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With dhimmi scholar John Esposito in the news again, Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald offers this homage to the great man:
John Esposito did not start out as anything more than a mild-mannered low-level academic; one suspects he had no strong feelings about Islam, and was not prompted by any of the mental pathologies -- antisemitism, hatred of America -- that can produce the apologist for Islam. But as one crook of the Gilded Age, of the kind of Tammany Hall variety, said in his own defense, Esposito has "seen his opportunities, and he took 'em."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 their 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.
Esposito has come a long way, the mediocre producer of nondescript texts and prettified couleur-locale "studies" of Islam, those coffee-table concoctions in which the pictures first overwhelm the reader -- those blue mosques, those Iznik tiles, those colorfully turbaned Turks -- and prevent any sober recognition of just how empty or misleading so many of the texts offered in these anthologies, or by Esposito himself, really are. All those pretty pictures make the reader swoon and overlook the fact that he has learned nothing about the actual contents of Qur'an, hadith, and sira.
No one of sense -- no one -- takes John Esposito seriously anymore. 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 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 churches. 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.
Nobody needs Esposito’s writings. Margoliouth and Schacht have 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, Georges Henri Bousquet, Snouck Hurgronje -- they are all about to be reprinted, at least in relevant part. Of course, I don't think for a minute that Esposito, or any of his crew, are familiar with any of these great scholars, and dozens more. I doubt they've even read them. They seem actually to believe that the only person to have written about dhimmitude 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.
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 "pleasantly 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 alumnus, 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.
He's got a good thing going. $20 million for his "Georgetown" Center, which means a lot more for lean, mean, jogging John Esposito, and John Voll, and Yvonne Haddad.. And of course John Esposito is hardly alone in having earned, on some future gravestone, that epitaph which so many in the Western world over the past thirty years have earned, in Washington and London and Paris, in their own ways, as they did nothing to prevent Muslim immigration, nothing serious to limit OPEC revenues, and thought only of how to obtain some of those revenues for themselves, their friends, their relatives, their companies:
Shilling for Islam, undoing the West,
Radix malorum cupiditas est.
Posted by Robert at March 8, 2006 11:05 AM
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Radix malorum cupiditas est. I think it means something like "greed is the basis of evil." please advise.
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at March 8, 2006 12:12 PM
I was infuriated a couple days ago, when I turned on the TV and saw the history channel, usually a very decent portrayer of historical events, giving the warmed over politically corrected version of the history of Islam.
And guess who was one of the three speakers about the history- Esposito.
It was embarrassing to watch this grandiloquence about the Koran- how the pages are filled with magical utterances in no order, blah blah that stir the muslim mind, and the whitewashing of the history.
They left out the first holocaust, inflicted upon the jews- only hinting at it- and the holocausts visited on so many christian communities- mentioned as an aside, and never got to the real problems of Islam.
Posted by: mgoldberg at March 8, 2006 12:12 PM
From the introduction to the article on Propaganda at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
"Propaganda is a specific type of message presentation directly aimed at influencing the opinions of people, rather than impartially providing information. In some cultures the term is neutral or even positive, while in others the term has acquired a strong negative connotation. Its connotations can also vary over time. For instance, in English, "propaganda" was originally a neutral term used to describe the dissemination of information in favor of a certain cause. Over time, however, the term acquired the negative connotation of disseminating false or misleading information in favor of a certain cause. Strictly speaking, a message does not have to be untrue to qualify as propaganda, but it may omit so many pertinent truths that it becomes highly misleading."
"... BUT IT MAY OMIT SO MANY PERTINENT TRUTHS THAT IT BECOMES HIGHLY MISLEADING."
Go and read the works of John Esposito and YOU decide, dear reader, if Mr. Esposito is a propagandist.
Posted by: Mentat at March 8, 2006 12:22 PM
"No one -- no one -- takes John Esposito seriously anymore."
No one, except for President Bush's diplomat to the Muslim world, Karen Hughes:
"[Interviewer]: ARE THERE BOOKS BY SCHOLARS OF ISLAM THAT YOU FIND PARTICULARLY INSIGHTFUL?
[Karen Hughes]: John Esposito at Georgetown has done a number of books. I've read excerpts of a lot of them."
-- Dhimmi Watch, February 21, 2006
I suspect, notwithstanding that bizarre display of Hughperbole I quoted at the top of my post, that many more in our Western society take Esposito seriously; the majority, in fact.
Posted by: Dr. Pepper at March 8, 2006 12:24 PM
StillBreathing
Radix = root; see radish, radicchio
at March 8, 2006 12:40 PM
So, Espo was surprised that conversions to Islam increased after 9/11. As a survivor of the 60s, you'd think that he'd recognize radical chic in action, but I guess we all know we're dealing with a third rate intellect here -- a living, breathing example of George B. Shaw's, "them that can do and them that can't, teach".
Posted by: waterdragon52 at March 8, 2006 1:01 PM
But as one crook of the Gilded Age, of the kind of Tammany Hall variety, said in his own defense, Esposito has "seen his opportunities, and he took 'em."
Hey! I thought that was Tony Soprano's line!
Posted by: dennisw
at March 8, 2006 2:39 PM
History Channel featured Professor Esposito in it's recent programs on the Qur'an.
A moment of reflection.
I was disappointed to say the least.
Hugh, as usual, has already explained the problem in detail. Going on five years after 9/11 - it's been argued Esposito's view left us defenseless on that day, convincingly argued - his influence wafts through my television.
Of course who can forget 1979 in Iran, 1983 in Lebanon, 1993 at the World Trade Center, Saudi Arabia in 1996, Africa in 1998, or Yemen in 2000?
These are merely historical touchstones I use to recall the phases of jihad. I don't mean to be comprehensive.
But academia has maintained, and continues to maintain, I should not connect those incidents in any intellectual way.
If a Muslim runs over students at the University of North Carolina can anyone hear the jihad? Within hours a terrorism expert assured us there are root causes. Given the defendant's extensive statements, I'm sure that's the case.
If a man named John Mohammed becomes a concealed sniper, what should I look for as root causes?
Academia has not provided me with answers which would convince my German shepherd.
Posted by: Beagle at March 8, 2006 2:58 PM
And the same Tammany Hall character, or perhaps Jay Gould, or of that ilk, asked to explain the disappearance of public or private funds into his own pocketbook, explained that the money had "gone where the woodbine twineth."
Now we are in Mr. Dooley country.
Posted by: Hugh at March 8, 2006 5:19 PM
Esposito is just a hireling, a lackey at best, to Alwaleed bin Talal, who is now Arabia's 'propaganda minister'.
See what the good prince is up to these days:
Saudi Prince Launches Propaganda Channel
Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal, whose $10 million donation was rejected by Rudy Giuliani after 9/11, is now spending a tiny part of his immense oil wealth to launch another Islamic satellite channel: Al-Resalah Launched.
RIYADH, 7 March 2006 — Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal, CEO of Kingdom Holding Company, officially launched yesterday an Islamic satellite channel to project Islam as a religion of moderation and tolerance.
Al-Resalah (The Message) Channel had made its debut informally on Wednesday.
Addressing a press conference at the headquarters of Kingdom Holding Company, Prince Alwaleed said the 24-hour channel would target the Arab audience, especially the youth, by projecting “our Arab heritage through a modern medium.” It will be the forerunner of an English-language Islamic channel for the Western audience at a later stage.
Pointing out that the channel would seek to project the true message of Islam and its teachings, the prince said it would provide a platform for a dialogue on a range of religious, social and economic issues that affect everyday life. But more important, its priority would be to counteract the misconceptions of Islam in other societies.
Elaborating on Prince Alwaleed’s comments, Shoura Council member Walid Hashem told Arab News that the channel would feature cartoons and animated films with a moral content. These programs would be procured from TV companies operating in Turkey and unspecified Arab countries.
Posted by: sheik yer'mami at March 8, 2006 9:20 PM
Re the recent History Channel program on the Koran. I noticed how they referred to the barbaric behavior of the crusaders (undoubtedly true in many cases), but every time they discussed the expansion of Islam they always used the term "the spread of Islam". They never bothered to explain how Islam "spread". They could have been talking about a new brand of margarine.
Posted by: RBLA at March 9, 2006 10:51 AM
"the recent History Channel program on the Koran. I noticed how they referred to the barbaric behavior of the crusaders (undoubtedly true in many cases), but every time they discussed the expansion of Islam they always used the term "the spread of Islam". They never bothered to explain how Islam "spread". They could have been talking about a new brand of margarine."
That's the norm. And 67% of ordinary Americans (according to a recent poll cited in another thread here) buy into this type of whitewashing of Islam. They can't believe it's not butter. In a sociocultural situation like this, how could Esposito not be taken seriously? This curious narcissistic attitude at JW/DW -- that the majority of ordinary "non-elites" must think like they do -- has got to get out once in a while. It's far bleaker out there.
Posted by: Dr. Pepper at March 9, 2006 11:21 AM
Pepper:
I've said exactly that. There is a broad conceit that Islam, although it's only 1,400 years old, is the natural and native religion of broad parts of north Africa, Asia and, particularly, the Holy Land, although the Holy Land was actually home to Judaism and Christianity and was Islamified after it was invaded. This is something I figured out all by myself, as a teenager, following my introduction to Jews from the middle east (Morocco and Persia) and one Coptic Christian from Egypt. How so many people with any degree of literacy can reach adulthood and imagine that Islam just peacefully imposed itself over a huge geographic territory requires willful blindness.
Posted by: waterdragon52 at March 9, 2006 1:49 PM
I'd say Mr. Esposito has earned for himself a nice, fresh pile of camel poop!
Posted by: pythagoras at March 9, 2006 3:16 PM
Hugh,
"Antoine Fattal's book on the legal status of non-Muslims under Islam never went out of print."
Any indications that this book will ever be translated into English? I am ashamed that my French is not suffcient to read books like this one, but I'm certainly not alone.
Posted by: Liggett at March 9, 2006 3:23 PM
In reading Hugh Fitzgerald on Esposito, I am reminded of the question put to Willy Sutton, a famous bankrobber when arrested: "Why do rob banks?" To which Mr. Sutton replied, "Because that's where the money is." Actually, whenever I think of all too many "scholars" in Middle Eastern studies, Willy Sutton automatically comes to mind.
Once again, good work, Hugh Fitzgerald!
Posted by: Historian at March 9, 2006 5:43 PM
To Still Breathing:
Shilling for Islam, undoing the West,
Radix malorum cupiditas est
(root of evil, cupidity is)
Nice little ditty Hugh made
Posted by: eduardo odraude at March 10, 2006 2:55 AM
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