CMR vol. 12: The 18th century in the Philippines and Indonesia

The great CMR-project on Christian-Muslim Relations has arrived at vol 12, the first (out of plannes three) about the 18th century. The volume has in 912 pages some 150 contributions on Asia, Africa and the Americas. The Middle East, the Arab and the Ottoman countries are included. There are 23 entries about Armenia and Georgia, two Christian countries amidst the Muslim of the Caucasus.
On Southeast Asia we find here 13 contributions. This is less than for the preceding 17th century when there were stories about the arrival of the Dutch, the British and the French in this region.
On the Philippines there are five articles by Isaac Donoso, from the University of Alicante, Spain. He mentions writing by Christians and Muslims in the Sulu Archipelago. One sultan here seeks support from the Ottoman Empire against the Spanish Colonialism. There are internal conflicts: some Spanish Christian want a soft politics and spend money and nice words to try to convert the Muslims to their faith. Sometimes with success. A sultan from Sulu who lost his throne, sought support from Manila and offered to be baptised. (It sounds like Paris vaut bien une messe.. if necessary you should convert to keep you position). In this case the Archbishop of Manila did not agree, but nevertheless the baptism was administered (but outside the archdiocese!). This Archbishop gave the example of Spain, where five centuries earlier the Muslims were attacked and in the end they had lost all their positions in the Iberian peninsula. This is still the mentality of the crusades.

The cover is explained further on p. 21: It is the Byzantine emperor Markianos (ruled 450-7), but here depicted in a Melkite manuscript about 1200 later and in the dress of the Ottoman emperor.
About Indonesia there is a nice article by Peter Riddell on Abdussamad al-Palimbani who wrote a call for jihad against the colonial European countries from Mecca where he lived. Yusak Soleiman has a contribution on the Church Council of Batavia, with complaints about the increase of mosques in Batavia (compare this to the protests of modern Muslims to the increase of churches: this book is about religion as a battlefield!)
I wrote several contributions as well here: on Valentyn, on the Corpus Diplomaticum, Plakaatboeken, with negotiations and rules for Muslims living under Dutch authority. I found it also nice to do some more work on the Javanese court chronicles about the arrival of the Dutch. My teacher for Javanese, Pak Soedoro, used to say that Javanese have no limit to their fantasy and this is clear here as well. All my own contributions for CMR are also available through the site academia.edu.