Clearly, Obama was talking for democracy, for openness and transparency of government, for a government that doesn’t steal from its people, and for the need of people to be able to speak their mind and influence their government

in a famous university in a country which is not democratic, where the government is not transparent, where the government is actually stealing from it people, and where you are not free to speak your mind or influence your government.

Yet I believe there was a room, perhaps even a need, for these parts of the speech. Obama was speaking of Muslim ideals that Muslim leaders like well enough to flourish about. A saying in my own country goes, you can talk to the bum in the man or you can talk to the king in the man.

In this respect, Obama was talking to the kings in the men, holding Muslim leaders to the historic standards of religious tolerance they are so proud of, and confronting them with their own instances of the very hypocrisy the Arab world is justified in criticizing the US for. And in that respect I do think the message was received in this spirit as well.

Just a few comments on two things. I personally believe that the President Mubarak didn’t attend the speech but just greeted President Obama because after his nephew passed away, he isn’t appearing so much in the public arena. Even when you see him on television, of course like any human being, it is very obvious that he is upset and seems physically tired from such sad news. However, I’m not saying that Gamal Mubarak isn’t taking the lead after his father, but I’m just commenting on probably why his father didn’t attend the Obama speech. I don’t think Mubarak not attending has to do with Gamal taking the rule after his father. The second thing, Obama mentioned the headscarf once in his speech just to show how in the US there is no discrimination against Muslim women. I don’t think that he was stereotypical of Muslim women, especially that he said it’s part of my duty as the US president to fight against stereotypes of Islam. I think he mentioned this example specifically because he wants to show that Muslim women who choose to wear the headscarf are not punished for such choice.

Obama’s main adviser is an islamist
Please read this interview from Spiegel Online:

‘The Beginning of a Dialogue with Muslims’
Dalia Mogahed, who advises US President Barack Obama on Muslim affairs, talks to SPIEGEL about her influence on Obama’s speech in Cairo last week and its reception in the Muslim world.
SPIEGEL: Ms Mogahed, you are Muslim. You were born in Cairo. You are now advising the most important man in the world on Muslim affairs. What influence did you have on Barack Obama’s Cairo speech?
Dalia Mogahed: I am part of the Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, not a direct adviser. Our role is to provide ideas, mostly in the form of memos and reports. But yes, I played a role in making recommendations to the speechwriters.
SPIEGEL: What did you suggest?
Mogahed: I suggested three main themes. One is to continue building on the theme of mutual respect. My recommendation was to recognize that Islam has made and makes a positive contribution to civilization. The second major theme was that of cooperation and the idea of equal partnership. A third theme that I referred to was empathy: Even if we do not share their opinion, we should try to understand their point of view.
FROM THE MAGAZINE
Find out how you can reprint this DER SPIEGEL article in your publication.
SPIEGEL: It sounds as if a big part of the speech was based on your recommendations.
Mogahed: Yes, I really felt very satisfied, because much of what we recommended made it into his speech. The president tried to heal a deep wound that Muslims have. But at the same time, he didn’t deny what America stands for. His tone and his respect exceeded the expectations of most Muslims. He got a standing ovation in Cairo. People were yelling out: We love you, Obama. Actually, it reminded me of Obama’s inauguration in Washington. It was the same excitement.
SPIEGEL: Was it an historic speech?
Mogahed: From the minute he came on stage, I knew that it was an historic moment, especially because he began the speech by saying (the Arabic greeting) “assalaamu alaykum.” I knew that it has never happened before — and perhaps it won’t happen again — that an American president addresses the people like this.
SPIEGEL: Obama also quoted three verses from the Koran — that was new as well.

Mogahed: That was a recommendation I made — but not just me, others made it as well.

SPIEGEL: Obama never used the word terror in his speech. Instead he chose to use the term “violent extremism.”
Mogahed: I recommended using that terminology. He framed extremism as a neutral threat and didn’t connect it with Islam. He mentioned it as a threat that affects Muslims at least as much at it does the US, and he even mentioned that Muslims are the main victims of violent extremism.

SPIEGEL: Did Obama speak to the hearts of Muslims?

Mogahed: Definitely. We have carried out the largest, most comprehensive survey on Muslim opinions ever and that research and the conclusions from that research were conveyed and were taken into account in the formulation of the speech. All of my recommendations were based on the polls and studies at Gallup. It was in some ways a response to what people have said. The messages and the concepts in that speech were targeted towards what people think, rather than dictating to them what we want them to think. It was very much the beginning of a dialogue with Muslims around the world.

Interview conducted by Juliane von Mittelstaedt

John,

here’s what Mr. Mogahed said, among other things:

“My recommendation was to recognize that Islam has made and makes a positive contribution to civilization. The second major theme was that of cooperation and the idea of equal partnership. A third theme that I referred to was empathy: Even if we do not share their opinion, we should try to understand their point of view.”

Now what on EARTH is wrong with that?

I totally support you concern about the women’s rights and Hejab. what is the relationship between them?? if any. why they want to paint Egypt with Islam? As a feminist , i see his speech as gender bias speech where women should be veiled any hopeless sitting home. Mona 80% of Egyptian women are veiled. there will be no democracy in Egypt while 49 % of the citizens (women) are missing or doing nothing.

Maybe he was just touching on the most ‘obvious’ thing that can show that someone is a Muslim? I’m sure he knows he’s missing a lot of other factors as well.

Dalia Mogahed , The Hijab and The Story Behind Obama’s Use of Quranic Verses
http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=3&id=17027
By Salman Dossari
Doha, Asharq Al-Awsat- “Whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind” [Al-Maeda, Verse 32]. This is just one of the Quranic verses cited by President Barack Hussein Obama in the historic speech he gave on Thursday from Cairo University that was watched by the entire Muslim world. The surprises did not stop here, and the President cited another Quranic verse in closing, “O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another” [Al-Hujraat, Verse 13].The US President surprised not only the Islamic world, but also the rest of the world, by using accurate information on Islam, and citing the Quran [in his speech], but where did President Obama get this message that addresses the hearts and minds of the Muslim community?
Who suggested to the President that he should address the Muslim world by citing the Holy Quran in this way?
The answer is Dahlia Mujahid. She is a US citizen of Egyptian origin who wears the hijab, and who was recently appointed as Barack Obama’s presidential adviser on Islamic affairs.
In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, Mujahid confirmed that she was the one to present these ideas to the President, and suggest that he cite verses of the Holy Quran in his speech to the Muslim world. Dahlia Mujahid, who is also the Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, revealed that three weeks before President Obama’s historic speech in Cairo she was commissioned to provide “ideas and proposals” on the relationship between the US and the Muslim community for the President to use in the speech.
Mujahid said “I submitted a 5-page report, and some of us in the President’s Advisory Council met to discuss them.” Dahlia Mujahid revealed to Asharq Al-Awsat that her report focused upon three main issues “Firstly, mutual respect between the US and the Islamic world. Secondly, cooperation on the basis that Muslims want to be [equal] partners [with the US]. And thirdly, discussing the issues that angered the Muslim community with the US, such as the Arab – Israeli conflict, the US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay Detention Center.”
Mujahid also informed Asharq Al-Awsat that she would have preferred it if President Obama’s speech concentrated upon saying that the perceived hostility of the Muslim community towards the US “does not have a long history, and does not exceed fifty or sixty years, therefore it is not a historic dispute, but a recent one. I hoped that the President would begin [his speech] as I proposed by saying that the first country to recognize the US was Morocco, and continue with this idea saying that America is not a colonial power against the Muslim countries, and that America has never entered a Crusade [religious war] against Islam, as Europe has done [in the past].”Mujahid indicated that the main idea that she presented to the US President is the idea that the Muslims do not want to cut themselves off [from the world] “but at the same time do not want cooperation to be imposed upon them by force. What is important here is that there is equal participation in any cooperation initiative between the US and the Islamic world.”
Dahlia Mujahid criticized the US President’s speech as she believes that her country, the USA, is not associated with any historical hostility [with the Islamic world] in the way that Europe is. She told Asharq Al-Awsat “President Obama linked America with Europe and the West in general, [but] the US has never killed Muslims in religious wars, rather it has defended them on numerous occasions. Therefore, I believe that the President’s speech neglected this powerful idea, and did not touch upon it at all, and it was possible that this would have had a greater resonance in the Islamic world, sending the message that the President wants.”
Mujahid also criticized the President for speaking about Palestinian violence against the Israelis “but he neglected talking about the violence that Israel commits against the Palestinians.”Mujahid revealed to Asharq Al-Awsat some of the ideas that she submitted in her report that were not used in the Obama speech, and these include differentiating between extremism and Islam, although she added that the speech did point out that terrorism is a common enemy to both the US and the Islamic world. Dahlia Mujahid also informed Asharq Al-Awsat that Obama’s speech included her ideas that clarify that Islam “is not just a religion of peace – as former President George W. Bush would always say – but also a religion of progress and civilization.” Mujahid added “I made reference [in my report] to the sciences that Islam pioneered throughout history.”Mujahid believes that the appointment of a hijab-wearing Muslim as a presidential adviser has had “broad resonance in the Arab and Islamic world, and sends a clear message that America is not hostile to Muslims, and that America protects religious freedoms, unlike other European, Muslim, and even Arab countries that fight against and ban the hijab.”But where did Dahlia Mujahid get the ideas that she passed onto President Obama? The US Presidential adviser informed Asharq Al-Awsat that “I think that my book ‘Who talks on behalf of Islam” was important, and I think – although I’m not certain – that my appointment in this position came after the US administration were made aware of my book which discusses the causes behind the disputes between the US and the Muslim community.”As for what steps Dahlia Mujahid will take in the future as presidential adviser on Islamic affairs, she said that “we will work to put into practice the framework that the President outlined in his speech; we will work to find an effective mechanism through which we can move closer to the Islamic world.” Dahlia Mujahid is President Obama’s adviser on Islamic Affairs, and Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies. She is the first Muslim woman to occupy a position of this kind. She is of Egyptian descent, and married to an Egyptian Doctor who works in Washington. She has two sons, Gibreel and Tariq. Dahlia Mujahid immigrated to America when she was 5 years old, and began wearing the hijab at 17 after becoming more interested in religion.