Professor John L. Esposito, widely regarded as one of the most influential non-Muslim scholars of Islam of his generation, has died at the age of 86, his family and Georgetown University have announced.
Esposito passed away on July 15, following a career spanning more than five decades in which he sought to correct Western misconceptions about Islam and build lasting channels of dialogue between Muslims and the societies around them.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1940, Esposito trained under renowned Palestinian-American Islamic scholar Isma'il Raji al-Faruqi, an intellectual apprenticeship that shaped his lifelong commitment to presenting Islam on its own terms.
He spent nearly two decades teaching world religions at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts before moving to Georgetown University, where he founded the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding in 1993.
Esposito's scholarly output included more than 50 books, translated into 35 languages. His best-known works include "Islam: The Straight Path", "The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?", 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 and based on over 50,000 interviews across 35 Muslim-majority countries, became one of the most widely cited studies of Muslim public opinion.
A practicing Catholic, Esposito often pointed to his own faith as the wellspring of his interest in interreligious understanding. He served as president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America and the American Academy of Religion.
Tributes poured in from across the Muslim world. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim called him "a true friend of the Islamic world." Palestinian-American academic Sami Al-Arian described him as "one of the greatest scholars and humanitarians of our time."
Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said Esposito devoted his life to advancing an accurate understanding of Islam "at a time when misinformation and prejudice too often dominated public discourse."
Esposito is survived by his wife, Dr. Jeanette P. Esposito.
Source: www.aljazeera.com