Hisham Tawfiq is an actor born, raised, and based in Harlem. He has been featured in a number of TV shows including 30 Rock, Law and Order, Nurse Jackie, and currently, The Blacklist. His father was a student of Malcolm X. Tawfiq is also involved in other personal projects. One of these is called Jinn, written and produced by a Black Muslim woman, telling the story of an African American teenager’s mother converting to Islam. Tawfiq wanted to be a part of this project because it “giv[es] a window into the African American Muslim home.” His second project is a documentary that Tawfiq is producing with his wife about his own life. “Originally, it was about the fire department. But now, it’s basically going to talk about just my whole life, the Marines, the fire department, corrections, being the son of an imam...being born Muslim and the trials and tribulations I went through as a teenager—and I dealt with the same things in public school, I dealt with the same things in the Marines, the same issue with corrections, you know the common denominator in all my phases of life, so I wanted to tell the story, especially after 9/11. After all that stuff was heightened, there was more of the need to speak on my experience and talk about the contributions that Muslims, and specifically African American Muslims, made to New York City and all cities across the country.”
