Peran Komunitas Tionghoa dalam Jaringan Perdagangan Islam di Pelabuhan Gresik Abad ke 15–16 M

Abstract

This study examines the role of the Chinese community in the Islamic trade network of the Port of Gresik during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries CE. Employing the historical method and drawing upon Curtin’s concept of the trade diaspora, Reid’s maritime emporium model, and Lombard’s Asian network framework, this research demonstrates that the Chinese community was not merely an ordinary trading group but a multidimensional historical agent that supported the economic structure of the port, facilitated the integration of Islamic norms into commercial practices, and contributed to the process of acculturation that shaped the distinctive character of coastal Javanese Islamic culture. The findings indicate that the Islamization of Java was a complex process involving various actors across ethnic boundaries and that the Chinese community was one of the key actors whose contribution has not yet received sufficient recognition in the historiography of Islam in the Indonesian archipelago.