This article is part of a series that will look at the representation of Muslims and Islam in different arenas: media, politics, and culture. Authors will discuss the shortcomings of representation, and invite readers to ultimately question what goals it serves in the first place.
On September 7th, 2022, PillarsFund, a Muslim grant-making organization based in the U.S., released a statement on the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative study on Muslims in the media. The study was supported by PillarsFund, actor Riz Ahmed, and Left Handed Films. The study looked at 200 top-rated shows and the 8,000+ characters in them from 2018 to 2019, to conclude that Muslims constitute only 1.1% of characters.1 Additionally, they found that stereotypes are rife—Muslim characters are terrorists, prone to violence, etc.
There may be value in such research, but I argue that it is incomplete and that calls for simply more Muslim characters, instead of a focus on characters with an Islamic ethos, leads to flattening of Muslims as simply another identity rather than an Islamic worldview.
A Numbers Game
The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) framework often plays a numbers game. Numbers alone do not make for diversity, nor is it a good in and of itself. Ultimately, the question is whether one seeks placement of individuals that outwardly hail from a particular community, or is a prototypical embodiment of that community’s ideals, values, and beliefs that distinguishes them from others. For the Muslim, it is not race, nor clothing or rituals alone that distinguishes from others, and hence other characters, but the internal alignment with the shahada and physical manifestation of that to the degree possible. This framework is less concerned with the substantive, preferring to enumerate self-confessed identities itself. For example, a character who professes he is gay and affirms liwat (sodomy) as permissible is not a laudable example of Muslim representation in our worldview, yet would be (and is) celebrated by American media. It is not only the barbaric Muslim that is harmful or patronizing—it is making human civility look achievable only through liberalizing the Muslim subject.
Additionally, this study looked at the top 200 shows in Western societies. Producers, writers, and industries in these countries are largely Western. The viewers are largely non-Muslim. It thus is not a surprise that the shows most watched and ranked are of stories that resonate with this demographic. Muslims in the U.S. constitute 1-2% of the population. It is not erasure in that sense, especially if one accounts for TV and films in the ‘Muslim world’. A series like Ertugrul or Omar series would not appeal to the millennial audience watching Gilmore Girls or House of the Dragon.
While it is true that what is top-rated in the West will likely be exported to other countries and their framings subtly imposed (I remember in Egypt seeing billboards for Arab movies and shows, and every single Muslim female character who wore hijab was portrayed as an uneducated servile wife or a terrorist), we should be asking whether perfecting statistical numbers makes a difference. I don’t believe it does. Does it follow that if the world is X percent Y, that media should be X percent Y, especially accounting for Muslims’ general tendency to not consume entertainment? Is there evidence that this goal is of benefit to Muslims, and in what way? What is our culture of visibility that drives these discussions?
One paradox is in simultaneously wanting the media to reflect reality (i.e., in wanting the number of Muslim characters to reflect the one-fourth global population of Muslims), yet wanting to diversify and avoid generalizations. Yet, generalizations are not prescriptions, and often have an element of truth. For example, interestingly, the study problematizes “[s]tereotypes about Muslim women were also present in the content. More than half of Muslim girls and women in the sample were shown wearing a hijab…” and that “[m]ale Muslim characters were far more likely (78.4%) than female Muslim characters (21.6%) to be shown with a job.” Yet it is true in many countries, more Muslim women (and non-Muslim women) engage in head-covering practices than not, and that due to religious obligations of financial responsibility on men, culture, and other socioeconomic reasons, there are more Muslim males in the workforce than females in most industries (and this can be seen in developed, non-Muslim countries as well).
So what is the end-goal exactly? To reflect Muslims as they are globally, Muslims as they are in the West, or as a hyper media-involved consumer subset, that usually ascribe to vague notions of secular humanism, want Muslims to be portrayed as?
Ultimately, industries operating in this framework herald change and representation whilst establishing no ideal to evolve towards. This means religious values—or any sort of system of ethic—are bent to ‘to modernity’s will’. It is negotiated in the public space, an issue I discussed previously here. That means far from showing hijab or praying five times as an ideal, to the degree that these aspects exist at all, it will be contended with as a choice. This means sin and reward, dunya and afterlife, are not evoked as metaphysical realities, disregarded for the individualist, vague notion that encourage everyone to simply “be a good person” and “be yourself and live your truth” so long as “you’re not hurting anyone.”
Actor Riz Ahmed offers, “Networks and streaming services need to embrace their responsibility to ensure Muslims of all backgrounds see themselves reflected in our favorite TV shows.” But such are is almost always used to support portrayals of the barrier-breaking, unorthodox. One would find it difficult to see arguments for a writer to write a nuanced Tablighi niqabi character with a strong narrative arc (that doesn’t inevitably lead to discarding normative Islamic values, that is.)
Calls for inclusion generally belie the adoption of a secular-liberal mode of living, with surface level flourishes of the Islamic, instead of contending seriously with ideological differences—would one write a same-sex attracted Muslim character who strives to abide by shari’a? A woman accepting Islam in defiance with her atheist professor parents?
The study “offers solutions to increase the representation of Muslims in entertainment, including telling stories focused on Muslim characters, deepening the richness of portrayals for supporting Muslim characters, and casting Muslims to emphasize their participation in broader society.” A desirable goal it may be, in its potential in using it to convey values and halal entertainment, but I caution against simply increasing ‘Muslim characters’, at least without addressing the problems above. Beyond this, the fact is that much of filmed media is produced through or involves impermissible means, settings, or inappropriate behavior.
If a Muslim character offers nothing to distinguish them from the average agnostic millennial, then what we have done is not representation at all, but adopted a foreign ethos and paraded it as diversity. “Deepening richness” is not the trope of West versus East with the West winning out, or reconciliation of 21st century secular liberalism with Islam always subsuming the latter under the former. “Deepening richness” is engaging the Islamic tradition, of Muslims contending with vices, virtues, oppression, and being oppressors, of epics of failing and seeking mercy on the path to God.
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Hashmi is best known for her project, Muslims Condemn. She is an Attorney based in the U.S. with a background in Molecular, Cellular, & Developmental Biology and Linguistics. Her interests include the Islamic sciences, specifically legal philosophy and Maliki fiqh, cognitive linguistics, and bioethics.
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