NU: clerics hold the key to settle Sampang conflict

Malang, NU Online
The chairman of lawmaking body of the Central Board Nahdatul Ulama (PBNU), KH Hasyim Muzadi said here Saturday that clerics held the key to settle the conflicts between Sunni and Shia Muslims in Sampang Madura.<>

A fresh conflict broke on Sunday last week between the two Islamic groups with mobs of Sunni Muslims attacking Shiite students and teachers with swords and machetes.

A Shiite follower was reported killed and at least two dozens of houses of the Shiite families in the village of Nangkernang were burned forcing hundreds of the minority Muslim group to flee the neighborhoods.

Hasyim said that Madura Muslims tended to obey clerics more than the teaching of the Holy Book, adding clerics were highly respected as leaders by the local people, therefore, they played a key role to bring and maintain peace among the two groups in Madura.

The clerics need to be backed up by giving them any information necessary to end the long feud between the two groups, he added.

He said Sunni and Shia are parts of Islam, adding Shia is not the same as Ahmadiyah, which clearly has deviated from Islam.

Many Ahmadiyah followers in the country have been targets of violent attacks by hard liner Muslims.

Muzadi warned Shia as a minority to respect the majority Sunni to prevent further conflict.

Leaders of a group should not try to persuade members of other group to join them so that each group could grow peacefully side by side, he added.

"Clerics should serve to give enlightenment and good and right guidance and arguments without violence. Violence would only hardened minority group," he said.

He said he and NU leaders from East Java would visit Sampang next week to seek to end the long feud between Sunni and Shia followers in that area .

"Hopefully the conflict could be ended for good ," he said.

Late last year hundreds of homes and an Islamic school belonging to Shia Muslims were set on fire in the same village in Sampang leaving up to 500 Shiites homeless.

Poor police as well as military intelligence has been blamed for the renewed conflict in Sampang.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono also said that intelligence failure contributed to the fresh conflict.

Editor : Sudarto Murtaufiq