Introduction: "The Expansion of Islam in Southeast Asia1: "Much before the first century, there is evidence of commerce between the Roman Empire and other Mediterranean lands, the cargo making its way mainly aboard Roman and Indian vessels. At the large port which sprang up on the southern coast of Ceylon, merchandise was exchanged between the Roman Empire, India, South­ east Asia, and China. One route went around the Indian subcontinent in the direc­tion of the Straits of Hormuz to the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf, and from there up the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers to ports on the Mediterranean. Another route skirted the Arabian subcontinent to the port of Hadramaut, from there to the Straits of Bab al Mandeb and then to the Red Sea and Akaba. Alternately, the land route went from Hadramaut to Mecca and continued from there to Gaza or Da­mascus. Merchandise was transported via all these routes from China and India to Mediterranean ports and Europe; merchandise was transported along the same routes from the Middle East back to China and India. In the Mediterranean littoral, the appetite for merchandise from Asia motivated Indian merchants to develop their contacts in Southeast Asia and even further afield. In the Middle East, from at least the first century, Arab merchants were also acquainted with trade routes through Asian waters. Most of these merchants came from trade centers along the Red Sea, southern Arabia, or the Persian Gulf. By the third century, there were already Persian merchants along the Malay Peninsula. These Arabs and Persians acted as go-betweens for European merchants who dealt with Asian merchants active in India and the western parts of the Malaysian archipelago. Arab commerce extended to China. It is likely that a group of Arab merchants, and perhaps Per­sians as well, were in the city of Canton as early as the third century. Apparently the sea lanes from Egypt and Persia to India on the one hand, and from India to Southeast Asia on the other, were in Arab hands, and the number of Arab and Persian merchants grew in the first decade of the seventh century. But, because their ships were technically inferior and so had to stay close to the shore, the Chinese were not as involved in trade in the southern waters until long after the Indians, the Arabs, and the Malays of Southeast Asia, each of whom had learned enough about seasonal winds and navigation to sail in the open sea. In time, this commerce became a Muslim monopoly at both its western and eastern ends..."