Islam's Influence on the US | Centre Stage

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 [Music] [Applause] happy to be here you've been doing this for a while Amy 40 plus years Brad sheet probably 50 but we don't want to discuss that yeah go ahead 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 that was the question that I asked when I was in graduate school the director of the Department said that uh I should take a 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 a 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 job and I was only hired to teach world religions and I did not teach Islam until the Iranian Revolution I was going to say so 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 and you've also spoken about the turning point in terms of Samuel Huntington's class of civilizations that that really also laid the foundation for really framing Islam and listened as a threat 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 is 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 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 the 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 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 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 you go to our website um we have a woman who does these courses for high school teachers you know and we provide we we funded Etc uh and for other teachers so that they can go back into the classroom so that now when I have students coming in unlike 1993 95 96 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 what about in terms of the presence of Islam in America and the impact particularly of black Muslims on American culture sir 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 that that part of American History is um is often invisible uh when you in general 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 um the SEC 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 it 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 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 but I'm bad on hip-hop I don't relate to HIPAA I've tried 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 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 uh 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 uh uh 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 things were getting getting worse 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 uh 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 you advised Biden didn't you 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 senators 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 um 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 occupy 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 [Music]

Channel: Al Jazeera English

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Id: P6koSJTZsyY

Length: 17min 53sec (1073 seconds)

Published: Thu May 04 2023