07/21/2026
Remembering John L. Esposito
I mourn today the passing of a dear friend, Professor John L. Esposito, one of the world’s foremost scholars of Islam. I first came to know John in the early 1970s, and our friendship endured for more than five decades since.
John built the intellectual foundations for a deeper understanding of Islam in the West. His contribution to the cause of Muslim-Christian understanding was enormous. He founded Georgetown’s Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding, edited the “Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Islamic World,” served as President of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, and co-authored, with John Voll, “Makers of Contemporary Islam,” a study of the diverse and often divergent paths taken by modern Muslim political thought. His more accessible works, from “What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam” to his landmark study with Dalia Mogahed, “Who Speaks for Islam?,” carried that same rigour to a far wider audience, particularly after September 11 when the world badly needed it. He built bridges where others were content to build civilisational barriers.
I will remember John as a formidable scholar, yes, but more than that, as a friend whose counsel I valued over many years. John was as generous in private conversation as he was rigorous on the page. And he stuck with me through thick and thin.
On behalf of Malaysia, I extend my deepest condolences to his beloved wife, Jean, and to John’s family, colleagues and students. May his scholarship and the dialogue he spent his life building continue to bear fruit. He was, to the end, a true friend to the Muslim world.
Anwar Ibrahim
Prime Minister of Malaysia
