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Did you catch John Esposito with Feisal Abdul Rauf on CSpan? Bassam Michael Madany did. Here is his exclusive Jihad Watch commentary on the CSpan panel discussion "Understanding Islam":
On June 5 and 6, 2004, BookExpo America was held at McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago. One of the panels dealt with “Understanding Islam: How Books Can Foster Dialogue in a Faith-fractured World.” It was telecast twice on Saturday, June 5 on C-SPAN2Lynn Garrett, religion editor of Publishers Weekly, announced before the beginning of the proceedings that one of the authors that was scheduled to participate in the panel, Irshad Manji “was not able to join us today.” Then, she proceeded to introduce the remaining authors:
Feisal Abdul Rauf, “What's Right with Islam: A New Vision for Muslims and the West”
Asma Gull Hasan: “Why I Am a Muslim: An American Odyssey”
John Esposito, author, “Unholy War”It should be noted that the subject of the Canadian Muslim Irshad Manji’s book was "The Trouble With Islam."
Analysis and Comments
John Esposito, professor of Religion at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, began by giving an account of the status of books on Islam during the second half of the twentieth century. The Islamic revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran (1979) gave a great boost to the publication of many new titles on Islam in the West.
Islam and Muslims were almost invisible in the 1960s both in Europe and in America, but nowadays, Islam has become the second largest religion in those areas as well as in the rest of the world. Esposito deplored the fact that in the West, the media does not do a fair job in depicting Islam. This has continued to be the case even after the tragic events of 9/11. While several books and magazine articles on Islam have appeared lately, most of them remain deficient, according to Esposito, as their emphasis is not so much on “know Islam” but on “know the threat” of Islam, or of Islamic radicalism.
In attempting to understand “what makes John Esposito tick,” I came to realize that the key is to be found in an often repeated theme during his presentation at McCormick Place Convention Center: “The transcendent and the dark side of religion exist in all religions.” This is the basic motif that he finds in all religions, regardless of their sacred texts and histories. Actually, this reveals Esposito as having joined the ranks of such well-known Western pluralist theologians as John Hick, W. C. Smith, and Paul Knitter. His pluralist theology allows him to posit equivalence between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The noble and uplifting element in these theistic faiths is to be located in the transcendence they proclaim. However, all three have their dark side, which must be confessed and deplored.
Professor Esposito is impatient with the question that is put to him so often, as to whether Islam is a religion of peace. “How come we keep on asking the same question, [about violence in Islam,] and don’t ask the same question about Christianity and Judaism. Jews and Christians have engaged in acts of violence. All of us have the transcendent and the dark side.”
Esposito related how he gave his students at Georgetown selections from the Qur’an regarding violence as well as selections from the Hebrew Bible that dealt with the same subject. Having deliberately chosen those texts out of context, his students would naturally arrive at the same conclusion, that both Islam and Judaism taught and endorsed violence.
He then told of his recent participation at a meeting in London, England, where the subject of Islam and its compatibility with democracy were debated. He deplored the fact that during the conference, several people quoted out of context, certain parts of the Qur’an that dealt with violence. At this point, he became rather emotional and declared that “we have our own theology of hate. In mainstream Christianity and Judaism, we tend to be intolerant; we adhere to an exclusivist theology, of us versus them.”Not that many people attended this presentation on Islam, judging by the more than half-empty room. However, I could not but feel very disappointed about the whole event. It was marked by a one-sided description of Islam, since the other two speakers, being of the Muslim faith, did their best to present a very tolerant view of Islam. As mentioned above, the Canadian Muslim author of a critical book on Islam, while advertised on the schedule of C-Span 2, did not appear to present the “other side” of this important subject.
John Esposito’s presentation was a panegyric of Islam throughout its 1400 year history. His own brand of pluralist theology places his position outside the mainstream of the historic Christian faith, in the Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant traditions. It is a secular, postmodern, and Western construct that seeks to paint all religions with the same brush; in his case, his motif being that of the existence of that same “transcendent and the dark side” essence in every religion.
As a Christian, I encounter no problem with respect to those parts of Old Testament history which narrate the conquest of Canaan for example. They do tell of warfare and conquest, but that was a specific phase in Sacred History. That part of Biblical history is not normative for this New Testament age. There is no mandate for the Church to resort to conquest or “violence” in its fulfillment of Christ’s commission. In fact, during the first 300 years of our history, our faith spread through kerygma (preaching), didache (teaching), and marturia (testimony). And as many witnesses sealed their testimony with their blood, the Greek word martur acquired a new meaning: that of a witness who dies for his or her faithfulness to Jesus Christ.
Long ago, Saint Augustine taught us how to read and expound the Hebrew Scriptures. He summarized that by saying: “In the Old Testament, the New is concealed, in the New Testament, the Old is revealed.” Christians read the Hebrew Scriptures in the light of the exposition of these Scriptures in the pages of the New Testament.
John Esposito, as well as many contemporary Western scholars, fails to represent Islam objectively, in the light of its sacred texts and its 1400 years history. As long as such experts selectively tell the story of Islam, ignoring its spread primarily through its futuhat (conquests), and remain totally silent about the devastating effects of dhimmitude on the native populations of the conquered lands, their claim to tell a true story of this world religion cannot be left unchallenged.
Toward the end of his presentation, John Esposito got animated when he challenged the audience to be careful when they read certain (unnamed) authors who do not give any references to some of their statements, such as the claim that a great number of mosques in the West are funded by Saudi Arabia.
Had I been in the audience, I would have reminded Professor Esposito that many Internet sources on Islam and the Middle East, such as MEMRI, do a good job in documenting everything they place on their site.
Furthermore, I would have asked him whether there was any Western equivalence to the Ottoman institution of “Devshirme” that deprived thousands of Balkan families of their young boys who were forced to Islamize, and become members of that elite army corps of Janissaries.
I would have asked why to this day, Turkey still denies the genocide of the Armenians that took the lives of 1,500,000 innocent men, women, and children during World War I, within the territory of the Ottoman Empire.What we need during these turbulent years of the twenty-first century is a genuine dialogue between all the major civilizations, a dialogue based on an honest and objective reading of their authoritative texts and histories. This is the only way to avoid the “Clash of Civilizations” in our globalized and shrinking world.
Posted by Robert at June 9, 2004 5:08 AM
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Here is the latest nonsense from the Muslim lobby:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3789303.stm
Posted by: interested at June 9, 2004 5:23 AMBassam Madany seems to have "told it like it is." If the looming civilizational war is to be staved off--and I passionately pray that it will be--it is time for Muslim intellectuals to come clean about their tradition. Repentence and accommodation have to be done on both sides.
Posted by: Kepha at June 9, 2004 5:37 AMSchools 'failing' Muslim pupils
This is so typical of the PC brigade. No doubt we will see a report in Al Guardian/Independent/Observer.
How come this same education system doesn't fail the Hindu/sikh/christian/buddhist/jewish/any other you can think of groups ?
Story 1.
Many years ago I was working in an area of london called Queens Park, this is where that pleb Yusef Islam /Cat stevens has set up an islamic school.
I was approached by a child who asked me if I was a moslem. I replied no. he then told me I can't walk on that side of the pavement !!!!
Story 2
I once got into a chat with a self pitying moslem.
I told him that moslem countries had the lowest rate of Tech/education investment in the world.
His reply (as he surfed the internet, fiddled with his flashy mobile and looked around in his fancy spectacles was "what do you need technology for?"
The moslems are failed by there backward religion.
Look at pakistan, the madrassas, if the koran tells you the earth is flat but the fact is the earth is circular, who are these idiots going to believe ?
I don't even bother being polite now.
My reply is "WE non moslems need modern education and technology to feed the beasts in the zoo's, the beasts being the moslems and the zoo's being islamic countries"
Lets take an example.
India non moslem majority, secular/democracy 1 bn pop investing in education= growing economy
Pakistan/Bangladesh moslem majority/dictatorships, no investment in education, huge pop growth=stagnant no hopers.
THEY WANT US TO FOLLOW THEIR RELIGION AND UP LIKE THEM, I DON'T THINK SO.
AI: the sidewalk thing is based on a specific authentic hadith quoting Muhammad as advising Muslims to push non-Muslims into the gutter when they meet them on the street.
Nice, eh?
We people of Christian background have the example of the Good Samaritan as representing a moral ideal, while Muslim children are taught that the highest moral ideal is to shove people around based on their religion.
Regarding the Saudi-funded Esposito, his days in the sun are numbered and he knows it. He's no longer considered the Western World's leading authority on Islam in many quarters. His apologia have been too obvious and too self-abasing for that. The more criticism directed at him, the more bizarre and twisted and transparent become the apologies. Just like the case with his closest soulmate Karen Armstrong, the increasingly dotty old British bat who keeps making up more and more fantastical "facts" about her beloved "Islam" -- "facts" that have zero basis in reality.
Posted by: Susan at June 9, 2004 8:46 AMYou have but to look at the lives of the founders of Christianity and Islam. Jesus Christ never waged war to make converts. He healed the sick and preached love thy neighbor as thyself. Mohammed turned to war routinely to spread his dogma.
Posted by: BCT at June 9, 2004 9:28 AMI actually saw bits and pieces of this, but not the beginning and I didn't know that Manji was supposed to attend.
What I DID see was the usual stomach-turning outright lies, half-truths and quasi-truths put forward by the Western apologist and the Muslim apologist, ALL OF WHICH WAS BASICALLY UNCHALLENGED by the audience that probably did not know any better.
Islam starts for me, personally, as an unequivocal evil, using every means possible to destroy the West from without and within.
Posted by: Ethelred at June 9, 2004 11:02 AMI hope a Muslim does what the crazy Mohammed says and pushes me in the gutter. This would give me the legal passage to pop his joints from shoulder to ankle, LOL......
Posted by: DCWatson at June 9, 2004 11:57 AMEsposito's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding was originally funded by a "Palestinian" Arab contractor, a very rich man (Lebanon's answer to the Bin Laden family), and Esposito has dedicated one of his books, as I recall, to one of this man's sons.
With a man like Esposito, there is no mystery. He has never bothered to really study Islam, maligns those who do (such as Bernard Lewis, who is himself unduly apologetic on the subject of dhimmis, and much too influenced by a host of Muslim friends, colleagues, hosts, and patrons to be the truth-teller he is credited with being), and receives his lifelihood from Middle Eastern sources, either what might be called dhimmis promoting the Muslim agenda, or Arab Muslims promoting a false understanding, an interfaith dialogue of the deaf which allows Muslims to curry favor, support, and protection when they feel it will be useful for them, not so that they might candidly own up to the tenets of Islam, but so that they can continue to deny, with taqiyya-talk, its reality.
Cherchez not la femme but, in the case of Esposito most definitely, le fric.
Posted by: Hugh at June 9, 2004 4:42 PMHi all
This is a post which i sent to a Catholic friend if you take the time to read it you may find a great deal of comfort in it
--------------------------------ooooooooooooooo------------------------
I hope you don’t take offence at this letter, I in no way intend such a thing, considering the length of it makes it obvious that it isn’t anyway.
At Thursday’s meeting you said that the Muslims are a monotheistic religion and have Abraham in common with Jews and Christians, yet if you were to mention this to a Muslim you would see him quickly bring up a disagreement with both the Jews and the Christians version of scripture (God’s word) this would happen repeatedly throughout the whole of the New testament and the Old Testament.
In the Muslim interpretation of our Scripture, which they repeatedly tell us is full of errors and mistranslations Ishmael, is the rightful heir of Abraham, and other for examples are;
The Son of God, Jesus’ title is a blasphemy to some of them as they cannot separate in their understanding human procreativity and divine Sonship. Koran, 5:88 -92
Jesus did not die on the cross.
Jesus did not resurrect nor ascend into heaven.
The Trinity which we understand is pulled down to the level of understanding only an atheist can utter, to them our Trinity is the way we understand God our Father, Jesus, and Mary; the truth is that scripturally we have the correct understanding and it conflicts with their view that Mohammed is the “Comforter” which is a complete hijacking of our Scripture hence the emphasis is always that we have a”Bible which is full of errors”. The answer to this false hood is that Mohammed knew the teaching of the Bible in his day and he at all times agreed with it, this is stated in the Koran, so is their own Scripture lying too, then it must be a mistranslation, if the Bible being Scripture cannot lie and the Koran being Scripture cannot lie it is the Muslim interpretation which came second therefore it is in error. It is never put forward as “you believe this we believe that “ it is always put forward that “Christianity has got it wrong”
“The Koran declares that both Moses and Jesus predicted the coming of Mohammed. In the case of Moses, the prophecy in Deuteronomy 18 concerning the great Prophet is presented in the New Testament as being fulfilled in Jesus (3:81; 7:157; also Isa. 42:11 is thought to predict Mohammed; Ali 1989, n. 416). The alleged prophecy of Jesus about Mohammed involves the identification of the promised "comforter" as Mohammed instead of the Spirit of God which came to indwell permanently in believers on Pentecost (61:6; Ali n 5438; cf. Jn. 14:16; 15:26; 16:7).”
Quote {John Paul II in his Easter Message presented the "culture of life and love" proposed by the risen Christ as the way to "render vain the logic of death" of terrorism and violence.
“May Jews, Christians and Muslims, "who consider themselves children of Abraham”, discover "the brotherhood that they share and that prompts in them designs of cooperation and peace," the Holy Father said.}
When Muhammed (570 - 632) was alive, he claimed to receive the revelation of the Koran from Allah. This means that at that time, the Bible which was in existence could not have been corrupted because the Koran states that God's word cannot be corrupted. The question I have for the Muslims is "When and where was the Bible corrupted, since the Koran says that the Torah, the Psalms, and the Gospel are from Allah and Allah's words cannot be changed?"
We are instructed by Pope John Paul to consider IF we are the children of Abraham and we must accept that we do not know any God named “Allah” neither the Jews or the Christians have ever came across such a God, he is a stranger to us, alien, and he is not the same God we worship as the Father of our lord Jesus Christ, this God Our Father has shown himself to us through the revelation of Christ, and when he spared the Ninivites, “”Should I not pity Ninevah that great city , which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left”. Jonah4:11
“For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God; so turn and live” Ezekiel 18:32
I could carry on continuously in this vein as you know, let us accept that Christ has laid before us the will of God, and that Christ has cultivated and nourished us.
*
A good place for a historian of Islam to start would be in 629 ad, or Year 8 of the new Muslim calendar, though that had not yet come into being. In that year, 20 armed horsemen, led by Sa’d ibn Zayd, were sent by Muhammad to destroy the statue of Manat, the pagan goddess of fate, at Qudayd, on the road between Mecca and Medina. For eight years Muhammad had tolerated the uneasy co-existence of the pagan god ALLAH and his three daughters: Al Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat. Al-Uzza (the morning star, Venus) was the favourite goddess of the Quraysh, the tribe to which Muhammad belonged, but Manat was the most popular in the region as a whole, and was idolised by three key Meccan tribes that Muhammad had been desperately trying to win over to his new monotheistic religion. By year 8, however, three important military victories had been won against rival pagan and Jewish forces. The battle of Badr had seen Muhammad triumph against the Meccan tribes despite the smallness of his army, and Muhammad must have deemed further ideological compromise unnecessary. Sa’d ibn Zayd and his 20 horsemen had arrived to enforce the new monotheism.
The keeper of Manat’s sanctuary saw the horsemen approach, but remained silent as they dismounted. No greetings were exchanged. Their demeanour indicated that they had not come to honour Manat or to leave a token offering. The keeper did not stand in their way. According to Islamic tradition, Sa’d ibn Zayd approached the beautifully carved statue of Manat, a naked black woman seemed to emerge from nowhere. The keeper called out “Come, O Manat, show the anger of which you are capable!” Manat began to pull out her hair and to beat her breasts in despair, while cursing her tormentors. Sa’d beat her to death. Only then did his 20 companions join him. Together they hacked away until they had destroyed the statue. The sanctuaries of: Al Lat and Al-Uzza, were dealt with in similar fashion, probably on the same day.
* from Tariq Ali in his Mullahs and Heretics .
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n03/ali_.html
Islamic Monotheism therefore is not by any stretch of the imagination the same as the Bible of the Jews or Christians.
Allah is not the universal father of mankind his character is totally different to the God of Abraham. He is the God of Muslims only and in many passages of the Koran he is determined to the destruction of all of Islam’s enemies, it is sad to see that a Muslim cannot even say ‘salaam’ to a Christian because he would be saying ‘peace’ and that is forbidden by the Koran, Allah is not the same God as Yahweh because Allah is vengeful on all those who are not his followers, many texts allude to the savagery his followers are exhorted to and expected to visit on Allah’s enemies. Muslim’s do not try to explain Allah as Christians do God, to them Allah is unknowable but unmerciful to those who are not Muslim and all merciful to those who are Muslim. This is in direct contradiction to Jesus’ word that “From the days of old till the day of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence and men of violence try to take heaven by force”
Jesus tells us passionately that he came not for peace but for a sword, Ezekiel 33 is a testimony of the Spirit of Truth for judgement, the Word of the Lord appears to Ezekiel as a glittering great two edged sword; appealing for a spirit of repentance, as it does so it lays out the compassion of God and the futility of those who reject him by their wickedness, Jesus is speaking again of this sword when he say’s that men preferred the darkness to the light that uncovers their deeds. This same sword is the Judge and the Paraclete, which has authority to judge those alive or dead. In the cursing psalms a man or men may have been judged for his/their actions and the sentence is “measure for measure” because God has already heard the cry of the helpless victim, and witnessed the scene and the crime, his anger is justified. Yet to the repentant he will find the “Comforter” from some part in the judgement “Another, another one saved in the end” maybe.
Muhammad said that he received his message from Allah through the Angel Gabriel, yet there is a highly disputed text which states that the Angel Gabriel appeared to him censuring him as a liar. In any case Islam is a religion whose adherents will be subject to the judgement of the Holy Spirit, it’s dependant on the testimony of Moses and the commandments, from which they are obliged to love their neighbour, and the God who has made himself known through Christ. Armed jihads to all corners of the world does not aid their salvation it denies it.
Muhammad will be responsible for the sins of many of those who believed in him, and for substituting a false God, Allah, who hates everyone except Muslims.
Despite this Muslims do need to know the truth of the Gospel, most of the people leading this discussion with Islam are aware that only by educating them can we ever hope for a peaceful coexistence with them. Unfortunately it is a closed society saying “You Christians have nothing to teach us and we have nothing to learn”
http://zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=52101
We can only try educate the ignorant muslims, but as said, plugged ears do not hear the message. Even so, one soul saved is better than none.
Posted by: Nathan at June 10, 2004 1:33 AMJames Kennedy: I say a hearty "Amen" to the need to evangelize Muslims. But we Christians are called to use the difficult weapons of prayer, persuasion, and ethical example.
Posted by: Kepha at June 10, 2004 10:34 AMKepha
We need to inflame the hearts of everyone who does not know the message of Christ, and to do this we need the Holy Spirit to reach out for us; never was the need to know our Christian faith more necessary than it is TODAY.
Jim
Nathan
We have only to look at English History and see that some of the medieval Christians placed God above the King, this was dealt with by the most extremely outspoken being punished; many people who died for their faith in England professed their love for God and their loyalty to the Monarch (who was executing them) in terms of their loyalty to the Monarch as the representative of God, and of God's goodness in their lives being the part which made them the characters they were and the part of them which mattered.
Christianity is still today far superior to Islam; which if it is a religion at all, it is a religion of intense doubt incapable of seeing the gift of Christ, so that its young people are faced with a quandary "What else do I need to do to gain my Salvation" it is at this time that Jihad is taught as a means of instant Salvation.
The Word of God is clear, we are his creatures, he is Our Creator, he has given us a commandment to "love one another" " Thou shalt not kill" nothing that Mohammed or Allah can say against that can stand, and to go against it will affect salvation, a Law of God just as powerful as the Law of Gravity. Each person who goes against the Law of God falls into it's Power and it's Power is Judgement; Jesus is the escape from this Judgement, and the simplicity of this escape from Judgement, is in believing Jesus is God's Son, (He is the Word of God who was with God since before the beginning of time).
No-one can please God by making an offering of blood,his own or others, that offering is abominable, the person is guilty of taking the property of God and spoiling it, an investigation will be made and will be followed by punishment, not Salvation.
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