kristian petersen.
narrating african american muslim life through film
cohort. 2024-25
project. Narrating African American Muslim Life through Film
location. unbounded
medium. exhibit
There is a predominant media narrative that asserts that Islam is inherently violent, Muslims in America are foreign and dangerous, and policies or acts of aggression against them are therefore justifiable. One of the most prominent sources spreading this representational identity has been American film. The cinematic lives of Muslims are most often caricatures of reality – sensational and incomplete – relying on worn representational formulas, which reproduce stereotypes about Islam. The cinematic “Muslim” is misogynistic, violent, and Arab (Shaheen, 2001).
The post 9/11 cinematic landscape framed Muslims primarily as terrorists (Shaheen, 2008). Recent Hollywood films reinforce a dichotomy between “good” and “bad” Muslims that is predicated on narrative issues of national security, war, and terrorism (Alsultany, 2012). The resultant vilification of Muslims in our broader society is indebted to their cinematic production. At this moment when Muslims are so frequently depicted as violent terrorists what could it mean to bring the history of Muslim cinema to a broader public?
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Muslim cinema are films that center Muslim narratives and experiences and display interpretations of Islam in complicated, localized, and nuanced ways. While Muslim cinema is not a fixed and rigid category, for this author, it is rooted in a subjective experience of being Muslim, however one has experienced and defined that through their art. Muslim identities should not be limited or reduced to upholding religious beliefs or practices but can also be seen as an assemblage of ethnic, religious, and racialized factors that shaped how people are perceived in space and articulate their belonging through aesthetic and artistic representations.
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One result of exploring Muslim cinema in North America would be to witness the widespread and crucial role that African American Muslims have played in shaping the social, political, and religious history of the United States. While African American Muslims make up just about a quarter of the overall Muslim population in America they are often significantly overshadowed by representations of Arab or Asian Muslims in popular media. In the mid-twentieth century, “Black Muslims” in the Nation of Islam were once the focus of America’s public imagination of Islam but these media depictions were rooted in racist stereotypes about African Americans and the anxieties of white suburban communities, most recognizable in the television documentary The Hate That Hate Produced (1959).
When African American Muslims were championed on screen, such as representations of Muhammad Ali or Malcolm X, their religious participation was commonly reduced to a political ideology of Black empowerment rather than depicted as a spiritual source of personal growth and communal connection. In order to deconstruct these static portrayals one must move beyond these most well-known examples and explore the rich history of African American Muslims on screen.​
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​Altogether, the exhibit attempts to make a first stride at outlining and synthesizing the archive of Black Muslim cinema through direct dialogue with creatives and scholars that open up the rich narratives of African American Muslim filmmakers for new audiences.
interviews.
This digital exhibit, Narrating African American Muslim Life through Film, aims to reveal the role of cinema in constructing ideas and assumptions about the Black Muslim experience in America, and outlines ways African American Muslims have used film to communicate and define the spirit of their community. This digital exhibit includes conversations with the foremost scholar of Black Muslim cinema in America, Dr. Kameron Copeland, and a pioneering film practitioner, Aminah Bakeer Abdul-Jabbaar. Dr. Copeland provides an historical outline of transitions in cinema production and key films that depict Black Muslims. He also places Muslim representation within broader trends of Black filmmaking and the social and political contexts of the US in each of those historical moments. Writer-Director-Producer and Professor Aminah Bakeer Abdul-Jabbaar reveals her experience as a creative trying to share Black Muslim stories though both documentary and narrative film. She helps us think though the challenges and unique opportunities Black Muslim filmmakers face when trying to create their work. She also outlines the key role of mentorship and education in supporting early career and emerging filmmakers. ​
video essay.
The exhibit also includes an analytical video essay by Kristian Petersen on Spike Lee’s 1992 biopic Malcolm X, one of the most critically acclaimed and publicly applauded depictions of Black Muslims on screen. The video essay looks at Lee’s visual logic in relation to representation of religion and argues that he anchors Malcolm X’s social and spiritual identity to a sequence of elevated religious signifiers of authority. Spike Lee employs images of “suspended authority” to imply that religious institutions and structures jointly uplift and subjugate Malcolm over the course of his life, both giving him power but then taking it away. Symbols of authority, both Christian and Muslim, are raised behind characters to frame them within a given religious jurisdiction. As the film proceeds, religious bodies take up but fail Malcolm, first Christian, then the Nation of Islam, and thereby, their role in shaping his subjectivity are eventually suspended, meaning their influence is terminated. The video essay format enables the formal analysis of Lee’s filmmaking to show that formative shots of Malcolm X, and other characters, anchor the subject to suspended images of institutional religious traditions.
watch list.
Finally, Kam Copeland offers a curated film program, with brief screening guides, that help contextualize North American cinema at the intersections of the aesthetics and politics of the Black Power movement, global 20th century liberation movements, and African American Muslims.
The Battle of Algiers (1966)
dir. Gillo Pontecorvo
Features a documentary-style realism in telling the story of the Algerian Revolution against the French colonizers, showing the centrality of Islam to this resistance movement. Alongside Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1964), The Battle of Algiers functioned as a key text of the Black Liberation Movement, enabling activists to draw connections between the internal Black colony in the United States and other Third World liberation movements throughout the world. This text can be analyzed alongside notable films on Black urban guerilla warfare and resistance such as As Above, So Below (dir. Larry Clark, 1973) and The Spook Who Sat by the Door (dir. Ivan Dixon, 1973).
The Nation of Common Sense (1970)
dir. St. Claire Bourne
Explores the evolution of the Nation of Islam and its programs in the Black community. This documentary was produced for the television show Black Journal, a Black public affairs program that emerged in the aftermath of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. During this era, many Black-produced public affairs television programs that embodied the aesthetics and politics of the Black Power movement arose in various locales throughout the United States. The Nation of Common Sense and other episodes of various Black public affairs programs throughout the nation featured many Black Muslim figures and institutions, showing the profound impact of Islam on the Black freedom struggle throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
Roots (1977)
A television miniseries based on the evolution of an African American family from their ancestor’s capture in 18th century West Africa to the passing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1865. Based on the 1976 novel by Alex Haley of the same title, the airing of Roots is often referred to as a “major television event” in which over half of the United States’ population tuned in to view the miniseries. Interestingly, the series’ main protagonist Kunta Kinte was a Muslim and the Kinte’s family’s Muslim faith was central to the first couple of episodes in the miniseries.
Daughters of the Dust (1991)
dir. Julie Dash
Follows the saga of a Gullah-Geechee family living on Saint Helena Island, South Carolina as some members prepare to migrate to the mainland in 1902. Those who seek to migrate also desire to desert their family customs, producing a conflict with other family members who want to preserve their culture and customs on the Island. As the film begins with the adhan and a recitation of Surah al-Fatihah, Islam is portrayed as an essential component of African Americans’ ancestral past that has been well preserved on the Island. Additionally, through the film’s Muslim character Bilal Muhammad (based on the historical figure Bilali Muhammad who was enslaved in Sapelo Island, Georgia), Daughters of the Dust connects Islam to the legacies of resistance against slavery and white supremacy.
New Muslim Cool (2009)
dir. Jennifer Maytorena Taylor
A documentary on the journey of a Puerto Rican American rap artist named Hamza Perez who has embraced Islam. The film covers his philosophy as an artist, as well as his own personal evolution navigating faith, transformation, marriage, and fatherhood. Most importantly, it emphasizes the centrality of his activism and community work in mentoring imprisoned men of all faiths as a prison chaplain. Throughout the film, Hamza and the mosque he attends is surveilled by the FBI and he is temporarily fired by the prison for his lyrics critiquing U.S. imperialism. The film provides an important profile of a Muslim artist and his navigation of Islamophobia, racial injustice, faith, and family.
Bilal’s Stand (2010)
dir. Sultan Sharrief
Tells the story of a Detroit-based high school senior named Bilal, who is trying to help his working class Black Muslim family make ends meet by running their taxicab business. Succeeding at the difficulties of remaining committed to his faith and daily prayers, Bilal struggles to achieve his goal of attending the University of Michigan upon graduation without abandoning his familial duties. This independent film places the struggles of Black, Muslim, and working-class families trying to make ends meet at the intersection of faith, education, death, and mourning.
Mooz-Lum (2011)
dir. Qasim Basir
Centers the life of an African American Muslim college student struggling with his faith and experiencing the harsh impact of U.S. Islamophobia in the aftermath of September 11. Born into a Muslim family and raised by a father who was dedicated to the revolution of the 1960s under the tutelage of Malcolm X, the film interweaves the legacies of Black resistance embodied by Malcolm X with contemporary Islamophobia in a post-9/11 environment. It provides the opportunity for discourses on the impact of racism, Islamophobia, and religious trauma.
Jinn (2018)
dir. Nijla Mu’min
Focuses on an African American high school senior who embarks upon a journey of self-discovery after her mother embraces Islam. In addition to brilliantly highlighting the tension in this mother-daughter relationship, this coming-of-age film is a story of faith and self-discovery that aesthetically incorporates legacies of resistance and struggle. Set in Los Angeles, the film was inspired by director Nijla Mu’min’s experiences growing up in an African American Muslim community in Oakland, CA.
Muslimah’s Guide to Marriage (2018)
dir. Aminah Bakeer
Romantic comedy that focuses on the journey of a Black Muslim woman named Muslimah who is trying to save her marriage from divorce. Muslimah’s journey provides much-needed critical discourses on race, gender, and theology. Additionally, it highlights the centrality of contemporary African American Muslim institutions affiliated with the influential community of Imam W. Deen Mohammed, as Muslimah is a graduate of Sister Clara Muhammad School in Los Angeles. Thus, the film presents Muslim institutions as essential to Black communities, culture, and life in the United States.
Dope is Death (2020)
dir. Mia Donovan
Documentary film that tells the story of the Young Lords and Black Panther Party taking over a hospital to create a drug detoxification program in the South Bronx. Known as the Lincoln Detox, the collective combined radical politics with community programs to meet the needs of oppressed people. The film profiles and emphasizes the work of Dr. Mutulu Shakur, a New Afrikan/Black Muslim revolutionary who spearheaded the Lincoln Detox’s acupuncture program to treat drug addiction. By strongly highlighting the contributions and rise of Dr. Shakur, a political prisoner at the time of the film’s release, Dope is Death provides an insightful look into his life, politics, and legacy in the fight for Black liberation. Moreover, the film’s emphasis on Dr. Shakur provides strong insights into the experiences of Black Muslim organizers who were direct inheritors of el-hajj Malik El Shabazz’s political and spiritual message.
further reading.
Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation after 9/11, New York: New York University Press, 2012.
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Kameron Copeland, “Approaches to Multidimensional Health in Representations of Islamic Themes among Black Male Characters in American Film and Television” Journal of Medical Humanities (2019) Volume 40, Issue 2, 265-275.
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Kameron Copeland, “"I Do Feel the Fire!"-The Transformations of Prison-Based Black Male Converts to Islam in South Central, Malcolm X, and Oz” Journal of Religion & Film (2017) Volume 21, Issue 1.
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Kameron Copeland, ““Message to the Black man”: Islam in 1990s Black male narrative films” Contemporary Islam (2017) Volume 11, 259–285.
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Kameron Copeland, “Representing Father–Son Relationships among African-American Muslim Men in Film and Television” Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations, (2019) Volume 30, Issue 2, 165-193.
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Jack Shaheen, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People, Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2001.
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Jack Shaheen, Guilty: Hollywood's Verdict on Arabs After 9/11, Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2008.
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Citation: Petersen, Kristian. “Narrating African American Muslim Life through Film." SPIRIT HOUSE: A Crossroads Project. August 2025. Date Accessed. https://www.crossroads-spirithouse.org/petersen.
Kristian Petersen is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies at Old Dominion University. He is currently working on a monograph entitled The Cinematic Lives of Muslims. He is the editor or co-editor of Muslims in the Movies: A Global Anthology (2021), New Approaches to Islam in Film (2021), Digital Humanities and Research Methods in Religious Studies: An Introduction (2021), and The Bloomsbury Handbook of Muslims and Popular Culture (2023). He also serves as podcast host for the American Academy of Religion‘s Religious Studies News, and the New Books Network. He currently serves as editor for the “Religion, Culture, and History” series, published with Oxford University Press in association with the American Academy of Religion.
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