When I saw who was giving this course I was prepared to hate the course. Dr. Espisito is a well know Islamic scholar who is an Islamic apologist. He will not even condemn Hezbollah or Hamas. He portrays them as a Sinn Fein type organization with an IRA arm. However, Sinn Fein never felt that the Northern Ireland shouldn't exist, just that Ireland shouldn't be under British Rule. Hezbollah and Hamas both think that Israel should not exist at all, and have that as a goal in the charters of their organizations. Granted some people in those organizations have thought they were violent enough against Israel and will broke away, but they are not like Sinn Fein.
With that being said I didn't actually dislike the course as much as I thought I would, and I actually learned a few things, although not many. I agree with many who have said that it probably would have been better to have a believer give the course than an outsider. Dr. Espisito is Roman Catholic, which doesn't really matter, except that he's not Muslim. Also, he does give a biased presentation of Islam, but to be fair, he gives the presentation that most people in academia give of Islam, which I think is disturbing.
I will give some examples. He doesn't present the crusades as an outright attack by the Christians on the innocent Muslims, he does give some background and that the Byzantine Emperor had called for help with the Muslim attacks. He also said that one reason the Pope called for the crusades was to increase his political position. I haven't heard that before, and it's probably got some truth behind it. He also said that there were hero and villains on both side on the war. Then he proceeds to talk about the Crusaders sack of Jerusalem and King Richards massacre of the prisoners at Ayyadieh. He then talks about how Saladin spared Jerusalem when he took it. He doesn't mention the account of Saladin taking Hattin. Saladin's secretary writes this account of how he treated the prisoners there: "[Saladin] ordered that they should be beheaded, choosing to have them dead rather than in prison. With him was a whole band of scholars and Sufis and a certain number of devout men and ascetics; each begged to be allowed to kill one of them, and drew his sword and rolled back his sleeve. Saladin, his face joyful, was sitting on his dais; the unbelievers showed black despair." He also doesn't mention that the Saladin planned to treat the prisoners at Jerusalem the same way. The reason he didn't it was because of an agreement he had reached with Christian commander of the city Balian of Ibelin who had threatened to kill all of the Muslims in the city of Jerusalem before Saladin could reach it if he didn't agree to spare the prisoners. He also only "spared" the prisoners that could be ransomed to freedom, the rest were sold as slaves. Nice guy Saladin. If you go to the Wikipedia account of the massacre of Ayyadieh it ends with this ironic sentence
"Aayadieh is perhaps the strongest refutation of Richard as a courteous and chivalrous warrior king. On this occasion his almost "theatrical" staging of the massacre showed that he was capable of using terror tactics in an attempt to terrify his opponents into submission. Ironically, Saladin's counter massacre did not hurt his reputation."
Many people point out how well Richard and Saladin got along even though they were adversaries. Saladin even sent his physician, who was probably much, much better than anything Richard had, to treat him when Richard was ill. They probably got along well because they were kindred spirits. Why does Dr. Espisito not tell this, if he "has" to tell about the villains of the plot why only the Christian villians? Muslims know Saladin, and not the happy charitable Saladin the west is told about by Dr. Esposito.
Dr Espisto also says that every one of the suras, or chapters, of the Quran, starts with the bismillah "In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful" That's mostly true, except that it doesn't start the 9th Sura, or the "so called", as Dr. Esposito would say, Sword Sura. That's what the "critics" of Islam call it, the name that Muslims give it is "The Repentance" or "The Ultimatum." As Dr. Espisito says, "Many, not all consider this the last word of Mohammed..." He says this about Quran 9:71-72 and says that this is how a man should treat his wife, as an equal. I didn't know that those ayahs were interpreted that way and were applied to marriage. So I learned something there. Dr. Esposito also didn't mention that there is another ayah in the Quran 4:34 that says that it's OK to beat your wife if she's disobedient, but that since the 9th Sura comes later it abrogates the former ayah. It's good to know that some Islamic scholars interpret the Quran that way.
Dr. Esposito also talked about the ayahs that the "critics", as Dr. Esposito called them, always talk about. The so called "sword verses". I was actually surprised that he talked about these at all. Not to worry though. We just don't understand them in context. Many Christians understand that other Christians will rip proof texts out of the Bible and that when put in context they can sound different, so Dr. Esposito is going to set our minds at ease here. He quotes 9:5 "Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them and prepare for them each ambush." Yes you're right Dr. Esposito that sounds terrible, so here is the second line that puts it in context and makes it all OK. "But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free." Really Dr. Esposito, putting it in context makes it better!!!! If we convert and pay the zakat (which he talks about as one of the pillars of Islam) the Muslims are supposed to leave us alone, otherwise it's OK to ambush us idolaters? That doesn't seem to make it any better to me.
Also, although he mentioned it with respect to marriage he doesn't mention that these so called "sword verses" are also in the last word of Mohhamad, and the only sura that doesn't start with the bismillah, the 9th Sura. He also doesn't talk about the ayahs that say that Muslims should not be friends with Christians or Jews. It's things like this that make people say that Dr. Esposito is giving a slanted view of Islam.
Now that I've written how bad the lectures are, they actually aren't that bad. The lecture I learned the most on was lecture 4 about how the different law codes came about and the Sufis. Also, Dr. Esposito is a much better scholar of Islam than I am, or I hope he is, and he does seem anguished that there is no Islamic nation that is not plagued by terrorist unrest or civil war. He also seems to really believe that Islam has been hijacked by a violent minority. It does seem that way to me, however, I don't think that ignoring the reasons that there is that violent minority is the way to help reform Islam. Judaism and Christianity have changed over the years. Jews have worked out how their religion works without a temple. Christians, and Jews have worked out how to get around slavery and usury. There are plenty of ways that the Quran can be interpreted peacefully, and America should be a safe haven for all Muslims that want to take that path. Dr. Esposito says that is what he is doing, and I truly hope he is, but in my opinion, closing your eyes to all the bad things about Islam is not helping it reform, it's just letting the wolf into the sheepfold.
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