SUFISM; THE DIVERSITY (KEBHINNEKAAN) LINK IN INDONESIA.

Indonesia is a country of archipelago made up of thousands of small and large islands, stretches from Sabang to Merauke, and inhabited around 250 million people with diverse ethnic, racial, cultural, language, and religion. The majority religion of Indonesia is Islam. Even the world's largest religion as practiced by the inhabitants is Islam. In its long history, Islam came and developed in Indonesia peacefully, without violence at all. This happened because the Muslim preachers in spreading Islam always considered the local socio-cultural conditions, so that they ?particularly Wali Songo in Java? were known accommodative and acculturative to the local culture. They were very aware of the diversity in Indonesia. The developed Islamic teachings were always discussed with the local socio-cultural conditions, so that Islam was easily accepted by the locals. The Muslim missionarist in Indonesia are the sufis who were known as the man who put forward the importance of tasamuh (tolerance), tafahum (understanding), tawasuth (harmonization), and tawazun (balanced). These universal values were then used as the basis to build a nation in the midst of diversity (kebhinnekaan) in Indonesia.