* Georgetown’s 20 million dollar man, the jogging professor come expert in Islamic studies, John Esposito who likes to wear Italian Jackets and sandals, is at it again: a new whitewash for the Islam and the ‘moderate’ Muslim. The Sandbox shakes him out of his tree:
“Bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.” —
Harry Frankfurt, on Bullshit
Professor John L. Esposito runs a slick operation at Georgetown with $20 million of funding from Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. The shared agenda of these two is to make us all feel guilty for having wondered, after 9/11, about Saudis, Muslims, and the contemporary teaching of Islam. Esposito now has a new book (with co-author Dalia Mogahed, who runs something called the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies), bearing the pretentious title Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think. It’s based on gleanings from the Gallup World Poll.
The core argument of the book is that only 7 percent of Muslims are “politically radicalized,” and that “about 9 in 10 Muslims are moderate.” On what does this factoid rest? The authors explain (pp. 69-70):
This book should carry a label on its jacket: Warning! Belief in Saudi-backed pseudo-science is dangerous to America’s health.Â
Update:
Esposito isn’t much of a scholar. Rather, he’s a propagandist well paid by the Wahabite  lobby. There is such a thing as enthusiastic dhimmitude. Instead of paying the jizya, frauds such as esposito are being well paid by Saudi Arabia to excuse and sugarcoat a genocidal death cult that is insistent on its application of sharia law upon unsuspecting democracies. islam has no place in the United States or anywhere else in the civilized world. Both its ideology and practices are insulting to the very concept of freedom.
“Who Speaks for Islam?”
== == == == ==
Islam’s ACTIONS speak for Islam. Period.
What do you get as Muslim percentage of population increases? (Hint: NOT more peace.)
Ignore the words.
(Words can lie so easily, so prettily, especially when they’re soothingly murmuring what you desperately want to hear.)
Focus on actions.
(ACTION = BELIEF made manifest = REALITY.)
PS– I don’t “wonder” about the Saudis. I’ve seen their actions. I know the truth. Unfortunately, our Cmdr-in-Chief is still listening and not looking. He doesn’t know how to tell when Islamic apologists are lying (“their lips are moving”).
Why would I want to read it all? Feeding myself full of Booseeeeitt doesn’t seem like a good idea.
John Esposito’s Deceptions on “Islamophobiaâ€
Hasan Mahmud is a member of the advisory board of the World Muslims Congress. (Frontpagemag)
In most cases, a patient won’t even realize, let alone resist, when a doctor betrays him.
I am a Muslim. I believe that accepting our (Muslims’) share in creating “Islamophobia†in the West will help eliminate it. Dr. John Esposito’s recent article in the Huffington Post, “Islamophobia: A threat to American Values?†puts the entire blame on Western “media commentators, hard-line Christian Zionists and politicians.†He even neglects to mention the huge contribution Muslim societies have had on the issue. Esposito ignores that in our global village the West is regularly flooded by violence coming from Muslim societies; violence which is perpetrated in the name of Islam while citing Quranic verses and the Prophet’s examples. The list is long. Here are some examples:
1. A Sharia court stoned to death a gang-raped girl, who was a minor at the time.
2. A Sharia court flogged another girl to death for having an affair.
3. Punishing raped girls/women by Sharia courts is continuing.
4. Wife-beating is openly preached.
5. Child-marriage is openly preached.
6. “No rape in marriage†is openly preached.
7. Female genital mutilation (FGM) is supported by many clergics including some of Al Azhar University.
8. Women are instantly divorced – there is no maintenance in such cases.
9. A woman appealed to a Sharia court to order her husband to beat her not every day but once a week.
10. Sharia-police (Hisba) are invading people’s lives.
11. The persecution of Muslims with different ideas is reaching a frightening level.
12. Non-Muslims are arrested for carrying their holy books.
13. The persecution of non-Muslims is continuous and reaching a disturbing level.
14. Hate preaching against non-Muslims in media is common.
15. Indoctrination of children with such hate is open and alarming.
16. School syllabi are full of hatred directed at “The Other.â€
17. Non-Muslim places of worship are destroyed regularly.
18. Lying and deceiving are supported.
19. Civil rights are violently suppressed by “Islamic†governments — often by hanging.
With such phenomena and experience, what else does Dr. Esposito expect from the West except “Islamophobia� He also blames the West for resisting the Ground Zero Mosque. I wish he knew how many Muslims around the world are opposed to the proposed Islamic center, not because we don’t want mosques, but because before its construction, the notion of the center created “fitna†(division) and violently divided the whole nation.
Esposito is also utterly wrong to state: “Today, opposition to mosque construction with claims that all mosques are ‘monuments to terrorism’ and ‘house embedded cells’ in locations from NYC and Staten Island, to Tennessee and California, has become not just a local but a national political issue.†I wish he knew that only last month a new mosque, Baitul Gaffar, was constructed in New York without a shadow of resistance, or how many euros European governments are pouring into the construct of new mosques. By the way, women were barred from attending the opening ceremony of Baitul Gaffar (House of Creator) in New York.
Throughout his article, Esposito, a respected scholar, uses mini-exceptions as general examples. Despite overwhelming support for Muslims among politicians, he cites a few bad apples. For instance, Esposito says, “Politicians use fear of Islam as a political football.†He also states that “Justice Kagan is being accused of being ‘Justice Sharia.’†Accused? Knowing about widespread violence sanctioned by Sharia law, as the dean of Harvard Law School, Justice Kagan tried “to promote a deep appreciation of Islamic law†with the blessing of Saudi money. If such a person is not “Justice Sharia,†who is? Aren’t there Islamists trying to establish Sharia courts in the USA? Yes, the blueprint of American Sharia courts was created as early as 1993 by TAM, The American Muslims. Plus, who is breeding the home grown terrorists? Are they Western media commentators, hard-line Christian Zionists and politicians?
I wish Esposito mentioned the hate-tsunami against Jews and the West that roars in the media and throughout the pulpits of the Muslim world, constantly in Himalayan magnitude. One cartoon against our Prophet (SA) caused chaos to break loose, but during my long years in the Middle East, I saw many dozens of worse cartoons in the media about Jews and their holy book. No government contained that, nor was there a sane Muslim voice against these cartoons.
Esposito also states that “all Muslims have been reduced to stereotypes of Islam against the West, Islam’s war with modernity, and Muslim rage, extremism, fanaticism, and terrorism†and “all leaders of that [American] society look at all Muslims with suspicion and prejudice.†These are hyperbolic overstatements. I am a Muslim; I live in Canada and often travel to the US – there is a general sense of concern, but in general, Muslims are doing well, living well and are treated well. The overwhelming support and protection of Muslims by common North Americans and churches after 9/11 is on record, but is sadly overlooked.
Yes, “We all [governments, policymakers, the media, educational institutions, religious and corporate leaders] have a critical role to play in countering the voices of hate, the exclusionary theologies and ideologies.†Esposito should give the same advice to the leaders of Muslims world.
Once again, in our global village, the West is continuously bombarded by the news of serious violence from the Muslim world against women, non-Muslims and Muslims of different Islamic ideas, in the name of Islam.
This is the main reason for “Islamophobia†— and a logical one.
Hasan Mahmud is amazingly different and frank in his writing above.
However, one of his readers correctly stated:
1) It is a dangerous utopia to think about the world as if it were a global village. On the contrary: the world is populated by very different nations and people, having incompatible views on the truth and justices, and having conflicting interests.
2) With all due respect, the author’s statement that he is a Moslem citizen of Canada sounds as a word-mingling or linguistic sophism, because every Moslem coming to Canada (or to any Western nation) realizes, that he or she is coming to a non-Islamic nation. Immigration into a nation (i.e. coming for good) presumes an honest desire to assimilate into the nation. How a devoted Moslem may wish (in good faith!) to come into a nation which is not Islamic?
The answer is of course a.) the hijra (migration) to spread Islam, and b.) the da’awa, (proselytizing) the missionary effort to make the world Islamic.
Spencer: Georgetown’s Catholic apologist for Islam
In the Catholic magazine Crisis today, I question the anomaly of Saudi-funded dhimmi pseudo-academic John Esposito having a respected position at a Catholic University, Georgetown:
[…] While cheering conversions to Islam, Esposito has downplayed persecution of Christians in Muslim countries. Journalist Cinnamon Stillwell reports that when speaking in Stanford in 2008, Esposito did not welcome questions about that persecution: “When asked about the well-documented violence against Christians in Iraq and the persecution of Christians throughout the Muslim world, Esposito resorted at first to obfuscation and then bullying. After trying to chalk up the violence merely to ‘primitive’ behavior, he cut off one young woman angrily, telling her that it was ‘an absurd question.’†Esposito, according to Stillwell, claimed that “all religions produce violence,†and offered up “a litany of talking points in which he compared random and universally condemned acts of violence among Christians and Jews to the routine and often sanctioned bloodshed emanating from the Muslim world.â€
During his Stanford talk Esposito displayed a deep hostility toward Christianity: “He referenced the Crusades three times in the first ten minutes, each in the false context of acts of purely Christian aggression. In a relativistic attempt to paint all religions as equally problematic, Esposito compared Islamic terrorists to ‘Christian militants,’ and referred repeatedly to ‘Christians blowing up abortion clinics’ and the ‘Christian Right.’†He didn’t mention that the handful of abortion clinic bombers were universally condemned by all Christian authorities, while the thousands of Islamic jihadists who have perpetrated attacks worldwide in the name of Islam since 9/11 generally enjoy the blessing of Muslim clerics.
Esposito generally tends to blame Christians for friction between Muslims and Christians. In his 2002 book What Everybody Needs to Know about Islam (Oxford University Press), he acknowledges that “Muslim-Christian relations have deteriorated,†and lays the responsibility for that deterioration squarely at the feet of Evangelical Christian leaders in the U.S. – and Jews: “The creation of the state of Israel has contributed to the deterioration of relations and the Christian fundamentalists like Robertson, Graham and Falwell have been the source of intolerance, persecution, violence and terrorism.â€
Meanwhile, Esposito has praised one of the most notable of those clerics who exhort their people to violence. He has called Muslim Brotherhood Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who advocates suicide bombings, a champion of a “reformist interpretation of Islam and its relationship to democracy, pluralism and human rights.†An indication of Qaradawi’s firm commitment to “democracy, pluralism and human rights†came in January 2009, when during a Friday sermon broadcast on Al-Jazeera, he prayed that Allah would kill all the Jews: “Oh Allah, take this oppressive, Jewish, Zionist band of people. Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one.†He also declared: “Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by [Adolf] Hitler.â€
To be sure, Esposito’s endorsement of Qaradawi may have been based on incomplete knowledge, although Qaradawi has made his positions abundantly clear in over a hundred books and an enormously popular television show on Al-Jazeera. The same cannot be said, however, of Esposito’s association with the unsavory Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which he has called a “phenomenal organization.†Esposito has spoken at CAIR fundraisers in order, he explained, to “show solidarity not only with the Holy Land Fund [that is, the Holy Land Foundation], but also with CAIR.†The Holy Land Foundation was shut down and prosecuted for funneling money to the jihad terror group Hamas, which once boasted on its website about its murders of civilians in pizza parlors and on buses; the Justice Department named CAIR an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.
CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. (Esposito himself also refuses to condemn Hamas, as the Investigative Project notes: “In a 2000 interview in The United Association for Studies and Research’s (UASR) Middle East Affairs Journal, Esposito refused to condemn Hamas, which at the time was already designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the U.S. State Department.â€) Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR cofounder and longtime Board chairman Omar Ahmad was reported as saying in 1998 that “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth.†CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper has said: “I wouldn’t want to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future.†[…]
There is more.