Meet White House adviser who supports Islamic law; Muslim leader says Dalia Mogahed 'shares the outlook of Islamists in Egypt, Pakistan'

She describes her role in the Obama administration as a communicator to the president and other public officials of "what it is Muslims want."

But Muslims such as Steven Schwartz, a prominent American convert to Islam and ardent critic of Muslim fundamentalism, contend Dalia Mogahed, a scheduled speaker at the annual fundraiser Saturday in Washington for the controversial Council on American-Islamic Relations', certainly doesn't speak for them.

A senior analyst and executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, Mogahed was appointed to President Obama's Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

The Egyptian-born, hijab-clad adviser drew attention earlier this month when she defended Shariah, or Islamic law, on a British television show hosted by a member of an extremist Muslim group, insisting the majority of women around the world associate Shariah with "gender justice."

Schwartz, executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism, states in a column for the Weekly Standard that according to Mogahed's view, Muslims are "either fundamentalist or confused."

"Their attitudes toward Islamic law are divided, in her terms, only between supposedly wanting Shariah to be the sole source of governance and seeing it as one source of legislation among various canons," he writes. "But for her, even this distinction is less important than proclaiming the satisfaction of Muslim women with Shariah." READ MORE...