What's the largest Muslim majority nation in the world?

Many Westerners' minds will wander to the Middle East, but the answer is located in

Southeast Asia.

The archipelagic array of 17,000 islands collectively known as Indonesia.

With a population of over 260 million Indonesia's the fourth most populous country in the world,

period, liking just India, China, and the United States.

In the 13th century, the spread of Islam to the island chain forever altered the course

of its history, as did a later arrival in the 16th century, colonialism.

As Indonesia's tropical climate enabled it to produce a wide array of valuable spices

local to the region, such as nutmeg, mace, and cloves, European traders were eager to exploit

its natural resources.

In 1601, the Dutch government authorized a charter for the Dutch East India Company,

specifically to harvest spices from Indonesia's Maluku Islands.

A grim harbinger of today's multinational corporations, the Dutch East India Company

operated as a lawless, stateless entity that ruthlessly exploited the labor and the environment

to maximize profits during its nearly two centuries of operation.

After the company's nationalization and dissolution, Indonesia remained a colony of the Dutch

empire until shortly after World War II, when independence leaders Sikarno let a movement

that finally won its people sovereignty, though a brutal genocide would follow in subsequent

decades.

In the modern era, the legacy of colonialism, so much of which fundamentally was anchored

in European demand for more flavorful food, has made Western cuisine rely on Indonesia's

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