I write in response to Paul Sheehan's opinion piece ("Hard decisions at the heart of the crisis,"   September 7).
It is hurtful to suggest that providing asylum is "to import the Sunni-Shia schism via a large influx of Muslims". There is no Sunni-Shia conflict in Australia. The relationship between Sunni and Shia Muslims in Australia is overwhelmingly one of peace and harmony. If anything, the only wave of religiously motivated conflict in Australia that has lead to criminal behaviour, violent outbreaks and social disharmony has been attacks on Australian Muslims. 
Australian Muslims don't think it is critical to ascertain the religion of the perpetrators but focus on trying to increase community harmony. Mosques have been shot at and firebombed, and women in Islamic scarves have been physically assaulted in public. I think it is safe to assume that they are not Sunni or Shia. With regards to refugees, I would like to remind Sheehan that until the current conflict, Syria was a harmonious, multi-faith society.
After all, Syria became home to the refugees who fled the armies of Ibrahim Basha in 1839; Circassian refugees in 1860; Armenian refugees in 1914; Palestinian refugees in 1948 and again in 1967; refugees from Kuwait in 1990; from Lebanon in 1996; from Iraq in 2003, and Syria again became home to refugees from Lebanon in 2006.
Syria never closed its borders to those seeking safety. Until recent times, the same will be recorded in the history books for Australia. At a time of unprecedented suffering in Syria, with millions of people displaced, to debate on whether we should ask a drowning man what their religion is before we save them is a sad indictment on our humanity.