daily life with a unifying relatability to overcome barriers of linguistic diversities and differing origins resulting from pluralistic migration as experienced by these Chams, which drew them to adopt this faith. Scholars had also emphasized Islam as a means of reconsolidating displaced peoples, a result of missionary work, and as a transcendence creed more suitable to these Chams’ mobile lifestyles engaging in extra-local trade. Traditional animism, in which local spirits are worshipped to seek their protection, would not work for the southern Chams’ situation, whose livelihoods involve constant movement and/or migration where they would find themselves outside the protective sphere of their initial guardian spirits, whereas the God of monotheistic religions such as Islam provides universal protection to all those in His faith. In addition, the Islamic faith provides the trader with a “set of ethics applied to business practice and a disciplining code of conduct” that renders it more acceptable and appealing as compared to traditional spirit worship. Islam also provides a means of providing access to a wider world of co-religionists, evidenced by the Chams’ connections and affinity to Malaysia and the Middle Eastern world. As such, emphasis has been increasingly placed by the Southern Chams on their Malay origins and migration, which may possibly be a result of the growing prosperity of Malaysia, its influence, and its interest in the “Malay Chams” in recent years where the Chams have been considered as part of a wider Malay world. In this regard, the Chams are seen to use their ethnicity and “their linguistic, cultural, and historical affinities” with neighboring countries to further their socio-economic interests. The Chams also employ such affinities, “perceptions of oppression”, and their “Muslimness” in their interactions and negotiations with not only the Malays but with the Khmer as well. In this respect, the Chams of the Mekong Delta have also enjoyed close kinship ties to the Chams in Cambodia, sharing a common religion, language, and trade links that has spanned many generations. Furthermore, resistance to their ethnic minority status and the Vietnamese State’s attempts at assimilation, and their extensive history of interactions with transnational cultural forces have also rendered the Muslim Chams conducive to socio-cultural inclinations towards the larger Malay society. In this regard, Islam is also seen to have revitalized and preserved their ethnic cultural identity through access to better job opportunities and Islamic higher education in the larger Malay/Islamic world, and through