She calls herself “the hijabi,” a reference to her headscarf that she wraps elegantly around her head while conducting her duty as an advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama’s deputy national security advisor, Ben Rhodes.
Rumana Ahmed will be one of six people featured in an exclusive series for Al Arabiya English on Muslim Americans working in the White House.
Some Muslims work in sensitive positions at the National Security Council, and deal with classified information.
Others contribute to the legislative, immigration, and science and technology departments at the White House.
Muslims have become part of the political debate on national security and immigration. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has repeatedly targeted them, suggesting a ban on Muslims entering the United States “until we know what to do with them.”
Republican and Democratic leaders have criticized his remarks, saying they promote fear-mongering and hate.
Others express concern about the effect his statements could have on relations with the Muslim world.
That concern may have prompted Obama to make his first official visit to a mosque in Baltimore in February.
There, he spoke about Muslim Americans serving their government and defending the homeland, sometimes at the cost of their own lives.
The U.S. constitution bars the government from asking about religious affiliation, so it is difficult to estimate the number of Muslims serving in different branches.
