Champion of dialogue

Renowned US political Islam scholar John Louis Esposito died last month in a Pennsylvania hospital from complications following heart surgery. Born on May 19, 1940, Esposito vigorously challenged the widespread belief that Islam, the religion, was responsible for the anti-US Iranian revolution of 1979 and the attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001. Esposito, a professor of Middle Eastern and religious studies at Georgetown University, rejected the US and international backlash against Muslims following these attacks.

Esposito wrote or edited more than 50 books, including “What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam” (2002) and served as editor-in-chief of “The Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Islamic World” (2009). He was one of the few American experts on Islamic fundamentalism and its political offshoots when Iranian revolutionaries seized hostages at the US embassy in Tehran in 1979. After years of teaching, lecturing and writing, Esposito was sought out by the media, government officials, and publishers seeking instant book deals. A devout Christian, he did not allow his faith to influence his writing and teaching which was favourable to Islam while criticising Muslim foibles and faults.

He held that Islam determines many Muslims’ lives, governance, and laws in contrast with the situation in secular Western societies. He correctly contended that Muslim alienation from the US stemmed largely from its support of Israel. He was a founder in 1993 of the Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, launched with partial funding from Palestinian Christian billionaire Hasib Sabbagh. Its name was changed to the Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding after the Saudi royal donated $20 million for research. The Centre explores Muslim theological similarities and differences with the Christian faith and practices and teaches about great Muslims in history. They include Ibn Sina who wrote early medical books, mathematician Al-Khwarizmi who contributed to the creation of algebra, global traveller and writer Ibn Battuta, and historic army commander Salaheddin who defeated western Crusaders at the battle of Hattin on July 4, 1187, and regained Jerusalem.

Breaching the emotional, theological, and historical gulf between Islam and Christianity is a difficult proposition. The Byzantine Christian world was issued a major political and geographical challenge by the 7th century expansion of Islam from the Arabian Peninsula. In defence, Christians have adopted rejection of Islam and prejudice against Muslims. This has morphed into “Islamophobia,” which emerged in early French literature and gained widespread popularity in English in the late 1990s. This coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Union as the chief threat to the US touted by politicians seeking to focus on a new enemy to replace Moscow.

Dalia Mogahed, director of Research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, observed in an interview, that “Islamophobia is a manufactured phenomenon, it is not an organic regrettable outcome of bad Muslims doing bad things, it is something that is being deliberately created in the public, and there’s research that proves that there is an entire industry dedicated to manufacturing fear.” She did not mention the considerable contribution to demonisation by Israel and its supporters. It is estimated that 80 per cent of western coverage of Islam and Muslims is negative.

She pointed out that, “spikes in public opinion connecting Islam and violence spikes around the run-up to the [2003] Iraq war, and during the 2008 and the 2012 US presidential campaigns. On the contrary, there were no spikes in public opinion connecting Islam and violence around the time [of the attack on the US the Sept. 11, 2001] there was actually a slight improvement in the public views of Muslims – and public opinion did not change at all following the [2013] Boston bombing. In fact, I even checked recently and public opinion did not change around the time of the [2015] San Bernardino, California, shootings which killed 14 people and injured 22 or the 2016 Orlando, Florida attack, which killed 49 and wounded 58 at a nightclub.

Mogahed said, “What this indicates is that domestic terrorist attacks perpetrated by Muslims do less harm to public sentiment and the connection of violence and Islam, than do election cycles, and the manufacturing of consent in the run-up to war.”

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