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ustralian citizen Tirana Hassan was arrested and interrogated by the police along with fellow Human Rights Watch activist Andreas Harsono on Sept. 19, 2011, when they researched a Shiite community in Nang Kerning area in the East Java regency of Sampang on Madura Island.

Their study focused on discrimination against the community in that region. Radio Australia audiences then asked for historical background to the relationship between Shiites and Sunnis in Indonesia and whether international interests were at play in Ms. Hassan’s case by pitting Sunnis against Shiites in Indonesia.

Regardless of international involvement in the arrest, the Hassan case shows that Indonesian Muslims understand less about the historical reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites, while the Indonesian government has made minimal efforts to promote the truce. Reconciliation among the followers of the two Muslim groups occurred in 1945 and on Oct. 21, 2006, in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, as well as on April 3 and 4 in 2007 in Bogor, West Java.

How do Sunnis and Shiites in
Indonesia return to this international and national peaceful agreement? I think the reconciliation reflects the strong desires of both groups globally and nationally, mainly in Indonesia, to fill their emotional voids by prioritizing noble traits of character (akhlak) over the canonical law (fiqih). I hypothesize that both Sunnis and Shiites are able to keep the priority of akhlak intact so that peace prevails in their daily lives.

Certain factors brought me to this argument. The first was the conference between Sunnis and Shiites in 1947. This event recommended that Sunnis and other Muslims avoid mocking and labelling each other as infidels (kafir). This conference affirmed that Sunnis and Shiites share more similarities than differences. Both groups declare that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His messenger. Both schools differ only in opinion and interpretation, neither in their creed (`aqîdah) nor in the substance of the pillars (ark'n) of Islam. Two other declarations in Mecca and Bogor reinforced the spirit of this conference.

The second is the degree to which the Indonesian reform era has paid better attention to this religious reconciliation than that of the New Order. For example, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono invited the most prominent Indonesian Shiite intellectual, Jalaluddin Rakhmat, to take part in the International Conference of Muslim Leaders for the Reconciliation of Iraq on April 3 and 4 in 2007 at the Presidential Palace in Bogor.

In regard to this invitation, Jalaluddin was tasked with promoting the Bogor Declaration among the Shiite and Sunni leaders in Beirut, Amman and Damascus. This task has encouraged him to perpetuate moderate Islam to his Shiite organization, the All-Indonesian Assembly of Ahlul Bayt Associations (IJABI). His peaceful idea of Islam might inspire the more than 3 million Shiites in Indonesia.

The reform era, which began in May 1998, should help reinforce the reconciliation amid suspicions of the minority Shiites among the Sunni majority in the country with the largest Muslim population in the world. For example, on March 10, 2007, Sunni Muslims in Lawang, East Java, asked the police to ban Shiites from religious activities.

These Sunnis claimed that the Shiites had condemned the first three caliphs in Islam: Abu Bakar, Umar and Usman.

Another example is a series of recent attacks on Shiite boarding schools (pesantrens) in Sampang, Bangil, Bondowoso and Jember in East Java. These violent acts could dampen the enthusiasm of moderate Shiites like Jalaluddin and his IJABI for promoting peace between Sunnis and Shiites.

In conclusion, the policy of the Indonesian government in this reform era corresponds to the desire of Sunni and Shiite followers for peace. People should be aware of this common desire and nurture it by exercising mutual respect.

The writer teaches at the Islamic History and Civilization Program at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University in Jakarta and is a PhD candidate at the Monash University School of Political and Social Inquiry in Australia.