Who is john esposito

Ard, who earned a B. Experience and daily practice have given my life a new center. In his welcoming remarks, Steffen told students that the baccalaureate service had its origins nearly years ago at Oxford University in England, when graduating students were required to take their final exams—and demonstrate their mastery of religious communication—in Latin.

While the exam nature of the baccalaureate service has largely disappeared from the modern university, Steffen said, the ceremony has evolved into an interfaith service.

According to the anecdote, Butera said, Amundsen took a homing pigeon on his expedition across Antarctica and released it upon reaching his goal. Rabbi Danielle Stillman, associate chaplain and director of Jewish student life at Lehigh, also gave welcoming remarks, relating a story from the Talmud about two rabbis who go their separate ways at a fork in the road.

That way, they remember each other when they think later of what they learned, and they remember what they learned when they think later of each other. The Lehigh Valley-based ensemble is directed by Jennifer Kelly, assistant professor of music and director of choral activities at Lafayette College.

The Southside Brass opened the ceremony with 15 minutes of processional music. The event closed with a postlude by university organist Ian Tomesch. In order to safely celebrate graduates, the university will host two sessions for undergraduates in the Class of Additional, separate ceremonies are planned for the Class of and doctoral students from both classes.

McIntosh, professor emeritus of sociology at Lehigh, served as mace bearer from to He died Nov. Search the Lehigh Website Search. X Search the Lehigh Website. Learn LU Facts. Find Maps. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser.

Forgot Email or Password. Enter the email address you used to create your account. We will email you instructions on how to reset your password. Please do not attempt to reset your password again in the next 30 minutes. This may cause issues with changing your password. Once I began to study Islam, I discovered a religious tradition with close affinities to Judaism and Christianity, with a rich religious, historical, and civilizational legacy that I had never been told about before.

John L. He earned his B. Anthony College, his M. John's University, and his Ph. Esposito serves as a consultant to the Department of State as well as multinational corporations, governments, universities, and the media worldwide.

Statements that denounce violence and terrorism, and encourage mutual understanding and respect, are important, but they require implementation. Senior religious leaders have to be put into operation in training programs in churches and madrasas for the next generation of priests, ministers, and imams; so too, more outreach programs for high school teachers, and more courses and programs in universities and colleges are important, as well as faith-based summer youth projects.

Political leaders and the media have an important role to play. They cannot pander to the hardline religious right bias and bigotry for votes, and media has to balance its at times obsessive coverage of extremism with more coverage of the mainstream majority, their lives and beliefs. Failure to do so reinforces the dangers of anti-Muslim attitudes and behaviour.

In , you produced a book with Nathan Lean titled The Islamophobia Industry , which explored the rise of fear and hatred of Muslims sweeping through the United States and Europe. How wide a problem do you feel Islamophobia is, and do you see it as a phenomenon not simply confined to the far right? Islamophobia has been a social cancer metastasizing in America and Europe since the s. Islamophobia is prejudice or hostility towards Muslims on the basis of their religious or ethnic identity.

Criticism of Islamic theology and culture is not intrinsically Islamophobic, just as criticism of the tenets or cultures of other world religions does not necessarily indicate a prejudicial position towards those who subscribe to them. Islamophobia refers to bias and discrimination that often lead to discrimination and hate speech, ascribing collective blame on the majority of mainstream Muslims for the actions of Muslim extremists and terrorists, violence, hate crimes, or denial of civil liberties.

In contrast to the UK, where the term Islamophobia was coined in the s and now is used in Europe , no term existed, or was used, in the US until fallout from the construction of Park 51 the so-called mosque at Ground Zero , the Islamic center in downtown Manhattan. It has yet to reach the threshold of being — at least publicly broadcast, political establishment, etc.

Politicians, media commentators, hardline Christian Zionist preachers, and Islamophobic polemicists and websites — a dominant internet presence — have been enablers in its significant presence in popular culture.

Examples of the impact of Islamophobia in the US can be seen not only in incidents of hate speech and hate crimes, but also in the rhetoric and discourse in the and presidential elections, as well as the and congressional elections, and in the Park 51 protests and their aftermath. In , when Barack Obama visited Dearborn, some of his staff prevented his being photographed with young women wearing hijab, and many opponents labelled him a Muslim to discredit his candidacy.

During the presidential election contest, every Republican candidate, either at that debate or in the two years before, had engaged in Islam and Muslim exceptionalism, questioning the loyalty of American Muslims, whether a Muslim could serve in the cabinet and under what conditions, the need to ban shariah law, etc.

You can see the impact during his presidency. President Obama has never visited a US mosque or sought a photo op at one. No Muslim has been appointed to a senior ambassadorship, and the number of visible senior members of the administration is negligible. Anti-Islam and anti-Muslim rhetoric became a topic in political contests in the congressional elections. The building of an Islamic center in Manhattan near Ground Zero sparked a national debate and protest demonstrations. While there were diverse critics and reasons for opposition, prominent anti-Muslim activists played a major role in spearheading opposition, charging, among other things, that the Islamic center was a mosque that would be a monument to terrorism.

In the aftermath of Park 51, a wave of anti-mosque activities swept from New York to California. Equally troubling and dangerous is the emergence of a cottage industry that has been meticulously cultivated by anti-Muslim polemicists and their resourceful funders, who master the domain of the internet with dozens of highly visible blogs and websites supported by hundreds of user blogs to which they link. Yet, arguably, there are a lot of what could be described as misleading and agenda-driven texts out there.

For people, particularly students, wanting to learn more about Islam, how should they distinguish between honest and dishonest writers?

At the same time, the internet has become an access point for vast information and disinformation. Given the diversity of materials and diverse intellectual and political orientations — for example, from Tea Party and neocon to liberal or progressive — all tend to describe as misleading and agenda-driven texts out there.

Just as years ago one could find PhDs or experts from the best universities supporting the tobacco industry, and scholars from similar universities giving a totally different assessment, so too today, in areas of global politics and religion we find a similar situation.

Therefore, it is important to know publishers and authors of information: what is their orientation, track record, etc. This is made easier with the use of Google! One of the reasons Oxford University Press launched an ambitious series of reference works that now cover most areas from culture and politics to science, gender, and the arts, was to meet the need for providing the best scholarship available.

Similarly, with regard to the internet, Oxford Islamic Studies Online offers internet access to major texts primary and secondary sources, biographies, etc. What key advice would you give those wanting to focus their research on the Islamic world? The most important lesson I have learned from all of my years as an academic and as a student of Islam and Muslim societies is the most obvious and yet elusive.

You need knowledge of sacred sources, as well as what people actually believe and do!