From a Netfriend:

Some may say that Indonesian society is not Arabic, but despite it’s claims to be above culture and race, Islam appears to carry Arabic cultural norms with it wherever it goes. Interesting comment.

Two things come to mind that might explain this, if it is true (and I’m not entirely sure of that).

One is that the Arabic language is far more central to Islam than Latin ever was to the church. The Koran is only authoritative in the original Arabic. Translations such as ….. quotes are regarded as commentaries and have little authority. I think this point has been made before on this list.

A language and its culture are very hard to separate.

The other is the Haj, one of the Seven Pillars of Islam. It consists of course of a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, currently in Saudi Arabia. This exposes Moslems from all over the world to Arabic culture. It could work the other way too, but assuming that Arabic is the language spoken on the Haj, it would be mainly Arabic culture that was absorbed by the visitors rather than the other way around.