Now the actor, musician and producer is taking his fight one step further, by launching a multi-layered initiative for Muslim representation in media, in partnership with the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, the Ford Foundation and Pillars Fund.
Looking back on that presentation, as well as his 2017 address to Parliament in his native England, Ahmed tells Variety, “It’s not a speech I wanted to give.
Ahmed has certainly brought in the big guns for this new initiative, building a coalition of parties from his Left Handed Films production banner, Pillars Fund , the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative’s Dr.
“There’s no point of research, if you don’t do anything about it,” Noorain, director of the foundation’s office of the president, explains.
“We always start with the same question: What is the prevalence and context surrounding the Muslim community in popular film?” Dr.
and focus on Hollywood? — and I’m so excited that it’s more expansive than that,” Noorain Khan says.
Al-Baab Khan and a team of eight Muslim students conducted the research, using their own lived experiences as members of the community to inform their work, which was a major benefit to the project’s efforts.
In assessing Muslim representation qualitatively, Al-Baab says the team created 16 measures to evaluate each character including: their relationship to violence; their relationships to other Muslims; and whether they interact with other Muslims; and family or friend relationships.
“That is one of the biggest disconnects of what we see on screen and what is being taught to the younger generation,” Dr.
Something that Ahmed found “really heartbreaking, but strangely unsurprising” in the study was the relationship between Muslim characters to acts of violence.
“We’re at a time right now in India, in Kashmir, in Myanmar, in the United States, in the U.K, in China, where elected officials are saying crazy shit and passing very disgusting, discriminatory laws.
“I’ve always said that people don’t wake up and hate Muslims or have this opinion of Muslims. It is something that is created.
“Islam as its really understood and practiced in the US, is largely shaped by Black Muslim communities,” he says, noting that large portion of the American Muslim population is Black.
“People have a very specific idea of the way they’ve racialized Muslims, and even thought about, what the politics of Muslims are, the ways they practice, the very limited ideas of gender that they believe all Muslims have, etc.
The research study is the foundation for Pillars Fund’s Blueprint for Muslim Inclusion, written along with Dr.
“This group from USC really helped us figure out what are the practical solutions that are short, medium and long term that we can ask of the industry,” Mikati explains.
“Plotlines that center violent terrorist characters, not only inaccurately depict Muslim communities, but they also create a false persona and flatten art,” Mikati says, of asking the industry to literally change the narrative portrayed onscreen.
Of asking the studios to invest in Muslim creators with dedicated production deals, like Ahmed’s Left Handed films recently inked with Amazon Studios, Mikati adds, industry gatekeepers will demonstrate their dedication to telling authentic stories about Muslim communities.
“What a lot of people don’t know is that the Muslim community in the United States is the most likely faith community to live in poverty.
I basically got a grant,” he says, sharing the story of how his benefactors helped get him to the point where he is today.
In addition to the financial hurdles endured from the time he entered drama school through graduation, the actor still wasn’t sure that he had a future in entertainment.
Though Ahmed has since carved out an impressive career, the fact that he’s one of the few is absolutely not lost on him.
“That means artists can use the money for whatever they want.
“It’s about trusting artists; it’s not saying, ‘Hey, listen, you’d make it if you’d just be a little bit less like yourself, if you fit more into the boxes of an industry that’s trying to back you into a corner.
That’s also very, very limited, because there are just aren’t that many Muslims that have ‘made it,’” Mikati says pointing to Ahmed.
All the creators who are going to get the fellowship, are going to produce more and hopefully better material, such that, if we were to do on subsequent research study, what people have to say will be different.
“This fellowship a game changer, because it means that we can put the time and energy into finding the talent and nurturing the talent.
The plan also includes talent banks like ARRAY Crew, Color of Change’s Writer’s Room Database and the Muslim List, which Pillars Fund created in partnership with the Black List in 2021.
“There reason to be optimistic and pessimistic at the same time, is that unlike other groups and other aspects of inclusion, this is not about your race or ethnicity or your gender,” Pieper says.
“The reason to be pessimistic, is now we’re asking people to think about inclusion in a much broader way,” she adds.
“There’s not much out there like this,” he says.
“I feel like I’m neither of those right now, because they’re both stances you take on things that are out of your control.