Bahasa Melayu Sebagai Medium Islamisasi di Nusantara: Analisis Historis, Linguistik, dan Sosiokultural

Abstract

The process of Islamization in the Archipelago represents one of the most massive and peaceful socioreligious transformations in Southeast Asian historiography. Although the networks of Islamic scholars (ulama) and the political conceptualization of sultanates have been extensively researched, the dynamics of language as the epicenter of reconstructing collective consciousness are often overlooked. This study aims to reconstruct the strategic role of the Malay language, not merely as an instrument for economic transactions (lingua franca), but as a sophisticated medium for the institutionalization and transmission of Islamic orthodoxy in the archipelago. Utilizing a descriptive qualitative method based on library research through a historical sociolinguistic approach, this article dissects the tripartite relationship between historical manifestations, linguistic adaptations, and sociocultural reconstructions. The findings confirm that the egalitarian and flexible structural characteristics of the Malay language successfully eliminated social stratification barriers in the dissemination of Islamic preaching (da'wah). Furthermore, the conceptual penetration of Arabic lexicons into local discourse not only enriched religious semantics but also triggered the birth of the Jawi literacy tradition, which facilitated the democratization of knowledge. Ultimately, the synergy between the political authority of the sultanates and the intellectual orthodoxy of the ulama successfully transformed the Malay language into an ideological apparatus that wove a trans-ethnic Islamic collective identity across the Archipelago. The contemporary relevance of this linguistic purification remains deeply rooted, bequeathing an Islamic epistemological structure to modern Indonesian.