Cultural Encounter - Islam in Java

Historians speak of watersheds, turning points and paradigms while remaining sceptical that such things exist. When such distinctions between epochs or ways of doing things are identified they soon begin to be buried under qualifications, exceptions and continuities. Yet things do change and differ in human affairs; from time to time one says that, however messy it may be in detail, the gap between phenomenon A and phenomenon B is of significance and when they coincide in time and space a significant encounter has taken place. In cultural history this is often difficult to say, for cultures loan, borrow, adapt and develop with such complexity, often leaving so imperfect a record behind them, that boundaries, turning points and encounters are elusive to the historian's eyes. Yet even here, one must occasionally admit that an encounter has been identified. One of the most interesting and significant of these is found in the religious and cultural history of the island of Java, today a part of the Republic of Indonesia and home to over 90 million people. For the last six hundred years, this island has been the scene of a cultural encounter of world proportions.