Historical, anthropological, and religious studies on the Hadhrami diaspora have analyzed the ways in which Hadhrami migrants in the Indian Ocean acted not only as merchants and traders but also as religious scholars and local arbitrators. Over centuries, Hadhramis have travelled across the Indian Ocean and have been highlighted mostly for their roles in spreading Islam. Being noted as a distinguished group in the Indian Ocean, scholarship devoted specifically to Hadhrami migration has tended to focus more on a colonial and postcolonial context; furthermore, for the time period I am analyzing, the 13th through the 16th century, there is far less information and works particularly on Hadhramis. Most information on Hadhrami migration during this timeframe is enmeshed in texts speaking more broadly on Indian Ocean history and cultural exchange. Particularly in chapters that reference Islam in the Indian Ocean, such as Edward Alpers’ (2014) “Becoming an Islamic Sea” or Abdul Sheriff’s (2010) “A Muslim Lake,” can readers find important analysis on the Hadhrami diaspora and the hand Hadhramis played in developing Sufi networks in the Indian Ocean.
     Abdul Sheriff (2010) in Dhow Cultures of the Indian Ocean presents an interesting study on the western half of the Indian Ocean up until the dawn of the 16th century. Amidst arguments about cultural connectivity in the Indian Ocean, Sheriff dedicates a subchapter to migrants hailing from Hadhramaut. Sheriff argues that Hadhrami maritime communities represent a travelling culture that was characteristic of the Hadhrami diaspora, as he these migrants for playing a part in unifying the Indian Ocean (p. 264). Moreover, Sheriff explains Islam in the Indian Ocean not asa monolithic political force militarizing trade but rather as an influence that cannot be restricted solely to religion and often overlapped with commercial interests (p. 257). Interestingly, he notes that while larger Islamic empires of the Indian Ocean tended to follow the Hanafi school of thought, Sufi and Shafi’i influences, which he centers as “radiating out from Hadhramaut,” were more prominent in Indian Ocean port cities (Sheriff, 2014, p. 257). Sufism is known not for its orthodoxy but rather its connections to mysticism and siants, making it easier to be assimilated in host communities as Sufism tended to be open towards absorbing local customs (Sheriff, 2014, p. 244). Sheriff’s view of the role of Islam is complemented by Patricia Risso’s (1995) work on the Indian Ocean, titled Merchants and Faith. Risso in her analysis uses Islam as a framework through which she makes sense of the entanglement of Islamic history, commercial trade, and oceanic travels in the Indian Ocean, affirming that “Islam cannot be reduced to commerce, and commerce in the Indian Ocean region cannot be reduced to Muslims” (p. 7). Risso attributes the success of Muslim merchant networks to various reasons. Firstly, she mentions that Islam had a rather liberal view towards commerce in the sense that while regulations on trade should emphasize justice and fairness, economic activity wasn’t viewed as completely worldly and beyond the scope of Islam; instead merchants often played the role of missionaries or travelled with religious scholars (Risso, 1995, p. 5). Moreover, Islam is not monolithic and its ability to adapt had a practicality that attracted converts for both spiritual and economic reasons, as this is noted by other scholars to have extended to political rulers who knew that conversion to Islam would bring an influx of Muslim merchants with strong networks (Risso, 1995, p. 6; Freeman, 2003, p. 87). While Risso doesn’t mention Hadhramis specifically in her analysis, the role of Hadhramis as both merchants and missionaries is well documented in other sources such as in Leif Manger’s (2010) ethnography The Hadrami Diaspora (p. 1). Overall, these sources suggest that not only was Islam and Sufism in the Indian Ocean intimately connected to Hadhrami mobility but it also has important overlaps with commercial and maritime lenses of the Indian Ocean.
     Engseng Ho (2006), author of The Graves of Tarim, also discusses the shifts in the Indian Ocean regarding Islam in his chapter titled “Ecumenical Islam in an Oceanic World,” which notes a cultural shift in Indian Ocean trade starting in the 13th century. Ho offers a thorough and insightful study of the Hadhrami diaspora through interpreting and analyzing documents written from the late 16th century onward by Hadhrami Sayyids who were descendants of the Prophet Muhammad. In an essay written by Ho (2007) relating to the rise of Islamic influences in Indian Ocean port cities, he illustrates the importance of the Sayyid group in developing an organized Sufi religious order as they left behind a canon of genealogical texts (p. 350). Referencing these genealogies and spiritual documents, Ho argues from an anthropological perspective that Hadhrami Sayyids and followers of this Sufi religious order were able to transcend their particular localities in Hadhramaut through their ideas about partaking in a universal Islamic mission which was actualized and developed via migration (p. 349). Furthermore, Abdul Sheriff (2010) notes that as Hadhramis in this universal mission left their mark on various Indian Ocean communities, they also were influenced by their host communities in ways that had reverberations in the homeland of Hadhramaut (p. 264). As Ho mentions, this cultural exchange was primarily a result of the approach of Hadhrami migration, where migrants settled in regions for long periods and created intimate connections through marriage with local women, producing what he calls “Hybrid Texts” and “Creole Kinship” (p. xxi; 116; 152). A highlight of Indian Ocean trade echoed by Sheriff and initially argued by K.N. Chaudhuri (1985) in Trade and Civilization in the Indian Ocean was that there generally was a principle of free trade where no single empire concerned itself with monopolizing trade over the entire ocean, which allowed for port cities to thrive with cosmopolitans and provided more room for the exchange of ideas along with goods. It is primarily in these circumstances that Hadhramis maneuvered their way into various communities, distinguishing themselves while also absorbing local cultures in the process.