Mooz-lum (2010), directed by Qasim “Q” Basir, is a heavy-hitting film about faith, tolerance, ignorance, violence, forgiveness and understanding. The story features a college freshman by the name of Tariq Mahdi (Evan Ross) who has lost his faith. A devout Muslim in his youth, Tariq was sent to an Islamic Academy as a teenager, where he was violently beaten for more than a year by his headmaster.
As a student in university, he does everything in his power to dismiss his identity as a Muslim man: drinks with friends, attempts premarital sexual activity, addressing himself simply by ‘T’, lashing out at his Muslim roommate, alienating his family, and laughing at religiously-insensitive jokes. This all occurs right before the 9/11 attack on the twin towers. This attack prompts the university’s dean (Danny Glover) to send out a negligent campus-wide email which provokes a band of students to go throughout campus attacking Muslim students. The group corners two Muslim women, one of which is Tariq’s sister, and he approaches them just in time to save them from a brutal attack, but is struck in the process. Later, the heightened situation leads to an assault on Tariq’s roommate, and in the midst of campus terror, Tariq reveals to his scars to his family. When the worst passes, the president of the school is fired for sending the offhand email, and Tariq goes to visit his old academy –only to find that he was not the one to be abused and the headmaster was long ago fired for his transgressions.
While this movie was centrally based around religion, it also portrays Tariq’s inability to belong and his desperate search for connectivity and community. Though Tariq is a black man, his greatest identifier is that he is a Muslim man. He knows much more about his belief system than the supposed knowledge that black males are suppose to garner in their teen years. He has never been to a concert, never experienced any of the secular experiences, but what he does have a great grasp on is a belief system and the system of belief that surrounds being a Muslim man in the United States. Tariq’s struggle is one that many people share, of personal strife and coming to terms with self. By addressing his abuse, his self-loathing his fears, and his faith, he is able to gain a sense of resolve.