Remembering Professor John L. Esposito

The Bridge Initiative mourns the passing of Dr. John L. Esposito, founding director of the Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU) and director of The Bridge Initiative at Georgetown University.

For decades, Dr. Esposito was the defining voice on Muslim-Christian relations and how Islam was understood in America and the world. Driven by a strong moral compass, his work reached far beyond the halls of academia, influencing policymakers and elected officials in pursuit of a more just and peaceful world. He was not just a public intellectual but an activist-scholar who used his words to bring forth real and positive change.

He impacted the lives of countless individuals around the globe and mentored multiple generations of scholars. His leadership built the institutions that carry this work forward today.

The Bridge Initiative is part of Dr. Esposito’s legacy. It was through his conviction to help build and sustain a pluralistic world that Bridge came to be: an organization dedicated to the highest level of research on one of today’s greatest social ills: Islamophobia.

Dr. Esposito will be remembered not only for his scholarship, but for his generosity, his compassion, his love, his guidance, his integrity, and his unwavering commitment to justice and peace. He was, to many of us, family. May he rest in eternal peace.