Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the newly-minted Caliph of the Islamic State, and John Esposito, a professor at Georgetown University, have something in common: each has a doctorate in Islamic Studies.
They differ on some minor theological details, however. Mr. Baghdadi finds in Islam the scriptural justification for beheading and enslaving infidels, the violent suppression of religious minorities, and the propagation of Islam through aggressive warfare. Mr. Esposito, in contrast, sees Islam as a religion of peace.
Who is right?
Up until now, Professor Esposito could usually trump his critics with his certified scholastic expertise on Islam. Unfortunately, he can’t out-credential the Caliph. Yet somehow we are supposed to believe him, the renowned professor of Islamic Studies, and ignore that black-turbaned man over there behind the curtain.
Oleg Atbashian of The People’s Cube discusses this topic at FrontPage Mag in an article about the opening of the Center for Global Islamic Studies at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Some excerpts are below:
Centers for Islamic Studies: a Cold-War-Style Influence Operation?
by Oleg Atbashian
The launch of a new Center for Global Islamic Studies at the extremely leftist University of Florida in Gainesville may have been planned as a purely academic affair, but the announcements in the local and national media, including AP and Fox News, exhibited more than a purely academic interest in this event. To compare, one doesn’t often see national media announcements about, let’s say, a local center for the study of viruses — unless the virus is Ebola. And just like with any news about Ebola studies, any news about studies of Islam attracts attention from the general public, who want to know if there’s a hope for the cure, containment, and safety from danger.
Unfortunately, these may not be the kind of Islamic Studies that answer those hopes. The Center opened on September 18th with a conference on “Global Islam and the Quest for Public Space,” headlined by none other than Georgetown professor John Esposito, a known apologist for radical Islam and founding director of the Saudi-sponsored Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding in the Walsh School of Foreign Service.
A small group of protesters picketed the event outside the Pugh Hall on the university campus, with a dozen creative posters and a vinyl banner pointing out that John Esposito and the leader of ISIS both hold PhDs in Islamic Studies: “Same goal, different tactics.” The video of the protest can be seen online.
The protest organizer, Randy McDaniels of ACT for America and the Counter-Terrorism Advisory Group, stated that our students certainly need to study Islam, as long as such studies are based on scientific objectivity and critical analysis. But the presence of John Esposito as the keynote speaker indicated that the new Global Islamic Studies Center was likely to go the way of many other universities, opening their doors and exposing our children to political Islam under the guise of education, with programs funded by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other state sponsors of Islamic fundamentalism.
While many among the leftist faculty and the students were visibly upset with the protest, complete with occasional angry obscenities, a few others were interested in the message and asked for a flyer. Some of them asked, “What’s wrong with having an Islamic Studies Center, even if it’s financed by foreign money?”
The short answer would have been to compare such a project to active measures undertaken in America by the KGB during the Cold War — except that, unfortunately, most American students aren’t familiar with this term. Their knowledge of the Cold War has been thoroughly sanitized by the leftist faculty, especially if the professors are Marxists who used to root for the other side. The resulting perceived absence of the Soviet subversion, propaganda, disinformation, and other influence operations inside the U.S. and around the world creates the impression of an ideologically neutral world, in which America’s response to protect liberty can very easily be misconstrued as imperialist aggression against the innocent.
Read the rest at FrontPage Mag.
If Esposito were correct, there would be no Al-Baghdadi.
Or prophet Mohammad.
Or Koran.
Bless you profitsbeard,
Three sentences but tons of accurate meaning.
How did Al-Esposoto become so influential and tolerated. He is promoting the destruction of the west, and particularly USA by the hands of our enemies. He is empowering our enemies.
Now for goodness sake is that democracy? Can democracy make people blind as no to see their own destruction?
Or is it the western attitude I don’t know about Al-Esposito and I don’t care?
I suggest the good PhD (Piled higher and Deeper) go to Syria to tell Al Bagdaddy that he has it all wrong.
One of many whose souls are bought and paid for by Saudi money, these guys work for the highest bidder, they are intellectual whores who make real prostitution seem like an honoured profession.
But they too can get infected; they have a syphilis of the spirit, which produces an insanity of the mind, and its consequent support for irrational atrocity.
Cut off his current money supply and he will just migrate to the ‘right hand’ of the next financial slave owner.
It is slime, it is filth and it all that is repugnent, beautifully gift wrapped…..
Wow MC, what elegant use of English (and no, I’m NOT being sarcastic or, I hope, patronising).
Well one thing seems for sure. Over the next six to eighteen months I imagine we are going to know the answer to both these questions. I’m betting on the former over the refuse to see loser.
While on the campus of University of Memphis, I observed a student wearing a black and white checkered scarf. I had heard that the school had a lot of Palistinian propaganda being promoted. I definitely believe it. That seems to be the number one topic over there. You know, the poor Palistinians and the evil Jews.
Some students in the University of Concordia, Canada, invited Mr Benjamin Netanyahu to make a speech. Canada prides itself of being nice, fair and free.
When Mr Benjamin Netanyahu arrived, Palestinians went berserk. They smashed everything, attacked anyone, broke every and window. The president asked Mr Benjamin Netanyahu to leave, saying it was very dangerous for him to stay. No police were there. No guards were to be found. No one even dared to confront him or stop him. No men were there at all ( with balls). And guess what? He was suspended for one night. The nest day, the nice Canadians let him – out of compassion – to continue his studies. Don’t think that they were afraid. No. Only because they are nice.
If you are nice and kind to criminals, the level of crime will go down. Proof Sweden, Britain, France and Canada.