Islam in Southeast Asia has long been assigned a second-class status in the comparative study of Muslim history, politics, and civilization. With a few notable exceptions, the earliest academic studies of religion and politics in the region tended to portray Islam as a thin cultural veneer lying atop a deeper and non-Islamic cultural base. Other studies drew on once-fashionable modernization theories to conclude that, whatever their contemporary urgency, Islam in particular and religion in general were likely to decline in influence as Southeast Asian societies modernized. As the chapters in this volume demonstrate, however, researchers over the past generation have thoroughly reversed this legacy of academic marginalization. They have done so by highlighting three contemporary achievements: first, a post-secularist recognition of the continuing importance of religion in modern Southeast Asian politics and society; second, the ongoing pluralization of religious traditions across the region; and, third, the efforts of state and society organizations in Muslim areas of Southeast Asia to use soft power and third track diplomacy to enhance the role of Southeast Asian Muslims on the global stage.