This book unveils the history of discriminatory policies imposed in Indonesia upon people of Arab descent and reveals the instrumental role of a Dutch scholar and orientalist, Prof. Snock Hurgronje, in creating systematic policies to segregate and isolate these Indonesians from the local indigenous Moslem population. The author also descibes the contrastingly smooth assimilation and integration of Arab descendants into the Indonesians community's social and political life before and after independence, a process which ironically runs counter to their legal status inherited under the Dutch colonial law that continues to apply to this day.