The Careers of Islam’s Transcultural Trendsetters in Central and Southern Thailand

Muslims in Thailand, as with those across the Muslim World, have been influenced by modernist, reformist, and revivalist trends from the Middle East and South Asia, challenging traditional religious leadership. This article applies Nile Green’s religious economies model to Thai Islam, focusing on five key figures: (1) ‘Ahmad Wahab, (2) Direk Kulsiriswad, (3) and Sheikh Rida ‘Ahmad Samadi in Bangkok, and (4) Ustadh ‘Abdullah Chinarong and (5) Ismail Lutfi Japakiya in the far South. We document the impact of transnational Islamic movement, the connections between them, and how all these were multilingual, cosmopolitan middlemen that reshaped the local practice of Islam in Thailand’s diverse religious landscape.