It's Time for Muslim Comedians to Stand Up

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WOODY ALLEN AND ME
It's Time for Muslim Comedians to Stand Up
By Sarfraz Manzoor
December 16, 2007
Washington Post

Woody Allen is my God. Nothing strange about that, you might think -- except that he is an Upper East Side New York Jew, and I am a British Pakistani Muslim from the working class. His characters are moneyed intellectuals whose only contact with dark-skinned people comes through the jazz soundtrack playing in the background while they agonize over their relationships. I grew up with a father who worked in a car factory, and the only white person who came near our home was the newspaper delivery boy.

And yet, when I first saw "Annie Hall" as a teenager, I knew I had found a kindred spirit. It didn't matter that I had never set foot in the United States or that I missed some of the cultural references. (Who is this Marshall McLuhan character, anyway?) I saw myself in Woody Allen. Self-doubt cloaked in self-deprecation? Check. Existential dread rubbing up against carnal desire? Check. He was so much like me that I almost forgot that I wasn't, in fact, Jewish.

Woody Allen isn't the only comedian who uses humor to take the audience where it might otherwise fear to tread. Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor also harnessed comedy's power to expose fears and challenge prejudices. Today, Chris Rock uses humor as therapy, self-expression and social commentary. But while Jewish and African American comedians have learned to universalize their experience and laugh at themselves, we Muslims sometimes struggle just to convince the world that we have a sense of humor.

What comes to mind when you hear the word "Muslim"? It's more likely to be beards, bombs and burqas than stand-up comedians. Muslims aren't exactly famous these days for lightheartedness. Sudanese Muslims weren't laughing when a British schoolteacher, Gillian Gibbons, recently allowed her pupils to name a teddy bear "Muhammad." She narrowly escaped a prison sentence for that transgression. But I think my fellow Muslims in Sudan went too far with that one. Wouldn't it have been funny if British Muslims had demonstrated against her arrest with a "Spartacus"-inspired mass march to the Sudanese embassy, each person carrying a teddy bear?

Consider some other examples of over-earnestness. In January, two Moroccan journalists dodged five-year prison sentences after publishing a feature article called "Jokes: How Moroccans Laugh at Religion, Sex and Politics." According to the Moroccan government, they had insulted Islam and offended public morality. And, of course, there were the global protests and killings last year after a Danish newspaper published caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. The cartoons offended many Muslims because depicting the prophet is prohibited by our religion. The cartoons were particularly provocative, since some of them conflated Muhammad and terrorism; one even depicted the prophet with a bomb in his turban and a lit fuse. I can understand why Muslims were offended, but I do not understand how a series of cartoons, no matter how offensive, should lead to protests that ended up killing more than 100. Talk about a disproportionate response. No wonder Albert Brooks could title his 2005 movie "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World."
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But why is this? Why do other cultures and religious groups seem able to withstand mockery, while Muslims seem chronically hypersensitive?

If you think it's because we don't have a sense of humor, you haven't met my mother. When I was a child, she insisted on buying me shoes that were three sizes too big and stuffing them with newspaper so my feet wouldn't slide out. In my early teens, I was known as Ronald McDonald. A few years ago, she became so concerned about her 30-something bachelor son that she persuaded me to consider an arranged marriage. We agreed that she would pass along the names and numbers of a few suitable women. Among them, she told me, was a dentist who had graduated from Cambridge University. She turned out to be a dietitian who had once been to Cambridge.

When I tell these stories, my friends say that my mother's just like a stereotypical Jewish mother -- overprotective, overbearing and overly involved in her children's lives. But my mum isn't typically Jewish; she's typically Muslim. It's just that too few Muslims joke publicly about their mothers, so we haven't created a stereotype. Perhaps that's why we can seem so humorless: The funny ones haven't been speaking up.

Until now. Earlier this year, I sat in a West London hall watching a heavily bearded Muslim man rip into his audience. Azhar Usman is no fundamentalist; he's an American comedian who tours with two fellow Muslims in a show they call "Allah Made Me Funny." Everywhere I looked, British Muslims of all ages -- some women wearing head scarves, some men in suits -- were doing something you hardly ever see: laughing. Here were ordinary, moderate Muslims reveling in a good time, as if in defiance of the extreme voices that overpower theirs in the public square.

The irony is that "Allah Made Me Funny" springs from a tradition that stretches back to the days of the prophet Muhammad himself, who by all accounts enjoyed a good laugh; indeed, he had a companion with the honorific title "jester of the prophet." It's only recently that Muslims have become sensitive about religious jokes.

But comedians like Usman are reclaiming the Muslim tradition of humor. After the Danish cartoon riots, a Dutch imam wrote a book of jokes about Islam. One suggests that because of a mix-up in how Arabic is read -- right to left rather than left to right -- those martyrs expecting 72 virgins upon their arrival in heaven are presented with one 27-year-old virgin. The newspapers that published the Muhammad cartoons claimed they were making a point about Islam's inability to take criticism. Better to rebut that by cracking jokes than by attacking embassies. I've made my own small contribution with a memoir about growing up Muslim in Britain during the 1980s and having my life transformed by -- don't laugh (no, do!) -- the music of Bruce Springsteen.

In Canada, Zarqa Nawaz has mined her experience as a Muslim woman living in rural Saskatchewan for a sitcom called "Little Mosque on the Prairie." In one episode, a Muslim defends his plan to turn the parish hall into a mosque. "It's only a pilot project," he tells a local man, who responds, "You're training pilots?!"

Nawaz, who has named her company Fundamentalist Films, understands the role that comedy can play in challenging the mainstream representation of Muslims as angry, alienated and dangerous. Like "The Cosby Show," her series is deceptively gentle, simultaneously shocking and unthreatening.

Several Muslim comedians have also emerged in Britain during the past few years. The most popular female stand-up is Shazia Mirza, who first attracted attention after Sept. 11, 2001, for wearing a hijab on stage and beginning her routine with, "My name is Shazia Mirza. At least, that's what it says on my pilot's license." These days, Mirza has dropped the hijab and is gunning for broader appeal, preferring to be called a comedian rather than a Muslim comedian. She doesn't tell jokes about Islam so much anymore. That's a sign of progress, because most of Muslim comedy is still in its infancy. Many of our comedians focus on the same subjects: airport security, the dangers of having a beard (as well as the advantages -- you can always get a seat on the bus). But just as Chris Rock and other African American comedians speak not just about race but also about politics and relationships, so the challenge for Muslim comedy is to mine the comic veins not just in our culture but also in the human condition writ large.

The maddening thing for liberal Muslims, however, is that all the good work done by people such as Azhar Usman and Zarqa Nawaz can be undermined by fury over a teddy bear or a riot because of a cartoon. At those moments, voices of moderation must speak up. For did the prophet not say: "More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly"?

That prophet, of course, was Woody Allen.

sarfraz.manzoor@guardian.co.uk


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Quite a long article, but one that's worth a read for sure...

[nekokate]

I quite liked the mp3s of Azhar Usman you added a while back. We need more people like him in the world, not taking themselves too seriously and approaching issues of race and religion from a human perspective.

I liked him even more from a self-satisfied sort of smug angle, too, when I understood some of the jokes that included Arabic phrases. I was like "Haha, I know what that means - I'm so bloody multicultural! Hooray for me!"

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haha, you're so bloody multicultural indeed!

Here's a radio show from NPR in which Manzoor discusses the article and more. I'll add a normal download link later...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17460257&ft=1&f=5

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Stand-up Lebanon: a comedy without religion or politics?
By Sara Mansour
The Daily Star (Lebanon)
Saturday, March 22, 2008

JOUNIEH: "I was in the airport in Beirut, and I knew I was in Lebanon because I could see a guy putting out his cigarette on the 'No Smoking' sign," says a straight-faced Mazen Abdullah. The audience chuckles in self-recognition. Abdullah was the opening act for Nemr Abou Nassar's stand-up show at Casino du Liban on Monday. Abdullah and Nassar are among an increasing number of Lebanon-based stand-up comedians who work locally.

Most Lebanese are familiar with stand-up comedy from exposure to American television and, most recently, from the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour - an Arab- and Iranian-American troupe of comics that toured the Middle East at the end of 2007. As a form of entertainment, however, stand-up is nowhere near as developed locally as it is in North America, where the form largely originated. Nassar can be held responsible for developing the stand-up comedy scene in Lebanon. It takes months, he explained, if not years, to build up a substantial stand-up comedy scene. But he intends to do just that.

Critics have noted that - though stand-up comedians have sprung up in many areas around the world where American popular culture sees a high degree of traffic - stand-up tends to sound the same, regardless where the comedian happens to come from. Nassar believes stand-up comedy can be successful here and, what's more, can be done in Arabic. "I saw a really good comedian who did an act in Arabic. It's a different style and flavor and flow, but it can be done."

Like Abdullah, his warm-up act, Nassar does his show in English, with Arabic phrases thrown in at those moments when a local usage just can't be translated. His style is free and improvisational, covering different everyday experiences and drawing on audience reactions. His style departs somewhat from the American stand-up you'd find on satellite TV, in that his routine relies as much on physical humor and props as it does jokes.

Nassar has also developed certain personal signatures, such as using the rap song "This Is Why I'm Hot" as an introduction. Abdullah also creates humor out of his personal life - memorably discussing the extreme traditionalism of his uncle, who railed against watching television in English. His weekend show was attended mostly by younger people in their twenties. Nassar, who studied business, found the local comedy market doesn't cater to 20-35 year olds.

"The comedy available on TV is for the older generations," he said. In addition, the available comedy addresses political and religious topics, something Nassar has made it a rule to studiously avoid, he added. "Politics and religion are overused in comedy," he opined. They "shouldn't be our main concern. People should discuss everyday life ... It's what makes us human." Nassar believes politics are not really a part of everyday life. "In Lebanon, we still don't have the maturity level to openly discuss and interpret these matters," he said. "It's too risky if someone says the wrong thing even when they were nervous and they didn't intend it."

Rather than challenging the sectarian and political loyalties of audience members, Nassar intends his comedy to create a "tension-free zone" for people to communicate and exchange views. He also anticipates competition, which would drive the development of the scene. Nassar is ambitious. He'd like to see Lebanon become the comedy capital of the Middle East. The important thing, he said, is to "go step-by-step and be responsible". "There are many amateur comedians that need guidance," he continued. "I don't intend to leave. As long as I'm here, I'll continue to support them."

The first step to developing the scene is by establishing weekly amateur nights, which he wants Abdullah to run. Himself a budding comedian, Abdullah is Nassar's partner in expanding the comedy field and making it available to audiences that seem ready to laugh. "It's not about me and it's not just about trying to make people laugh," said Nassar, who still holds a day job as an insurance broker. He says people get his message when they see his show and envisions that more comedians will be encouraged to do the same.

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Good luck to him, bland observational comedy may just be the ticket!

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Muslim comedian to perform at UNC
March 29, 2008
http://greeleytrib.com

Negin Farsad, a Muslim stand-up comedian, will perform at the University of Northern Colorado on Monday. Her appearance will be at 7 p.m. in the University Center ballroom. The show is free but tickets are required. Tickets will be available at the door, but subject to availability. Contact the UNC ticket office at (970) 351-4849 or stop by the ticket outlet in UNC's Barnes & Noble Book Store.

Negin was born in the United States and grew up in Southern California. She holds several collegiate degrees, two being masters of international and public affairs and race relations. Negin is producing and directing the upcoming Comedy Central series, "The Watch List," the first TV show to feature Middle Eastern-American comics tackling international political issues. Her show will be filled with humor as well as perspectives about Muslim women living in America.

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The whole point of this article is that she's a Muslim comedian - that says something eh?

[nekokate]

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haha yeah, that would be quite something to hear.

'And next on stage is a half-English, half-German, but utterly Christian, comedian' - nice ring to it!

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Azhar Usman
Comedy is a serious business
Praveen Kumar Donthi in New Delhi
www.deccanherald.com

Some of Usmans oneliners are delightful to hear and give food for thought. The stand-ups of the only Muslim in the entire world who can laugh have proved to be immensely popular wherever he went. Sample this Azhar Usman airport joke: “I make it past the security, the stares, and whispers and board the plane. I walk down the aisle to my seat and you should see the face of all the passengers (Usman enacts a passenger making a phone call). One passenger tells his wife: ‘I’m gonna die! Honey, I love you! Oh, my God, he’s passing me byeeee! Ahhh!’.“ He goes on to add: “If I wanted to get into an aeroplane and blow it up, do you think I would go looking like this? Hellooooo?!!!!”.

Usman is an Indian American, a Muslim raised in Chicago, an attorney by training but a stand- up comic by choice. He sports a long beard and wears a skull cap. In these nervous times post 9/11, he is trying to provide much more than comic relief. “Stand-up comedy is a form of social protest,” he told Deccan Herald. What is he protesting? “Ignorance, misinformation and stereotypes regarding Muslims and Islam,” he says.

Usman is currently touring India and has performed to full houses in New Delhi. He will proceed to Mumbai and Pune before he gives Pakistan a taste of his humour. “My father who hails from Bihar tells me ‘Hindustan Jannat ka Nishaan Hai (India is a symbol of Heaven).’ The American embassy is promoting the trip. Michael P. Macy of the embassy says ‘Azhar is more American than me, represents our diverse culture’.”

Even in India he had to deal with questions like, “How do you strike a balance between being a Muslim and a comic?” He replies with a deadpan face, “It’s easy because, I am the only Muslim in the entire world who can laugh” and then bursts into laughter. The interviewer realises the inanity of his question. And Usman succeeds in his purpose.

It’s not tough to find out why he turned to comedy. “Politics demonises and art humanises. The stereotypes are dehumanising. Can you imagine a person who can’t laugh? That’s what the Muslims are supposed to be according to the stereotypes.” He started the comic act in early 2001 and there was a brief pause for a few months after 9/11. It has changed him. “We have all become very meditative and introspective. There was hatred for Muslims but there was also an insatiable interest in Islam and Muslims which I thought could be used in a positive way.”

Identity is one of the most burning questions of these times and there is a collective responsibility on all Muslims to fill up the information gap, he observes. “All the films portray Muslims as terrorists. It’s time we became active producers instead of passive viewers.” There the attorney metamorphosed into an entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of “Allah Made Me Funny–The Official Muslim Comedy Tour,” and has performed in over a dozen countries on five continents.

What has changed him more was the birth of his three sons into the post-9/11 world. He wants to make the world a better place for them to live in so he didn’t want to remain passive. “Stand-up comedy has been an integral part of civil rights movement in America. It is a young country and whenever it strays, there are mechanisms to bring it back on track. The Obama rhetoric was all about that aspect of the genius of America.”

Another of his jokes is about how two young guys looking at his beard and skull cap and shout at him: “Wassup Osama,” says one. And the other goes: “Wassup Gandhi”. Azhar asks: “Osama and Gandhi? Man, when did Gandhi become a curse word and since when did they get together? What would they do? Terror through non-violence? We will kill you but won’t eat you sort of a thing?”

This joke, he says, conveys the levels of ignorance. Usman realises the enormousness of the task he has undertaken but is hopeful. “An Indian entrepreneur once said the entrepreneur is somebody brave enough to dream the dream and crazy enough to believe that it’s possible.” He assures us he is crazy enough.

Usman is also penning a book: Everything you ever wanted to know about Muslims but were afraid to ask (No, really afraid!). He is also currently undertaking a television project called ‘Citizen of the World’, a satire world news programme. The funniest Muslim in America, a status bestowed upon Usman recently by CNN, wants to bring Muslims out of the “shadows of silence and fear and reach out and build bridges”. For Usman, comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.

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Showtime Arabia to air TV special about the Amman Stand up Comedy Festival

AMMAN, JORDAN, November 22, 2008 /24-7PressRelease/ -- The City of Amman announced today that Showtime Arabia will serve as The Amman Stand-Up Comedy Festival's exclusive TV partner for its upcoming inaugural festival scheduled for December 2-5, 2008. In addition to airing commercials promoting the Festival, Showtime Arabia will also broadcast a 30-minute TV special about the Festival in early 2009.

"We are very excited to partner with Showtime Arabia on this groundbreaking comedy Festival," explained Festival Executive producer and comedian Dean Obeidallah. "This is the first stand up comedy festival ever in the Middle East and Showtime is the ideal media partner since they were the first TV network in the Middle East to air stand up comedy," added Obeidallah, referring to the "Axis of Evil" comedy special Showtime Arabia aired in November 2007.

The Amman Stand-Up Comedy Festival is a non-profit program developed by the Greater Amman Municipality and will present approximately 20 comedians from the Arab world, Canada, US and Australia including the internationally renowned comedian Russell Peters. (www.ammancity.gov.jo/english/living/comedy.asp)

Showtime Arabia, the leading Pay TV network in the Middle East and North Africa, continues to promote relevant, world-class Stand-up comedy in the region starting with last year's break out success of the 'The Axis of Evil Middle East Comedy Tour' and this year's Friday Night Live comedy special. Showcomedy, Showtime Comedy channel, is the destination for the world's funniest comedians.

[seshme]

The BBC and Channel 4 would fall over themselves to put on muslim comedy if they could even find someone who was even mediocre

Goodness Gracious Me was as funny as pancreatic cancer.

Unfortunately none the new muslim comics have got up to that standard yet but hopefully in time they'll improve.

[nekokate]

Well I quite liked Ashar Usman...

And Goodness Gracious Me was a bit shit, but it wasn't Muslim comedy so I dunno why you mention it. I don't think any of them were Muslim, or even vaguely religious for that matter.

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[nekokate]

[faceless]

I just laughed at that comment again neko - it was a cracker... haha

Comedy, Muslim style
Khalid Hasan
www.dailytimes.com.pk

One bearded gentleman who spotted one of these comedians boarding a flight, shouted after him, “You are going to hell. That is where you’re going.” The man ended up in London, which, despite its wet summers and double-decker buses, is not quite the site of that great bonfire in the sky. With the exception of cigarettes, which bring no benefit of any kind to anyone, there is nothing under the sun that does not produce some good.

Take 9/11. Of course it put everyone living in the West with a Muslim name and what are euphemistically called “Middle Eastern looks” under suspicion as possibly being a distant cousin of the uncle of the man who had a brother-in-law, whose wife’s sister’s husband’s maternal uncle once shook hands with Osama bin Laden’s driver when OBL was living in Peshawar under the CIA’s benign care back in the Mujahideen’s heroic jihad against the infidel Russkies.

That was the bad news. So here is the good news. In brisk business and in a good deal of demand is an outcropping of Muslim comedians in the United States, Canada and England. Some time ago, three of them went on an Axis of Evil tour of Europe and were a sell-out.

Even the staid Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) has run a documentary featuring Muslim comedians and some of their acts. Not all the faithful think what these people are doing is funny. Some of them consider these fellows — and there are a couple of very funny girls too — traitors to the faith, never missing a chance to rile against them, accusing them of denigrating Islam and making fun of their own people. One bearded gentleman, who spotted one of these comedians boarding a flight, shouted after him, “You are going to hell. That is where you’re going.” The man ended up in London, which, despite its wet summers and double-decker buses, is not quite the site of that great bonfire in the sky.

The American Muslim stand-up comedians — which means guys and gals who stand out there and make jokes, just as our own Omar Sharif does — who have become famous — or infamous as some of the brothers would have it — are: Ahmed Ahmed, Azhar Usman, Dean Obeidallah, Maysoon Zayid, and Tissa Hami. The PBS documentary pointed out that “many of these comedians do jokes about misconceptions of Islam and Middle Eastern and South Asian groups, using their humour as activism for their races and faith.”

Racial profiling and the going over given to Muslims at American airports is the staple of most of their jokes. Maysoon and Tissa, the two women, joke about their experiences as Muslim women. One of them wears a headscarf while she performs, which also serves as a prop for some of her jokes.

Azhar Usman, who is of South Asian origin, takes the stage and greets his audience with a resounding Assalam Alekum, then asks if they know what that means. “It means,” he goes on, “that I am gonna kill you.” His show, billed Allah Made Me Funny, has toured major US and Canadian cities, as well as Europe. There have been invitations from several Arab countries.

One popular stand-up woman comedian is Shazia Mirza, whose family is from Pakistan, though she grew up in England. She jokes about 9/11, sex-hungry Muslim men and the fact that she remains a certified virgin. Some of Shazia’s jokes run like this: “The women in my family all use the same passport.” “I said, Oh, come on, Germany, join the war, it’s not the same without you.” “My name is Shazia Mirza — at least that’s what it says on my pilot’s licence.”

She has received many death threats from “pious God-fearing Muslims”. One of her routines, “The Last Temptation of Shazia”, has her performing in front of a board plastered with printouts of the hate mail she receives some of which she pulls down and reads from. She says in her travels through Europe, she has been mistaken for everything ranging from suicide bomber to a character in a Harry Potter book.

In an interview with Priya Jain for Solan.com, Shazia said, “I stand up onstage for an hour and a half and make people laugh and tell them mostly the truth — most of the stuff is true, it happened to me — and then I go home and pray. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t take drugs, I don’t eat pork, and I’m a good Muslim. I don’t understand why people say I can’t be a comedian. I don’t relate the two at all.”

In one of her shows in Texas, Shazia said, “If nuns are all married to God, then God must be a polygamist.” It did not go down very well with the very Christian crowd.

The three Axis of Evil comedians — Dean Obeidallah, a Palestinian-Italian American, Ahmed Ahmed, a Muslim Egyptian American actor who couldn’t land “terrorist” roles because of his excellent English, Aron Kader, a Palestinian-Mormon American actor and Maz Jobrani, an Iranian-American who bunked a PhD programme — spoke to Wajahat Ali of Altmuslim.com.

Obaidullah told Ali, “I’m surprised Fox News doesn’t give hurricanes Muslim names at this point just to screw with us even more. Why not? Just pretend. Just blame us for a tornado, ‘Today they say it’s due to hot and cold air, but I think it’s due to Al Qaeda’.”

On a serious note, he said, “I hope it encourages and inspires more Middle Easterners, Arabs, and Muslims to get involved in the entertainment field, and all forms of the media. So often we sit and complain how we are demonised and portrayed horribly, the only ones who will ever clear our name is us. The burden is on us. No one is going to do us a favour.”

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent. His e-mail is khasan2@cox.net

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Israeli comedian likens Muslims to cockroaches
Al-Arabiya
Jun 14th 2009

Outraged Palestinians have called for legal action against a prominent Israeli comedian after a guest on his talk show launched a scathing tirade against Muslims and compared them to cockroaches. In an attempt at humor, a guest on Israel's "Tonight with Lior Shlein" mocked the way Muslims pray and to the audience's delight likened the way they looked when in prostration to a penis. The guest continued his jibe to cheers and applause and went on to compare Muslims to cockroaches.

" These insults are done on purpose to hurt the feelings of Muslims and Christians...This proves that Channel 10 is racist and demonstrates how low they can stoop and how they can go against all religious and ethical values "
Sheikh Tayseer TamimiBut for some, the jokes were not so funny as Muslim MPs and activists threatened to file a lawsuit against the host of the show for allowing his guest to make the comments broadcast on Israel's Channel 10, the London-based Asharq al-Awsat reported.

"Muslims and Christians alike should boycott Israel's Channel 10 as it deliberately and systematically derides religion and the prophets," said Sheikh Tayseer Tamimi, the chairman and chief judge of the Palestinian Higher Council of Islamic Courts. "These insults are done on purpose to hurt the feelings of Muslims and Christians," he said in a statement.

Shleim has been under fire before for slurs against religion and in February he outraged Christians when he labeled the Virgin Mary "promiscuous" and joked that Jesus was probably extremely obese so he couldn't have walked on water.

Knesset member Tamimi also slammed anyone who regards slandering religious symbols as freedom of expression and called for aninternational law that penalizes those who disrespect any religion. Masud Ganaim, Knesset member for the Islamic Movement, called for an end to making fun of religion under the pretext of entertainment or comedy. "It looks like Shlein is now addicted to swimming in contaminated media water stained with the worst ethical offences," he said in a statement. "And now he is giving us more of his filth."

Ganaim said he was surprise that no measures had been taken against Shlein despite constant complaints of his mockery. "In a country that claims it promotes freedom of faith, this blasphemy should have been a disaster. If the same had happened with Judaism, the reaction would've been totally different," Ganaim said.

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Freedom of speech only ever seems to produce this kind of arsehole.