Michael Laffan obtained his doctorate from the University of Sydney, 2001. He is currently Assistant Professor at Princeton University, where he studies the history of Southeast Asia, focusing on the development of Indonesian nationalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the ongoing conversations between Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Michael Laffan is the winner of the ASAA President's Award 2002.

'All readers should be duly impressed by the considerable achievements of this new book. Laffan's study demonstates impressive erudition, analytical skill, and a supra-regional breadth rarely found in Southeast Asian Studies.' - Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society'This is a work which should be an integral part of university courses dealing with the history of both Islam and nationalism in Southeast Asia.' - Southeast Asian Studies

• Introduction 1. An Ecumene in the 'The Lands Below the Winds' 2. Arab Priests and Pliant Pilgrims 3. The Hijazi Experience and Direct Colonial Visions of the heart of the Ecumene 4. Colonizing Islam and the Western-Oriented Project of Indies Nationhood 5. Reorientation among the Jawa of Mecca 6. The Jawa and Cairo 7. Islamic Voices from Singapore, Java, and Sumatra 8. Towards an Indigenous and Islamic Indonesia 9. Indonesia Visualised as a Fractured Umma below the Winds 10. From the Meccan Discourse of a Jawi Ecumene to the Cairene Discourse of an Indonesian Homeland