"It is commonly held that European colonization and the efforts to modernize Muslim lands challenged Islam and undermined local custom, and that Islamization was generally opposed to European ideas and technologies and rejected local beliefs and practices. While colonial historiographies tend to focus on the influence of European actors, Muslim nationalist and postcolonial scholars emphasize Muslim and native agencies. In the Netherlands East Indies and British Malaya, however, the ideas and actions associated with the concept of modernity were formed as an outcome of the interplay between...