Professor John Esposito of Georgetown University is a mentor and collaborator of Azzam Tamimi, a British-based Muslim academic who recently publicly espoused the so-called “martyrdom” of Islamic terrorists. The Washington Times has produced a nuanced profile of Esposito, including an account of this affiliation. Some excerpts:
Mr. Esposito has long courted controversy — most recently when the Georgetown-based center he founded in 1993 accepted $20 million last year from (and took the name of) a notorious Saudi prince…
…Mr. Esposito…acknowledges that there is radicalism in Islam, and he generally avoids defending the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah…But Mr. Esposito skillfully downplays the threat posed by radical Islam, and as demonstrated by his close affiliation with Azzam Tamimi, …he willingly associates with avowed cheerleaders of Islamic terrorism.
…Although Mr. Esposito is less transparent than most apologists for radical Islam, he is more than a mere apologist…
Mr. Esposito has lavished praise on two prominent advocates of Islamic terrorism: former University of South Florida professor (and convicted terrorist) Sami al-Arian, and al Jazeera phenomenon Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
When the university moved to fire al-Arian in April 2002, Mr. Esposito wrote to the university’s president that he was “stunned, astonished, and saddened”…al-Arian was indisputably an avowed Islamic radical long before September 11.
Read more about Esposito’s relationship with these poisonous supporters of Islamism – yet another case study of the wall of denial in much of academe about the terrorist threat.