This is a well-conceived and interesting book that provides the research to support Snouck Hurgronje's assertion (in "Mekka") that the Jawah -- pilgrims from the Malay world -- *were* forming a new archipelagic identity in the Middle East. Laffan counters Benedict Anderson's claim in "Imagined Communities" that the pre-national religious pilgrimages didn't set folks on new journeys but merely returned them to their old lives with elevated status. He charts the creation of a new identity that was politicized but not nationalist in the conventional sense.
Now if only I could afford to own the thing...