M

uslim clerics from around the world will gather in Bogor, West Java, to talk about moderate Islam at a conference, but they will not discuss how to resolve ongoing conflicts in a number of Muslim countries.

The event, dubbed a High Level Consultation of World Muslim Scholars on Wasatiyyat Islam, runs from Tuesday until Thursday. It is to have 50 international Muslim scholars and another 50 ulema from Indonesia to talk about wasatiyyat [moderation].

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is to officially open the meeting at the Bogor Palace and the Grand Imam of Egypt’s Al-Azhar University, Ahmed Ath-Thayyeb, is to deliver the keynote speech.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla is to host the closing ceremony at the Presidential Palace.

The presidential special envoy for inter-religious dialogue and partnership, Din Syamsuddin, said on Wednesday Indonesia would be sharing its experiences with moderate and tolerant Islam.

Din, former chairman of Indonesia’s second-largest Islamic organization, Muhammadiyah, said the meeting had nothing to do with conflict resolution efforts sought in several Muslim countries.

“[The conference] has nothing to do with the problems outside, not the American attack on Syria, not the conflict in Jerusalem nor the resolution of the conflicts in any Muslim countries,” he said, after a briefing with ambassadors and representatives of the countries who are to send representatives to the conference.

He said although he did invite ulemas from Afghanistan and Pakistan, next week’s conference was not related to the planned trilateral meeting also planned to be held in Bogor this year at the request of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani as a peace building effort.

“The trilateral meeting is not part of my responsibility. My duty, according to a presidential decree, is to develop moderate Islam and promote wasatiyyat,” he said.

Din said the wasatiyyat way of Islam should be defined by how it was tolerant and acknowledged pluralism. “I guess in English we can say it is justly balanced, the middle path Islam. That is what we are going to talk about, the principles for it,” he said.

He admitted that Islam could not be separated from the fact that, at times, Muslims behaved in ways that were the opposite of moderate, by espousing extremism, radicalism and terrorism, the results of fundamentalism that occurs in many Muslim majority countries, including Indonesia.

“That is why we want to offer the middle path solution for how Islam can be moderate,” he said.

“The outcome of the conference will be a Bogor Message, an important document that can be a reference for humanity in developing civilization through the principle of getting to the middle ground.”

The conference, organized by the office of the presidential special envoy for inter-religious dialogue and partnership and the Foreign Ministry, will be attended not only by ulema from Muslim-majority countries, but also Canada, China, Japan, South Korea and the United States.

The Foreign Ministry has been active in promoting moderate Islam not only on the international stage but also domestically by visiting Islamic boarding schools to teach Indonesia’s foreign policy.