I think the question is a bit inaccurate, since there are in fact plenty of Muslim actresses in Bollywood. Here’s a small sampling of some of the Muslim actresses active in Bollywood. For starters, among the presently active ones, there is Nushrat Bharucha, Zarine Khan, Sara Ali Khan, and Nargis Fakhri.
Others include, Tabu, Soha Ali Khan, Huma Qureshi, and Fatima Sana Shaikh. I am not including Katrina Kaif in this list, because from what I can tell, she pretty much grew up Christian, so it’d be inaccurate to term her as a Muslim actress.
And, of course, there are plenty of legendary Bollywood actresses who were also Muslim (e.g. Shabana Azmi, Meena Kumari, Madhubala, Saira Banu, Waheeda Rehman, etc). So, anyway, Bollywood has plenty of Muslim actresses, who have been able to play Hindu roles, Sikh roles, Christian roles, and even Muslim roles, with aplomb.
There is also of course, the occasional Zaira Wasim, who quit acting because they think that acting is against their faith - kinda ridiculous, that! But anyway, the bottom line is that Bollywood has plenty of Muslim actresses (these are just the lead actresses, there’s loads of character actresses too).
All images were obtained from the official Instagram handles of the various actresses.
