The revolution which occurred in the transport system at the end of the nineteenth century, the opening of the Suez Canal, the greater global mobility of populations, progress in printing, and the monetization of colonial economies which benefited certain classes in the periphery, are all factors which can be cited to explain the growing impact of the Middle East on the world of Southeast Asia. These practical factors went hand in hand with ideological ones which encouraged the traffic of ideas, the proliferation of magazines, and the multiplication of student travellers, as well as the flourishing of the Haj industry.

The appearance of these practical factors coincided with the birth of modernist reformist Pan-Islamism advocated by al-Afghani and ‘Abduh, which attracted a vast audience in the Southeast Asian world.’ Pan-Islamism was not only a political movement, but it also had a material impact on education in both Egypt and Indonesia. It led, for example, to the explosion of magazines, and the expansion of the market of Islamic writings. In both Egypt and Southeast Asia, reformist ideas also played a significant role in shaping nationalism.

The impact on Southeast Asia of modernist ideas at the beginning of this century, the widening circulation of magazines, and of networks created in the field of education, the press, and literature have been widely analysed by Noer (1973), Boland (1971), Roff (1967), and Mohamed A. Zaki (1965). William Roff (1970) has pointed to the significance of Cairo for Indonesian and Malay students in the 1920s, who later held important positions in the religious sector. He observed that their number increased as a result of both economic and political reasons. Their number continued to grow, in particular after independence and more than tripled in the period of the seventies. Cairo during colonial times, and particularly in the 1920s, provided a fertile ground for the Southeast Asian students to express freely their anti-colonial sentiments. This, we are told, was the main reason why they preferred Cairo to any other place (Roff 1970, pp. 74-84).