John Esposito, Islamophobia, and the Ground Zero Mosque

John Esposito

This morning at American Thinker, Stephen Schwartz offers a rigorous critique of Wahhabi apologist Georgetown professor John Esposito’s support for the so-called Ground Zero mosque. Schwartz writes as a convert to Sufi Islam, and his essay offers three concise reasons why his religious beliefs support his stance. Here’s the introduction:

John L. Esposito, professor of religion and international affairs and director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, is America’s best-known apologist for Saudi Wahhabism, the Turkish fundamentalist Justice and Development Party (AKP), and Islamist ideologies in general. To many, he personifies all that’s wrong with Middle East studies in America today.

On July 19, 2010, Esposito contributed a column to the CNN website titled “Islamophobia and the Muslim Center at Ground Zero.” In it, he downplays complaints about the project for a fifteen-story Islamic cultural center near the site of the 9/11 atrocities by focusing on angry comments from Manhattanites who see the proposal as an expression of Islamist supremacy. Here’s how he sums up criticism of the mosque project: “Islam-bashing charges leveled with no concrete evidence by pundits and politicians.”

To read the rest of the essay, please click here.

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Georgetown University

Winfield Myers

Winfield Myers is managing editor of the Middle East Forum and director of its Campus Watch project, which reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North American universities. He has taught world history and other topics at the University of Michigan, the University of Georgia, Tulane, and Xavier University of Louisiana. He was previously managing editor of The American Enterprise magazine and CEO of Democracy Project, Inc., which he co-founded. Mr. Myers has served as senior editor and communications director at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and is principal author and editor of a college guide, Choosing the Right College (1998, 2001). He was educated at the University of Georgia, Tulane, and the University of Michigan.