by A.J. Caschetta
One of academia’s most renowned experts on Islam, John Esposito, wants everyone to know that at that topographic point is zippo to fright from Shariah police line as well as that it is non incompatible alongside democracy. In Shariah: What Everyone Needs to Know, he as well as Natana J. DeLong-Bas combat that “far-right political commentators as well as pop Christian televangelists” get got “hijacked” the term Shariah inwards club to perpetuate a clash of civilizations.
During his long academic career, Esposito has focused his attending on a non-specialist readership, rhetorically absolving Islam of whatever tearing or supremacist tendencies past times emphasizing the peaceful parts of the Koran, making him guilty of the same cherry-picking as well as out-of-context quotation he has defendant others of doing. He is fond of slippery assertions such as “Islam, similar all world religions, neither supports nor requires illegitimate violence.”
Most analysts distinguish betwixt Islam (or moderate Islam) as well as Islamism (also called Islamic fundamentalism, radical Islam, militant Islam, as well as other names). As Daniel Pipes often puts it, “Radical Islam is the work as well as Moderate Islam is the solution.” But Esposito mocks this view. He minimizes Islamism past times inventing euphemistic neologisms (“Islamic Revival,” “Islamic Resurgence,” “Islamic Renewal,” as well as “Islamic Reawakening”) as well as advocating for “the correct of Islamists to participate inwards the political process.”
Esposito promotes his agenda equally editor of the Oxford Islamic Studies Series as well as through his positions at Georgetown University: professor of faith as well as international affairs, professor of Islamic studies, as well as founding manager of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (renamed subsequently Prince Alwaleed bin Talal next his $20 1 M k gift inwards 2005) at the Walsh School of Foreign Service. Along alongside a coterie of like-minded academics as well as protégées who studied nether him, Esposito has spent to a greater extent than than forty years — lately on the Saudi payroll — misinforming the public.
His most egregious falsehood (made inwards several books) is that Palestinians adopted suicide bombing tactics inwards response to the Feb 25, 1994 massacre of Muslims past times an Israeli named Baruch Goldstein. In reality, Palestinians began conducting suicide attacks against Israelis years earlier. On July 6, 1989, the first suicide assail occurred when a Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative commandeered a charabanc as well as drove it off a cliff, as well as the offset suicide bombing occurred on Oct 30, 1989, when a PFLP operative rammed his explosive-laden line-fishing boat into an IDF patrol boat. Hamas began its suicide bombing drive inwards 1993.
Esposito’s co-author DeLong-Bas is his one-time student, whom he introduced to the world subsequently 9/11 equally an proficient on Wahhabism, the official version of Islam authorized past times the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Her 2007 volume on the theme portrays this strict as well as militant interpretation — named subsequently the 18th-century firebrand preacher Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab — equally a tolerant, reform-oriented, as well as fifty-fifty feminist version of Islam.
Shariah: What Everyone Needs to Know is inwards the question-and-answer format that Esposito has used inwards nearly a dozen books. If the volume has a thesis, it is that Shariah, which the authors telephone weep upwards “God’s revelation,” as well as Islamic law, which they telephone weep upwards “a human construct,” are non synonymous, but are misconstrued equally such both past times Muslims as well as non-Muslims alike.
Esposito made this indicate inwards his 2007 volume Who Speaks for Islam? inwards which he urged readers to “think of Shariah equally a compass (God’s revelation, timeless principles that cannot change) as well as Islamic police line (fiqh) equally a map. This map must adjust to the compass, but it reflects unlike times, places, as well as geography.” Nice metaphor, but it falls short: the compass’ needle volition e'er indicate towards the interpretations of the instance of the prophet Muhammad where Islamists uncovering justification for slavery, shaver marriage, antisemitism, as well as other phenomena incompatible alongside democracy.
The declaration is reminiscent of a mutual defence of Marxism that indicts Marxists for their improper application of a venerable system. It allows shortcomings, fifty-fifty atrocities, to live blamed on individuals rather than ideologies. Esposito as well as DeLong-Bas forgive the excesses as well as brutalities of Shariah past times faulting individuals who get got imposed flawed versions of Islamic law. It’s a tough sell.
Where the authors accept on issues to a greater extent than candidly, they sidestep obvious conclusions. For instance, Shariah’s universal renunciation of homosexuality equally the sin of zina leads to almost comical understatement: “This creates a serious challenge for same-sex couples today to uncovering ways to both live committed to their lasting human relationship as well as live faithful to Islam.” In parts of the Muslim world those couples are thrown off roofs or imprisoned.
Perhaps it’s fourth dimension that everyone stopped believing inwards the expertise of John Esposito as well as Natana DeLong-Bas. After all, both get got been remarkably incorrect inwards the past. Weeks before 9/11, Esposito told the Fletcher Forum that “Bin Laden is the best thing to come upwards along, if yous are an intelligence officer, if yous are an authoritarian regime, or if yous desire to pigment Islamist activism equally a threat. There’s a danger inwards making Bin Laden the poster man child of global terrorism.” In 2006, DeLong-Bas told the Saudi daily paper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, “I create non uncovering whatever prove that would ready me concur that Osama bin Laden was behind the assail on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. All nosotros heard from him was praise as well as acclaim for those who carried out the operation.”
In reality, Al Qaeda as well as ISIS are physical manifestations of an ideology, but the authors believe they are reactions to the U.S. of A. presence inwards Muslim lands as well as the U.S. of A. back upwards for repressive Muslim regimes.
Instead of listening to what American academics (who are subsidized past times Saudi Arabia) say nearly Shariah, everyone should hear to what the Islamists themselves say nearly Shariah. On June 22, Sayfullo Saipov, the Uzbek ISIS fellow member whose 2017 Halloween truck jihad assail claimed 8 lives inwards Manhattan, told a approximate that the “Islamic State is non fighting for land, equally to a greater extent than or less say, or oil. They get got 1 purpose. It’s fighting to impose Shariah on Earth.”
A.J. Caschetta is a Ginsburg-Ingerman beau at the Middle East Forum as well as a main lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
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