At a recent public event in Washington DC, Ilhan Omar, a US Congresswoman from Minnesota, had a harsh rebuttal to a question about female genital mutilation. The questioner wanted Ms Omar to condemn FGM.
Ms Omar, quite appropriately, pointed out that implicit in the question was an assumption about her record on the issue, and about Muslims in public life more generally. Beyond FGM, there are a number of questions that should be asked about what assumptions lie behind our questions to visibly Muslim westerners – not only in public life, but more generally in our society, too.