From The Age article: "For true Muslims to be on camera praying and stuff is not cool, so we had to find someone who knew all about it but was cool to do it. The clincher was he had to look like me."

I did wonder about that! That, and I figured Amina probably wasn't played by a Muslim woman, because of the sex scene in episode one. I wonder how those aspects are perceived by devout Muslim viewers. Time to email my stepmother, I think...