John Esposito, a world-renowned American author, professor, and scholar of Islam who consistently challenged western stereotypes, died aged 86 on Wednesday, his colleagues at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, announced.
A Catholic from an Italian family in Brooklyn, New York, Esposito spent a lifetime studying Islamic life, its laws, and its application to the political sphere around the world.
He wrote, edited, and contributed to some 55 books on the subject, most of them confronting what he said were misunderstood and even manufactured narratives on Muslims, in particular in the post-9/11 era.
One of his most cited works in recent years was Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, co-authored with US Muslim scholar Dalia Mogahed, and made possible by a wide-ranging multi-year Gallup survey examining Muslims globally on all aspects of life. The answers provided a powerful counter-narrative to the stereotypically negative portrayals of Muslims rife in western media at the time.
For his work, he received a staggering seven honorary doctorates from around the world.
