On Oct. 9, at the Burton Manor in Livonia, Michigan, The Muslim Observer (TMO) held its annual fundraising dinner. Keynote speaker, Wajahat Ali spoke about the importance of storytelling in the Muslim community. TMO is a local Detroit newspaper that was established in 1999 and has recently expanded with several reporters across the U.S. It’s main goal is to “uncover underreported stories and to highlight positive narratives involving Muslim Americans.” The Muslim Observer held this fundraising dinner to raise funds to invest more in storytellers and the newspaper itself.

Wajahat Ali is an American-Muslim Journalist of Pakistani descent and was the former host of Al-Jazeera America. He is also a writer, lawyer, an award-winning playwright, a TV host, and a consultant for the U.S. State Department. Ali was invited by TMO to elaborate on the significance of having representatives from Muslim communities working on changing the narrative in America when it comes to the image of Muslims in the media.

Ali believes that Muslims need to empower and invest in storytellers from their own community in order to unify and amplify their voice in American society. The underlying issue that is not being addressed or amended is the lack of encouragement from Muslim parents and communities to ensure storytellers are supported and encouraged. Ali claimed that 90 percent of Muslim occupations are one of the four following categories: doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs and taxi drivers/transportation service, leaving only 10 percent for lawyers, teachers, and journalists. Ali believes that the Muslim community needs to more actively write their own stories. “If you are not writing your own story, your story is always being written for you by others. The story of Islam and Muslims is currently being written by non-Muslims and anti-Muslim bigots,” Ali said.

Ali asked, “Where is the Rumi of Detroit?” Rumi, a famous Muslim poet, left his impact on the world through his storytelling, an impact that persists centuries after his death. Ali argues that there needs to be several “Rumis,” a storyteller from each community. The purpose of The Muslim Observer’s fundraiser was to meet the challenge that Ali made to the audience, to empower more journalists and storytellers to add their voices to the narrative of Muslims in the media.