right here right now in front of this

live audience for something you want to

share with us I don't like career and my

first Lexus to Ayatollah Khomeini in the

Iranian Revolution

taking Center Stage today is Dr John

Esposito distinguished University

professor at Georgetown University he's

the founding director of the al-walid

center for Muslim Christian

understanding he's also authored over 50

books on religion Islam and islamophobia

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Salam : “Good to see you again, John”

John : “Yeah thanks, happy to be here”

Salam : “you've been doing this for a while 40 plus years”

John : “Actually probably 50 but we don't want to discuss that will show my age, yeah go ahead”

Salam: “you've dedicated your life's work to promoting the understanding of Islam and Muslims you're
so passionate about it why why have you dedicated all of these years this work”

John : “that was the question that I asked when I was in graduate school the director of the Department
said that uh I should take course in Islam and I said why um I was finishing a PhD where I thought
supposed to be in Catholic theology but then I became uh enamored by Hinduism so then I was going to
do a PhD in Hinduism and then he asked me three times to do it and I said uh why would I do that and
the reason was I know nothing about Islam and what I had seen was a movie called The Exodus and the
person that wrote it was a famous author and I thought he was a historian and based on that movie I
thought why would I want to devote my career and take the course what happened was I agreed to take
one course I was in a monastery for a number of years um I wasn't ordained the priest but I spent
between the ages of 14 and 24 in the Capuchin franciscans I knew judeo-christian tradition but suddenly
I'm in a course and I'm suddenly faced with Islam which was always in the U.S courses in Islam were put
with Hinduism and Buddhas see that judeo-christian and then everything else Hinduism Buddhism and I
suddenly realized wait a minute this is a religion that recognizes the Revelation and recognizes the
prophets of the Old Testament okay and that recognizes the prophecy of Jesus not Son of God but
prophecy that venerates Mary and even as a whole chapter so that Mary actually appears much more in
the Quran than she does in the New Testament and and I and I looked at the history and I thought this
at least we should say academically that we're looking at judeo-christian Islamic tradition and then from
there it just took off I mean there were there were no jobs so my colleagues were all right my colleague
literally said to me why are you going into that Abracadabra seal uh and others said you'll never get a ob
and I was only hired to teach world religions and I did not teach Islam until the Iranian Revolution”

Salam : “I was going to say so..”

John : “ I owe my career and my first Lexus to Ayatollah Khomeini in the Iranian Revolution yeah but it's
true and and I think that's the key where my passing came from was the key that whereas Muslims were
in different parts of the world they were just seen as Egyptians or Lebanese not very visible in the U.S
very few mosques Etc and yet there was an immediate equation that this is what their religion's like that
is the TV everyday showing people shouting death to America”

salam : “and you've also spoken about the turning point interms of Samuel Huntington's class of
civilizations that that really also laid the foundation for really framing Islam and listened as a threat”

john : “I think the significance is as follows some of you know the name Edward Saeed ever said right
after the Iranian Revolution and most people never saw this in a book that he had called covering this
lawn he talked about in 1981 that there was something happening in America with regard to Islam and
he talked about it for a while a negative Aura feeling and then he ended by saying this isn't uh what
Islam s this is the way it's being seen and portrayed and this could lead to a clash of civilization okay it
was until 1993 that Huntington published an article Clash of civilizations everyone attributes that to
Huntington that he came up with that idea “

Salam : “it's still pervasive today isn't it that the idea that really it's really a false dichotomy in a lot of
ways and you know I was reading recently that really interesting cultural fact every year American
students walk across their graduation stage wearing their graduation gown and a cap and I was actually
reading that Roots itself in Muslim universities in the 9th century where Europe's best and brightest
would go to these universities and they would want to come back home and mimic the “phobe” and the
flat cap symbolize the Quran as the highest form of knowledge even the tassel would have been the
bookmark you know for keeping your place in the Quran I mean the fact that the Islamic intellectual
tradition really influenced something as common as what American kids wear even in Europe wanting
on their graduation stage what does that say about Islam's impact on Western civilization and
intellectual thought?’

john : “the model for universities in many ways were the early universities in Islam the notion of having
hostels for students as one prominent scholar of Islam said during the Dark Ages if you were up on
another planet and you look down the West Was invisible it would have been the Islamic world that
stood out and the idea that during that period you had a fluorescence in terms of the areas of
philosophy medicine algebra Etc and then that was carried over into the west and yet some of that was
lost so for example I studied Catholic theology in many venues very few people ever talked about the
fact that Thomas Aquinas who used to be seen as the great Catholic Theologian and his teacher were
influenced by what came the philosophical tradition that then was passed on back into the West the
same thing happens when you look at areas of medicine and Science and Technology uh and a lot of that
is just beginning I think at a popular level um to to surface right now”

salam : “one of your callings at Georgetown actually told me once that even Thomas Jefferson was
influenced by John Locke who was influenced by the Muslim philosopher even to fail so why don't we
learn these things in school?”

john : “it's changing now but see in the U.S for example it was typical in universities you did not have
unless they were religious University a religion department now you have them in different areas but
how do you get it into the schools the high schools Etc and now we have a program and if you if to our
website we have a woman who does these courses for high school teachers you know and we provide
we funded Etc and for other teachers so that they can Go back into the classroom so that now when I
have students coming in unlike1993 1995 1996 when I first went to Georgetown many of my students
have come across Islam and Islamic history in their courses some of them have actually had a chance to
study Arabic but it's still not you know a major Force”

salam : “what about in terms of the presence of Islam in America and the impact particularly of black
Muslims on American culture Islam wasn't this thing that came about in the 1960s with immigration I
mean it's as American as the origin story of America?”

john : “that part of American History is um is often invisible uh when you ingeneral the approach to
talking about Muslims in America was always in terms of when did Muslims come from overseas to
America you know uh or and also Arab Christian Etc, the whole history in the past for example that
many of the slaves that came were Muslim even if over time for many of them they were not able to
keep their faith and there was an attempt to kind of convert them much of that is is forgotten so that it's
only um in recent years with with the rise of the Nation of Islam uh with Muhammad Ali in terms of an
example that there was more of a sense and we still forget when people talk about Muslims in America
and their issues they forget that almost one-third of the population in America are African-American or
or black”

salam : “and they've had profound impact on on culture in terms of even something like blues music hip-
hop you know there's a lot of you know Muslim undertones as well in terms of the culture so I think it's
important to remember that as well”

john : “but I'm bad on hip-hop I don't relate to hiphop I've tried “

salam : “what about geopolitics impacts the spread of islamophobia you know you saw the rise of
islamophobia in a lot of ways after 9 11 war on terror it was really a top-down message right from the
from the U.S government um really perpetuating this idea of the Islamic threat but now we live in a
different world where we just had china you know broker a deal between Saudi and Iran as the U.S you
know has pulled out from Iraq hold out from Afghanistan how has your Outreach changed on the
ground in terms of how you see things geopolitically?”

john : “well what you see that that really is depressing is that on the one hand things have gotten better
in terms of percentages of Americans and and and and in some other countries too uh but certainly in
America understanding Islam but still a significant minority don't I think that that the globalization of
islamophobia uh has been missed in the sense that inshaq islamophobia has grown in Europe uh in in
countries like Austria uh in the UK in Germany and it grows for countries where they don't have many
Muslims I mean I I've literally been to conferences or run a conference where somebody will get up and
say who's from Poland for example he'll say the good news is we don't have many Muslims the bad
news is we have islamophobia a prominent Australian professor said the same thing but now the
globalization spills over you know into China no coverage of it the first major publication in America that
dealt with islamophobia was in 2010 when you had the front cover of Time Magazine saying is America
islamophobic what I realized about eight years ago was that this was going away things weren't getting
better you know things were getting worse”

salam : “what about the U.S political environment so during the Trump years you literally had The Fringe
of the islamophobia cottage industry in the White House you had Stephen Miller in the White House
what's the shift from Biden now because obviously the rhetoric has changed but what about the
policies?”

john : “when you look at the policies of the buying blinking Administration I mean sadly sad to say from
my point of view uh there's no significant difference when it comes to their approach to the Middle East
or to the Muslim World there has been and you know the the naming of a senior person in government
Rashad Hussein but basically you do not see in their policies and the statements that are made there's
no significant shift”

salam : “you advised Biden didn't you?”

john : “I advised him um after 9 11 when he was a chair of the farm Relations Committee what you
discovered with with Biden it wasn't unusual after 9 11 a number of Senators and well former Senators
asked me to do some talks for senators and stuff and what you discovered and it was natural in those
days the Middle East was not taken seriously you know and so most senator or congress people hang on
up somebody on their staff that handled the Middle East so and so the they would then just rely on that
person who would then write a report for them and so when I met with President Biden he was open to
wanting to understand this but you could see that you know he's an expert on Europe as he said and
particularly on France and this wasn't part of what he was aware of or used to John Kerry turned up at
one of the briefings that I gave and Kerry's very brilliant guy but but there was no sense of that and all of
that shifted significantly really after 9 11. a book that set the stage for the problem that we had you
know uh President Bush made some you know went to went to a mosque and made a very nice
statement on the other hand we invaded Iraq and basically said you know it was to liberate and we
occupied”

=I'm wondering you have studied Islam for years you've

taught it for years you have books

literally called how to understand Islam

with Muslims on paraphrasing now what's

something that you still don't

understand about Islam and Muslims I

come from a Catholic background I'm

Italian-American

my identity if threatened I respond to

okay many Muslims do many don't because

they're just too busy they don't take

any interest

Etc and and yet they get concerned or

upset what's happening around them and

so for me it's really you know uh the

idea that at times frustration why why

aren't there more people who are going

out of their way whether they're young

or older it's not that there aren't a

lot of people who do this but there's a

significant number that don't uh and and

be involved in it I have to ask you for

years

there's been rumors swirling around

about we should have never had breakfast

together yeah exactly and I'm wondering

right here right now yeah in front of

this live audience

is there something you want to share

with us yeah this this I was telling her

that I'll explain it to you I I was

invited to do uh to a program in the UAE

with some representatives of uh the

British government and and Muslims older

younger government types it was a closed

session off the Record we all know off

the Record not off the Record and I

given a speech I was tired and the last

panel

um they asked me

um to give another speech and I was the

last speaker and I decided I didn't want

to do that so I did say is I looked into

the audience's eyes and I said I know

there's a lot of questions about me in

terms of my identity the question is the

identity is that for many years

people have said that I'm going to come

out of the closet at some point and say

that I'd been a Muslim all along and and

so my critics will often say you know if

he writes like this and so what I said

is I think I'm going to address the

issue I know that you'll keep it in this

room and so I look very serious and I

look down for a while and I said um

I do dye my hair okay and after it the

younger Muslims came up and said they

were sitting next to older Muslims that

were going mashallah mashallah you know

you know I've had that I you know I

check into a hotel at Saudi Arabia you

know you're checking in and somebody

comes up be me or I go to Oxford and I

give a lecture and after it somebody

says to me you know there's a rumor

coming out of Canada I said let me guess

so yeah that you feel about that

actually a privilege that they say that

I mean to me it says at a certain level

that it says that uh that some people

think that I understand Islam you have

street cred and that you know and that

the other that the people that don't

like it they're the ones that say you

know when they say coming out of the

closet it's the people that want to say

you see he always that's why he writes

this way yeah that's that whole thing

one last question on a serious note as

someone who has immersed himself into

the study of Religion spirituality

we didn't get to really go too deep into

your own background but I'm wondering

what do you think happens after we die

well I think that the people that I

don't like go to hell and I'm worried

about people who who no longer believe

in hell because I kind of want to say

you know uh what he's here you know

um I after we die I I mean I I don't I

don't know and I'll probably find out a

lot sooner than you will

um but I I think that I think there is

an afterlife

um I really regret this

uh I'm the one that cried at my wedding

when you come out after a wedding in a

church

it's you know the groom is there and

then the bride is greeted well my wife

had to greet everybody because I get the

most I think that there is an afterlife

and I think that people who lead a good

life

whatever their faith or no faith if they

lead a good life and one sometime can

discuss what does that really mean I

think that

they will be

at peace and they're you know it'll be

there and if I get a chance some night

I'll appear to you in the middle of the

night and say hi I'm calling from

upstairs and I just want to tell you I

was right I was right

thank you so much

foreign

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