<![CDATA[This article examines the socio-historical transformation of the Aru Islands in Eastern Indonesia by analysing the transition from an Islamic cosmopolitan maritime society to European colonial domination between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. The study aims to explain how maritime trade networks facilitated the spread of Islam, shaped local cosmopolitanism, and were subsequently transformed through colonial intervention. Employing a qualitative historical approach that integrates archival research, archaeological evidence, ethnographic interviews, and secondary historical sources, this study reconstructs the changing political, economic, and religious landscape of the Aru Islands. The findings demonstrate that the Aru Islands functioned as an important peripheral node within the wider Islamic maritime network connecting Maluku, Banda, Sulawesi, and Papua. European colonial expansion fundamentally altered these networks by imposing commercial monopolies, restructuring local authority, and introducing new religious and political institutions. Rather than replacing local traditions entirely, colonial rule produced a complex interaction between continuity and transformation in Islamic and maritime life. This study contributes to the historiography of Eastern Indonesia by positioning the Aru Islands as an active participant in regional maritime history rather than merely a peripheral frontier of colonial expansion. Keywords: Aru Islands; Islamic cosmopolitanism; maritime history; colonialism; Eastern Indonesia; Maluku.]]>
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