Muslim Australia (before European contact)

"Small sailing boats, picked out in white and yellow pigment on the red rocks of the Wellington Range in Arnhem Land, northern Australia, tell a different story from the one most Australians accept as the history of their nation. They are traditional Indonesian boats known as praus and they brought Muslim fishermen from the flourishing trading city of Makassar in search of trepang, or sea cucumbers.

"Exactly when the Makassans first arrived is uncertain. Some historians say it was in the 1750s, but radiocarbon dating of beeswax figures superimposed on the cave paintings suggests that it was much earlier - one of the figures appears to have been made before 1664, perhaps as early as the 1500s." http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27260027

Challenge: Could the contact with Muslim traders have gone further? Could there have been colonization, conversion of the aborigines to Islam, etc.?
 
"Small sailing boats, picked out in white and yellow pigment on the red rocks of the Wellington Range in Arnhem Land, northern Australia, tell a different story from the one most Australians accept as the history of their nation. They are traditional Indonesian boats known as praus and they brought Muslim fishermen from the flourishing trading city of Makassar in search of trepang, or sea cucumbers.

"Exactly when the Makassans first arrived is uncertain. Some historians say it was in the 1750s, but radiocarbon dating of beeswax figures superimposed on the cave paintings suggests that it was much earlier - one of the figures appears to have been made before 1664, perhaps as early as the 1500s." http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27260027

Challenge: Could the contact with Muslim traders have gone further? Could there have been colonization, conversion of the aborigines to Islam, etc.?

An Ottoman Empire that expands towards India and remains a world power could do it.

Other than that your options kinda rely on some sort of shift of population in Indonesia to Australia. The natives aren't enough to allow a significant Muslim population to oppose the Europeans when they come. I think either an Indonesian kingdom colonising Australia and then a Muslim religious conversion works, or have a volcano erupt in Java. Something like the one that blow up in the 18th century. That alone could force a shift in population dramatic enough to give Australia a large enough population to resist European colonisation.
 
I happen to be in Darwin right now, and yesterday I saw Aboriginal rock art at Nourlangie that shows images of sailing ships. The contact with the Makassarese traders seems to have continued for a long time, right up until the British arrived and started to tax them.

It doesn't seem, though, like the Makassarese were looking for anything that required a sustained presence. They were primarily trading for sea cucumbers, which are perishable, so there was no need for a colony to gather and store them until the ships came. Nor was the territory rich enough to make conquest worth the trouble. Ranching might work, like it did (kinda-sorta) for the Aussies, but I'm not sure why the Makassarese would need to set up ranching colonies so far away.
 
The Aborigines could end up reviewing more than just Islam. They could potentially gain things like Gunpowder, metal and Horses.
 
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