japan and islam
Most people at the turn of the twenty-first century have forgotten that there was a time in Japan before World War II when Japanese nationalists showed an Asianist face to the world's Muslims, whom they wanted to befriend as allies in the construction of a new Asia under Japanese domination. The rise of Japan was a destabilizing factor that attracted Muslim activists who wanted to cooperate with the "Rising Star of the East" against the Western empires, accelerating contacts between Japan and the world of Islam from vast regions of Eurasia and North Africa.
This is a fascinating article on the relationship between late Meiji Japan and Islam, by Selçuk Esenbel.