From Georgetown University's The Hoya, with thanks to Nicolei, who comments:
“Wahhabi Islam is to Islam as Pat Robinson is to Christianity globally,” he said. “It is exclusionist. It basically says, ‘I’m right and you’re wrong. I’m with God, and you’re with Satan.’”Esposito claimed that it is not this interpretation of Islam that is dangerous in and of itself, but rather how easily this version lends itself to militancy.
Has Pat Robertson called for the killing of non-Christians?
How is militancy not the correct interpretation of
"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued".- Sura Al-Tawba 9:29.
Is there an equivalent in Christian texts?
Good questions, but I suspect that Esposito, like some other "experts" on Islam, does not allow them to be asked of him.
Here is the Hoya piece:
Esposito also emphasized the importance of distinguishing between the moderate Islamic belief system and the interpretation of Wahhabi Islam.“Wahhabi Islam is to Islam as Pat Robinson is to Christianity globally,” he said. “It is exclusionist. It basically says, ‘I’m right and you’re wrong. I’m with God, and you’re with Satan.’”
Esposito claimed that it is not this interpretation of Islam that is dangerous in and of itself, but rather how easily this version lends itself to militancy.
“The danger is that the militant comes to believe that they have a mandate from God,” he said.
Esposito also talked about the increasing importance of religious understanding in U.S. foreign policy.
“After 9/11, our question was, ‘Why do they hate us?’” he said. “What we don’t realize is that people on the other side say the same thing, and not just the extremist Muslims.”
He described an e-mail he received from a Muslim friend living in the Middle East on Sept. 12, 2001. In it, she voiced her concern that Sept. 11, 2001, would be used as an excuse to redraw the map of the Middle East and Muslim world.
“They admire America in the Muslim world, but they don’t want America deciding what goes on,” Esposito said.
He outlined how the major flaw in the strategy of the war on terror was the U.S.’s miscalculation of this Middle Eastern mindset.
“We thought that we would be treated as liberators and we miscalculated that it would be a cakewalk,” Esposito said. “We miscalculated the extent to which religious groups were strong factors on the ground. And we were not ready to provide the infrastructure needed.”
In this light, Esposito described how many countries, especially Europe, are now seeing America as a global threat. The Europeans are much closer to the effects of our action in the Middle East than the U.S. is, and thus feel they have much more at stake, he said.
Esposito concluded by emphasizing the importance of avoiding a religious crusade, or even the perception of one, in the Middle East.
“We have to be concerned with theologies of hate that exist in our society, not just theologies of hate overseas,” he said. “And we have to be concerned with how our war on global terrorism is perceived by the rest of the world.”
I wish Esposito would bring forth one shred of evidence that anyone who believes in what he identifies as one of the "theologies of hate" in our society is advocating the killing or subjugation of unbelievers, and thus would be legimately equivalent to the many Muslim hate preachers in mosques worldwide.
I agree. I think that a lot of people on the left, like John Esposito, are exclusionist. They basically say, "I am right and you are wrong," when presented with interpertations of Islam such as Mr. Spencer's.
And I tell you right now that I am not sensing a lot of love and tolerance toward Pat Robertson from John Esposito. I think Esposito needs to drop his theology of hate. He needs to be concerned with how Pat Robertson perceives him.
Same old, same old...The false analogy, Pat Robinson the leader of an 'ideology of hate' (implied) and is like Osama, 'Christian Fundamentalism' is like 'Wahabbism'. And then the red herring, 'Watch out for those hateful Christians!'
And everytime I fly, see a bible, and a 700 Club bookmark, I get cold sweats...
And finally, the false cause: 'those Muslims hate us because we hate them and do bad things to them...' And folks all around the world seem to suffer from the universal afflication of 'Muslim abuse', Thais, Filipinos, Chinese, Hindus, Sihks, Zorastorians, Bahais, Russians, Christians all over the place, Copts, Iraqis, Syrian, Lebanese, Nigerian, Indonesian, missionaries of all sorts, and don't forget those damn Russians, now even the Eurabians are starting to abuse Muslims (and don't forget the Japanese and those very bad Spaniards who provoked Muslim wrath...), and then anti-Eurabians, like Van Gogh and Ali, they really abused them, and finally, those darn Jews. Those Jews just really should leave those Muslims alone so they will be peaceful. Hamas is just a political organization that wants to make a deal, afterall...
So, America be nice. Be nice and worry about your own 'Osama', that man with the bible in his belt, Pat Robinson.
Again the false moral equivalence displayed by esposito and his Ilk.
If the sins of the Christian "extremists" were place on the other end of a balance with the sins of the islamic extremists, the Christains would be propelled into orbit by the resulting force.
Esposito should be forced to publish all his income tax filings before being allowed to speak about Islam. The lecture fees from tours in the Middle East, the fat "consulting fees" from companies doing business in the Middle East who need Islam explained to their employees, etc., the donations to all his various US-based Islam-promoting organizations and think tanks from grateful Saudi Sheikhs. I'm sure it's quite an impressive amount for a poor Catholic boy from Brooklyn.
Oh, forgot to add, his acolytes heckled, shrieked and shouted down Mme. Bat Ye'or when she tried to lecture about dhimmitude at Georgetown two years ago, with his full support.
Nice guy, isn't he?
The Canadian Government is actually looking at allowing Muslims to use Sharia law within Canada,CAIR is demanding it as a right under freedom of religion in the Charter of rights.
CAIR and a few other sleazy groups have been accused of getting money from the Saudis and
using it to run seminars on Whahabbism in Mosques and convention centre's.
Things can't be that bad here if so many Muslims are leaving Islamic Countries to live in Christian based Countries,I don't see them leaving in droves to return to the utopic lives they lead at home.
Even if a Christian leader did ask on TV
to kill for God, I have enough brains to see they are a nutbar and blindly following a Imam is more of a Islamic problem.
No one -- no one -- takes John Esposito seriously anymore. The sources of his funding are well-known -- that "Palestinian"-Lebanse islamochristian, who set up that center, right there at Georgetown, into which so much Arab money has been plowed.
Esposito, amusingly, finds he even has to borrow the silly title that his quasi-nemesis, Bernard Lewis, used for an article in the Atlantic: "I'm right, you're wrong. Go to hell." The title was silly; it is even sillier now that Esposito can't even come up with something of his own.
His books are, one after the other, examples of false predictions, gross omissions, couleur locale that takes the place of serious analysis, of which he is simply incapable (you know -- all those pretty pictures in the books he "edits" where Iznik tulip-tiles and postcard views of the Blue Mosque and, bien entendu, the Mosque of Omar, make the reader swoon and overlook the fact that he has learned nothing about the actual contents of Qur'an, hadith, and sira).
Esposito's loaded title "The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?" pointed the way to his vacuous conclusion -- of course it is a "myth" and not a "reality." That was the book in which he mentioned the word "Jihad" exactly twice. He has tried to do a little better since, but now it is all about blaming one particular group of Muslims, the "Wahhabis." Of course it was not a "Wahhabi" Muslim who just murdered Theo van Gogh. It was not "Wahhabis" who have been killing Christians and Confucians in Indonesia, by the hundreds of thousands, over the past few decades, and destroying, in 2003 alone, more than 3,000 churhces. It is not "Wahhabi" Muslims in Bangladesh who have been murdering Hindus -- 3 million since the 1971 war against West Pakistan. It is not "Wahhabis" who conducted, in Col. Ojukwu's words, the "Jihad" against the Christian Ibos in southern Nigeria who felt compelled to declare the independence of Biafra. It was not "Wahhabis" who have been making war on black Christians and animists in the southern Sudan, or now insufficiently "Arab" Muslims in Darfur. It was not "Wahhabis" but that severe and learned theologian of Shi'a Islam, the Ayatollah Khomeini, who set up the murderous, fanatical Islamic Republic of Iran -- about which, if you can stand it, you can find a great deal from many Iranian exiles, at www.faithfreedom.org.
Esposito resorts to the flimsiest and most comical of phony symmetries: imagine likening Pat Robertson to Osama bin Laden. Is he serious? Pat Robertson is akin to a thousand other preachers, many of them celebrated in American history. They may not be Esposito's cup of tea, but his taqiyya is nauseating -- and Suzan above is quite right to ask about the sources of his funding. But of course, we all know, everyone knows, where Esposito gets his money.
But what may be most interesting is the reply Esposito gave at a Muslim website some months ago, in which he noted that after 9/11 he -- John Esposito -- was "pleasantly surprised" to see that there had been no diminution in the number of "reverts"(or converts) to Islam.
Now we all know how keenly interested Muslims are in the rate of conversion, how important Da'wa is, how much an instrument of conquest it is believed to be -- for one is swelling the ranks of the recruits into the umma al-islamiyya, the Community of Believers, who owe their loyalty to that Community alone, never to the Infidel nation-state. We recall, do we not, that the very first thing Osama bin Laden inquired about, on that first tape filmed after 9/11, and which pleased him mightily to discover, was the rate of conversion of Infidels. He was told, and gave a smile when he heard the news, that "people in Holland were converting at an even faster pace" than before.
Now here is John Esposito, now of Georgetown, formerly of Holy Cross. One might expect that he would be a student of Islam, but not an enthusiast, not someone delighted to receive news of the swelling of Muslim ranks. But this is what he said at this website:
"I was pleasantly surprised" to discover that the numbers of conversions [to Islam] have not gone down, but increased."
"Surprised" -- sure.
But "pleasantly" surprised? Why? Why would a certain John Esposito. of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (or whatever it is called) be "pleasantlly surprised" that there had been no diminishment, because of 9/11, in the number of converts to Islam?
In other words, why did John Esposito express precisely the same reaction as -- Osama bin Laden?
Were I the president of Georgetown, or an alumus, or a parent, or a Congressman, or a journalist who had been told to "interview John Esposito," that is the question that I would first wish to have answered.
As to the shoddiness of his scholarship -- well, forget about it. Margoliouth and Schacht havwe recently been reprinted. Antoine Fattal's book on the legal status of non-Muslims under Islam never went out of print. K. S. Lal is easily obtained. Tritton, Arthur Jeffery, Armand Abel, Charles-Emmanuel Bousquet, Snouck Hurgronje -- they are all about to be reprinted, at least inrelevant part. Of course, don't think for a minute that Esposito, or any of his crew, are familiar with any of these great scholars, and dozens more. They've never read them. They actually believe that the only person to have written about dhimmitude (though her work is profound, she recognizes that it also makes uyse of the previous work of dozens of other scholars) is Bat Ye'or, whom they like to airily dismiss as "polemical" so that they will not have to confront her meticulous, scrupulous, and irrefutable scholarship.
If ever that silly bumpersticker "Question Authority" was appropriate, it is in relation to the likes of Esposito, and Michael Sells, and tutti quanti. Whether on the take, or simply ill-informed, or lazy, or stupid, or some combination, they are guides to nothing and to nowhere. But there books could be given as incentives to those who sign up for Al-Jazeera on cable -- the perfect coffee-table accompaniment to so many of its programs.
Well, Hugh, we are exposing that old dog Esposito as the poser and liar that he is. Troubling, though, that his books are being reprinted. Get on with yours so that you all can put him to shame once and for all, as you also can be "meticulous, scrupulous, and use irrefutable scholarship."
I am breathless awaiting the arrival of Eurabiafrom Bat Ye'or and perhaps yours, as we all are, one of these days. Hmmmm.
Below is a text, an exhortation really. But is not, as it should be in the Esposito Parallel Universe, or the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding's Own Private Islam (for State Department Use Only), written by some "Wahhabi" cleric. No, it is the work of a most learned theologian of Shi'a Islam, someone who hated, and in turn was hated by, the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia. But the views he expresses are not his alone, but those of many throughout Islam, Sunni and Shia and Ibadi, who can hardly be called Wahhabis.
The text is so useful, so telling, so clear, that one might print it out, and make copies, and affix it to your refrigerator under the one magnet that does not keep slipping down. And make copies for your friends, your relatives -- a special treat at Thanksgiving, to your children and their friends. Oh, yes, you'll be a pest all right, and the bore, rather than the life, of the party -- but you have to educate people. They cannot do it for themselves. And, god knows, the government isn't about to help out. No sir -- from our gummint, mum's still the operative word.
Here goes:
"Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled and incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of [other] countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world.
But those who study Islamic Holy War will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world...Those who know nothing of Islam [Esposito et al] pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this[ are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean that Muslims should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill them [the non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Does this mean sitting back until [non-Muslims] overcome us? Islam says: Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you! Does that mean that we should surrender to the enemy? Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for Holy Warriors! There are hundreds of other [Koranic] verses and Hadiths [sayings of the Prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all that mean that Islam is a relgion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim."
Ayatollah Khomeini, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the most populous Muslim state in North Africa and the Middle East.
Quoted in Amir Taheri, "Holy Terror" (p. 36-37)and in Ibn Warraq, "Why I Am Not a Muslim" (p.11-12). Written by Khomeini in the 1940s, but of course the views he expressed here never changed. How could they?
Dear Hugh,
Also appreciating this Khomeini quote's crystalline clarity, I included it in my book "Islam Unveiled."
Best
RS
I stand amended and abashed and must plead St.-Martin's-Summer madness.