On 10 -11 September 2003, the Center for the Study of Intelligence hosted a conference in Charlottesville, Virginia, to discuss the subject "Intelligence for a New Era in American Foreign Policy." One of the recommendations from that conference, in the context of "Proposals for Change" within the Intelligence Community, was as follows: The U.S. government was a big actor in creating the broad and institutional knowledge base necessary for conducting the Cold War. Could we replicate that in some way today? We need to create, among other things, an atlas of Islam...a knowledge base. We ought to do it as a national project. This research study responds to this recommendation, albeit at a somewhat more modest level than "a national project." Additionally, in order to narrow the focus, the current study focuses only on the countries of Southeast Asia-Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand. The current volume is a projected Volume One of a multi-volume study. The final result is intended to be a global compendium, attempting to assess the role and place of Islam in the contemporary world. As this work ends, the author begins research on a second volume tentatively titled "Islam in South Asia." For more than 20 years the author taught a course at the National Defense Intelligence College on "Islam in the Contemporary World." Through the years, students in this course have conducted research and written papers on the place of Islam in a country of choice. Other students chose a particular Islamist group to examine with an eye to assessing its particular significance. Altogether, more than 250 papers have been amassed. The current study is inspired by the efforts of all these students, but is significantly supplemented by the author's own research and experience over even more years of study and teaching about Islam. In writing their papers, students responded to a standard set of five questions: 1. How did Islam come to the country? Or how did the country come to be predominately Islamic? 2. How central has Islam (as opposed to other political ideologies) been in the political history of the country as it has come into modern times? 3. What is the official policy of the current government of the country toward Islam? Why does the government have such a policy? And what are the benefits and costs to the government for maintaining such a policy? 4. What principal Islamist movements exist within the country (or in exile) that are working to change the current political status quo (or maintain it)? If there is more than one, why the multiplicity of movements? What animates the adherents of these movements, and what is/are their goal(s)? 5. What is your prognosis concerning the future of contemporary Islamic movements in the country of your study? The current study follows this same thematic approach, although much integration across the region being examined (Southeast Asia) was necessary. A copy of these five questions sat before the author constantly during the more than one year required to complete this study. The chief concern about Islam for intelligence personnel and national policy-makers is not its spiritual or religious dimensions but rather its political aspects. Since the 1979 Iranian revolution, and more particularly since the shocking attacks on the New York World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington, DC, on September 11, 2001, this political aspect of Islam has assumed a new importance that was not so readily apparent in the earlier decades of the 20th century. Islam as a political factor in world politics, particularly in the Muslim world itself, during the post-September 11, 2001, era is the principal focus of this study. Factors other than Islam-nationalism, modernization, globalization, secular political ideologies, and the impact of external powers-are of course also part of the political milieu of every Muslim country. The aim of this study has been to achieve a balanced assessment in which the impact of the Islamic political factor is measured as one of several other factors operating in the politics of the Muslim world.

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