"Mo": Changing the Paradigm of 'Muslim Representation' in Media

An imperfect Muslim's story, perfectly told

When I was a kid, there weren’t Muslim characters in the library books I read prolifically or in the movies and TV shows I’d watch. It would feel like suspending parts of my identity to immerse myself in a world that lacked characters who believed what I did or looked like me, characters whose worldview, lifestyle, and way of speaking were so different than my own.

Since then, much has been said about the need for “representation” in mainstream media, and how significant it can be for minorities to see themselves reflected in it. However, within the Muslim community, representation has also been a mixed bag: the version of Muslims presented are often found to be diminishing aspects of their faith with the express intent to fit in better, to be palatable for that mainstream. It seems to be that when the audience is largely not Muslim, the less practicing the Muslim is, the more enthusiasm for their story, and the more it finds a place of belonging among a non-Muslim reader/viewership.

The inverse is often true within the more devout segments of the Muslim community: the value of a personal story for practicing Muslims tends to be directly correlated with the level of religiosity the storyteller has–at least outwardly–expressed; the closer they can get to perfect, the less obvious their sins, the more shelf space their narrative has in the broader collective. It is a perspective that is not unfounded: it doesn’t make sense to have someone speaking as a representative of faith that they aren’t really adhering to. And it ties to a religious edict, too: that private sins should not be made public, for the draw it can create to others to engage in the same.

But this binary creates a troublesome divide for the practicing, albeit imperfect, Muslim: can I tell my story? And if so, to whom? What is the purpose of my narrative–is it to uphold the perfection of my faith? Or is it simply to share my story, for whomever finds benefit–comfort, resonance, humanity–in it? How can I tell my story in a way that humanizes me, without running afoul of religious norms?

There aren’t all too many many Muslim-authored personal essays, memoirs, and movies or TV shows in America. And oftentimes, when a storyteller is Muslim, the same common themes emerge: their struggle within the faith, specifically around doctrine, or their struggle as a minority because of their faith. While these narratives are important, they can also feel reductive; I think we miss out on stories in which we aren’t questioning aspects of our religion, but comfortable living in it; narratives in which we aren’t downtrodden and helpless, but remarkable and resilient. Personal accounts like these may not expressly be about faith or our relationship to it, but instead, they are written by ordinary Muslim people sharing an authentic story about–simply put–life.

That was what “Mo” felt like to me, and it was so refreshing to see a Muslim storyteller make beautiful art rooted in his culture and faith, yet connecting to universal experiences of instability, laughter, heartache, and perseverance.

Through comical yet deeply moving storytelling, where a bring-you-to-tears scene ends on a laugh-out-loud line, Mo, the character, lives in multiple worlds–connecting with the non-Muslims around him in the show as easily as he does his Muslim extended family–while staying true to himself throughout, even when the stakes are enormously high and he (spoilers ahead) loses his opportunity to get back home to the States.

Despite the shortcomings of his own religious practice, Mo doesn’t make indictments about the faith itself; instead he showcases it, perhaps most poignantly in the scene in which he gives the adhan in Palestine, in the mosque his father once prayed in. I expected that scene to be cut after maybe the initial Allahu Akbars, or even the shahada–but no, Mo delivered the call to prayer in full–and beautifully so. And then, a laugh follows, about another man’s father being good only at “playing cards”, speaking to the fact that there are no perfect Muslims, and yet, we are all still Muslims.

"Mo" is so infused with Palestinian culture and Muslim references that it breaks the paradigm of “Muslim representation in mainstream media” entirely–Islam is not packaged in some corner of an episode as a box to check off, something you “do” (or, like in some shows, something you don’t do, and struggle with or outright reject). The Muslim experience is instead living, breathing, completely integrated within Mo’s identity–for example, in the HasbiuAllah wa ni’mal wakeel he recites outside the attorney’s office or the La hawla wala quwwata illa billah he says when he sees his family’s land in Palestine, that they can do nothing with because of the permits rejected by the apartheid government. The show also doesn’t use religion to explain certain choices of its adherents: for example, Mo’s mother’s unwillingness to take his brother to therapy–a deft portrayal of the stigma around mental health in the Muslim community–isn’t rooted in theology; it is simply driven by a mother wanting her son not to be labeled as deficient in some way.

Mo’s humanization of a Palestinian man is also timely, and necessary–in descriptions of the victims of this genocide, it is the “innocents” who are often centered–children and women, a point Mohammad el-Kurd delves into this more deeply in his new book, Perfect Victims. Mo is a flawed character–his anger and impatience often get the best of him, wreaking havoc in his and his loved ones lives. And yet, simply through his storytelling, simply by knowing him, how much he loves his brother who has autism, how much he wants to make a better life for his family, how much the grief of his father’s death stays with him–we feel his pain in the end scene when he is subjected to the dehumanization of a strip search and his cherished videotape broken, and it is a visualization of how men too are victims in the greater genocide and erasure of Palestinians.

Undoubtedly, some Muslims will take issue with the way Mo’s relationship with Maria is depicted, or the specific environments he is in. What feels different about these parts of the show in “Mo”, however, is the intent–perhaps because the show is somewhat autobiographical, it doesn’t feel that it’s a manufactured rendition to water Mo’s Muslim-ness down; these situations aren’t shown as Mo having an existential crisis over his faith, but as a depiction of the actual interfaith relationships and the level of practice that are present, and will always be present, among Muslims in both the US and elsewhere.

I am glad to see “Mo” receive the recognition it deserves outside our immediate community, too. It raises the bar for Muslim creators of media to think beyond representation in someone else’s story and to seek to tell our own, and it’s a motivating reminder that one doesn’t have to compromise on authenticity or separate from religious identity to do so. Our stories are valuable, and they are worth sharing in their entirety.

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TL;DR: Watch “Mo”.

What was your favorite scene of Season 2?