Hello all, I just had a question about the spread of Islam to Malaysia and Indonesia. I know that it spread there largely because of pre-existing trade routes, and was adopted by local authorities who wanted to have a religious connection to their trading partners (and who, you know, thought it was the word of God, and stuff), and from them spread among the Malaysian and Indonesian populaces. I believe that this is how it spread in West Africa as well, along the Saharan Trade Routes. My question is, why didn't Islam take hold elsewhere on the Indian Ocean trade networks? What was it that led it to spread more widely to, say, Mogadishu than Zanzibar? Why isn't there a larger Muslim population in the south of India (especially considering how much of it was conquered by various Muslim dynasties later anyway?)

And speaking of conquest, Islam was also spread to the Balkans by the Ottoman Empire. What made them more successful at proselytising in Bosnia, Albania, or Kosovo than in, say, Serbia or Bulgaria or Greece, even though Bulgaria and much of Greece had been under Ottoman rule well before Bosnia had?