Historical fact and fiction

Abstract

In this book the author gives a penetrating insight into the ways of spurious thinking and analytical reasoning among historians of the Malay Archipelago in their explanation and interpretation of historical events pertaining to the coming and spread of Islam in the Archipelago. He exposes errors and fallacies in their chronological framework and educated conjectures, their tainted assumptions on the religious and cultural effects of Islamization in indigenous history. In dealing with the Islamic past his critique of their empirical and inductive methods and weak logical analysis and rational estimation deserves due appreciation. In contradiction to what the historians assume as the facts of history the author demonstrates his own explanation and interpretation of the major issues and casts new light on many basic matters that have hitherto eluded inquiry.