively between the Malay and Arab worlds-and suggest that crossroads, connections and movement are more appropriate conceptual categories for considering their case.