Robert Spencer offers a characteristically restrained critique of John L. Esposito, who is generally agreed to be the leading western academic expert on Islam:
“The dhimmi Saudi shill John Esposito, whose word still reigns supreme in the White House, and who has praised the suicide-terror-endorsing Sheikh Qaradawi as a ‘reformist’, has now fallen so low as to echo paranoid conspiracy theories about Daniel Pipes being behind the printing of the Danish cartoons. He also recommends that Muslims promote themselves more aggressively in the West. And I’m sure that he will be ready to help with that promotion.”