Esposito Kicked the Bucket

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Here’s an Arab Muslim singing his praises:

“John Esposito was an early and courageous scholar who challenged Orientalist misrepresentations of Islam and Muslims in an era of deep polarisation”

Nothing “courageous” about this cretin. Even if he was only in it for the $$$$, he did a lot of damage to a time honoured institution of higher learning.

John Esposito transformed how the West understood Islam

By Nader Hashemi

The pioneering scholar, who died on July 15, challenged Orientalist orthodoxies and reshaped the study of Islam and Muslim societies.

Hmm, Esposito was certainly challenged, but he never came out and took it up with anyone who challenged him. He was at best a creepy wakademic tosspot.

Here’s a more realistic picture of Esposito’s misdeeds:

John Esposito is a professor at Georgetown University and the head of the “Prince Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.”  He is considered one of the foremost apologists of radical Islam in American academia.  The term “apologist” means one who denies events and activities of a group or who uses selective perceptions and cognitive biases to whitewash reality.  However, it is more fitting to view Esposito as a Da’i, or an Islamic propagator who uses Da’wah, the propagation of deceit.

From the very beginning, Islam has been spread by two arms: the violent jihad and the political Da’wah (16:125)i.  Da’wah serves as a diplomatic means of religious legitimization through which to invite all human beings to accept Islam as the only supreme and perfect religion (5:3; 9:33). According to Da’wah, which preaches the message of Allah’s infinite wisdom (6:38), it is in humanity’s best interest to submit to Islam (7:158; 21:107).  Since Islam is perfect, no one may doubt it, use logic to determine its validity, or judge it by human conceptions (4:115; 5:72-3; 10:69-70; 29:68; 36:64-5).  Any of these transgressions constitutes heresy and warrants the death penalty.

Today, Da’wah has become diplomacy of deceit to mislead the ignorant infidels. John Esposito, as a Christian professor at a prestigious university, is well-placed to promote Islam by Da’wah. Lately, Esposito has taken to blaming the United States for and exaggerating the indigenous local populations’ role in the crisis in the Middle East. In an extreme leftist publication, Esposito deplores the U.S. while praising the Muslim Brotherhood as an apt practitioner of democracy. In fact, the professor believesthat the uprisings have revealed a broad-based, pro-democracy movement not driven by religious extremists and therefore deserving of the U.S.’s support.

These claims are in standing with Esposito’s general views and attitudes. By quoting from his book,What Everybody Needs to Know about Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), we can best understand how he uses the Islamic Da’wah to promote Muslim interests in the West.

First, as to Islam’s hostility to other religions, Esposito claims the following (70-73):

All that remains, then, is to tell this story to the original peoples of the Middle East and North Africa, who were forcibly conquered, Arabized, and Islamizedⁱⁱ. Consider also the peoples of the Balkans and Eastern Europe who were conquered and enslavedⁱⁱⁱ, the tens of millions of Africans who were likewise subjugated and exterminated^iv, and the 80 million eliminated Buddhists in Asia^v. As for our own generation, Esposito should enlighten the Armenians^vi, not to mention the Christians in Greece, Iraq (Assyrians), Lebanon, Egypt, and especially Southern Sudan. But perhaps the most eager recipients of this information would be the 10-12 million Muslims massacred in the last 80 years by other Muslims.

So Christians have brought harmful Islamic behavior upon themselves. As for the genocide in Sudan, Esposito’s reaction is that there is no problem, since “actually the majority of the South is animist and the struggle has been political and economic as much as religious.” The Sudanese victims areanimists, not Christians, so there is no problem here.As to whether Jews and Christians have always been enemies of Islam, Esposito has this to say (79-86):

[T]he Jewish population was granted the right to internal religious and cultural autonomy in exchange for their political loyalty and allegiance to the Muslims. The Jews backed Muhammad’s Meccan rivals, judged as traitors for the support of his enemies[.] … [O]ther Jews became Dhimmis and thrived under the protection of Islam[.] … [T]he establishment of the State of Israel was a turning point in relations between Muslims and Jews, and severely strained their relations in Muslim countries[.] … [T]he Muslim conquerors proved to be far more tolerant than Imperial Christianity had been, granting religious freedoms to the indigenous Christian Churches. Pluralism is the essence of Islam as revealed in the Qur’an and practiced by Muhammad and the early caliphs[.]

[I]n fact however, the full intent of “When the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters whenever you find them” is missed or distorted when quoted in isolation. For it is followed and qualified by “but if they repent and fulfill their devotional obligation and pay the Zakat, then let them go their way, for God is forgiving and kind” (9:5). The same is true for another quoted verse (9:29), which is often cited without the line that follows: “until they pay the tax with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”