President Barack Obama has made his first appointment of a Muslim: Dalia Mogahed.

The Los Angeles Times

Born in Egypt, Ms. Mogahed is a senior analyst and the executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies; and will join the White House’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships as a liaison to the American-Muslim community.

A resident of the United States for 30 years and a citizen for nearly as long, Ms. Mogahed has dedicated her life to being a voice for the Muslim community.

She has co-authored with Georgetown Professor John Esposito “Who Speaks for Islam?” and has published editorials in the American press on Islam. Her most recent editorial was on America ignorance on Islam:

Winning hearts and minds — the Bush administration, foreign policy wonks, even the U.S. military agree that this is the key to any victory over global terrorism. Yet our public diplomacy program has made little progress on improving America’s image. Few seem to recognize that American ignorance of Islam and Muslims has been the fatal flaw.

How much do Americans know about the views and beliefs of Muslims around the world? According to polls, not much. Perhaps not surprising, the majority of Americans (66%) admit to having at least some prejudice against Muslims; one in five say they have “a great deal” of prejudice. Almost half do not believe American Muslims are “loyal” to this country, and one in four do not want a Muslim as a neighbor.

Why should such anti-Muslim bias concern us? First, it undermines the war on terrorism: Situations are misdiagnosed, root causes are misidentified and bad prescriptions do more harm than good. Second, it makes our public diplomacy sound like double-talk. U.S. diplomats are trying to convince Muslims around the world that the United States respects them and that the war on terrorism is not out to destroy Islam. Their task is made infinitely more difficult by the frequent airing of anti-Muslim sentiment on right-wing call-in radio, which is then heard around the world on the Internet.

Ms. Mogahed is clearly an honest, eloquent, intelligent, and sincere thinker whose presence in the Executive Branch will be a welcome for American-Muslims. The community has felt shut out by the political process, including by Obama himself. Though the son of a African, Muslim father, Obama get his distance from American-Muslims: never visiting a Mosque or community center, never meeting in private with Muslim leaders, and refusing to even attend an Arab-American conference. A while Ms. Mogahed is veiled, Obama staffers once removed two veiled women from sitting behind the then candidate.

What is most noble about her appointment, is that Ms. Mogahed is a proud Muslim with standing in the community. She does not opportunistically sell out like some other Muslims for purposes of being on Fox News or getting invited to the White House.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

“My work focuses on studying Muslims, the way they think and their views,” Mogahed was quoted as saying on the website of the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya satellite news channel. “Then I should tell the president about their problems and needs, especially that lately Muslims have been perceived as a source of problems and as incapable of taking part in solving international problems and that they should work on themselves. Now we want to say that Muslims are capable of providing solutions.”

According to the Times, Arabs in the region are quite pleased, but some expressed dismay that Ms. Mogahed expressed loyalty to the United States first and foremost rather than Islam, Arabism or even Egypt.