...In February, the ISB produced an affidavit prepared by the dean of American academia's Islam apologists, John Esposito. Currently presiding over Georgetown's Prince Alalweed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Esposito is perhaps best known for publishing an article in the summer of 2001 ridiculing the U.S. establishment's preoccupation with Osama bin Laden. The issue of Fletcher Forum magazine in which this ill-timed observation appeared was still on newsstands when bin Laden's minions brought down the World Trade Center, killing almost 3,000 civilians in the process.

Esposito's affidavit for the ISB is quite a piece of work. It includes a nine page self-hagiography in which Esposito informs the court that his writings "are used as authoritative source material for the understanding of Islam worldwide." Esposito also exhaustively details the many honors he has won during his lengthy career, including 1996's World Book Prize awarded by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Esposito's affidavit mounts a spirited defense of Yussuf Al-Qaradawi, who for three years served on the ISB's board as an honorary trustee (which the ISB claims was the result of a clerical error), and who helped the ISB raise funds for the mosque. The defense of Al-Qaradawi is transparently disingenuous. As proof of Qaradawi's good nature, Esposito quotes London's notoriously anti-Semitic mayor, "Red" Ken Livingtone, praising Al-Qaradawi for preaching "moderation and tolerance to all faiths around the world." Unlike the nine pages he devotes to cataloguing his own expertise, Esposito doesn't offer a single word of explanation as to why Livingtone's analysis is at all pertinent.

Livingstone's and Esposito's embrace of Al-Qaradawi could hardly be more wrong-headed. As noted terrorism expert Walid Phares observes, "Al-Qaradawi produced most of the doctrinal foundations for Jihadi radicalism since the mid 1990s, including the incitement for Jihadists to defeat the Africans in southern Sudan, the Middle East minorities, and women's movements. In fact, Al-Qardawi does indeed call for change, but in the direction of further Talibanization of the Muslim world."

Respected scholar Daniel Pipes offers more withering commentary on the motivations of Esposito, stating "(His) affidavit shows how John Esposito shamelessly prostitutes himself for any radical Islamic cause, recklessly lending his name and his academic credentials to Islamists, no matter how legally dubious or politically disreputable they may be."...