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John L. Esposito, a prominent scholar of Islam and interfaith dialogue, has died at the age of 86, his family and Georgetown University have said. Esposito passed away on July 15, following a career spanning more than five decades in which he sought, through dozens of books and a lifetime of teaching, to correct Western misconceptions about Islam and to build lasting channels of dialogue between Muslims and the societies around them.
Coverage comparison
Al Jazeera reported Esposito's death, describing him as one of the most influential non-Muslim scholars of Islam of his generation. The reports emphasize his role in promoting interfaith understanding and challenging Western biases about Islam. One Al Jazeera article focuses on his legacy in correcting misconceptions, while another highlights his pioneering work in challenging Orientalist representations and dominant social science theories about political development.
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Esposito was born into a working-class Italian-American family in Brooklyn, New York, in 1940. His worldview was shaped by his devout Catholic mother and his father's commitment to social justice. He aspired to become a Catholic priest and, at a young age, joined the strict Capuchin Franciscan Order, leaving the seminary before ordination to pursue graduate studies. He earned a doctorate in religious studies at Temple University under the supervision of Ismail al-Faruqi, the late Palestinian-American scholar of religion.
Esposito spent nearly two decades teaching world religions at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, chairing its Department of Religious Studies, before moving to Georgetown University, where he spent the rest of his career. At Georgetown, he held the title of University Professor of Religion, International Affairs and Islamic Studies, and in 1993 he founded the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, later renamed the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. Under his direction, the center grew into one of the world's foremost institutions for interfaith dialogue, and he later launched the Bridge Initiative, a research project dedicated to tracking and challenging Islamophobia.
Esposito's scholarly output included more than 50 books authored, co-authored, or edited over his career, with his work translated into 35 languages. Among his best-known works were Islam: The Straight Path, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?, What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam, The Future of Islam, and Islamophobia: The Challenge of Pluralism in the 21st Century. His 2007 book Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, co-authored with Dalia Mogahed, drew on a major Gallup poll of Muslim populations.
Esposito's work was significantly shaped by key moments of friction between Islam and the West, particularly the 1979 Iranian revolution and the September 11 attacks. Reflecting on his career, he frequently joked that he owed his livelihood to two famous "radical" Muslims, one Shia and the other Sunni: Ayatollah Khomeini and Osama bin Laden. After the 1979 revolution, interest in the relationship between Islam and politics skyrocketed in the West, and the same happened after 9/11. Esposito's expertise became in high demand, leading him to publish several groundbreaking books on the relationship between Islam and politics.
Esposito was a practicing Catholic and advocated for interfaith understanding, a commitment rooted in his upbringing and his intellectual apprenticeship under al-Faruqi. His work consistently aimed to present Islam on its own terms rather than through the lens of Western anxieties.
His family and friends questioned his career choice because they feared for his employability. When he entered the job market in 1974, there was only one advertised position in Islamic studies. The study of religion, particularly Islam, was absent in many institutions of higher learning, and international relations programs at universities ignored the role of religion in global affairs. Esposito's career thus helped establish a field that had previously been marginalized.