In the United States, I first confronted our Muslim community’s difficulty with the concept of secularism in late 2003 when I walked through the front door of my mosque in Morgantown, W.V., citing Islamic rights as well as civil rights granted me as a woman in this country. Soon after, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette wrote an article that included this passage: “Dalía Mogahed, outreach coordinator for the Pittsburgh mosque, agrees on Muhammad’s respect for women but says Nomani is viewing the issues through the eyes of a secular feminist rather than the eyes of a Muslim.”

Secular feminist?

I read the passage twice because to me, being a secular Muslim feminist wasn’t a contradiction in terms. To me, though they are few and far between, we have Islamic theologians who advocate for equal rights for women and secularism in governance. But the criticism was a wakeup call to me of the challenges we face advocating for secular values among Muslims. (Mogahed later led survey research at Pew and was a member of an Obama administration advisory council. She didn’t return a request for comment.)

It’s not “time to pull the plug” on Carson’s campaign, for his indelicate comments on Islam, as columnist P.J. O’Rourke argues. But it is time to continue the politically incorrect but critical conversation that he started.