Enemy Mine: Islamic Humor - Have You Heard This One?

From The Gathering Storm

Islamic humor seems a contradiction in terms. Case in point was the uproar in the Islamic world over the Mohammed cartoons. Muslims don’t seem to have any kind of a sense of humor – up until now.

What’s billed as the ‘world’s only female Muslim comic’ has been making news in Britain. Shazia Mirza, Birmingham-born Muslim arrives on stage wearing the traditional in recognizable hijab dress and begins with the deadpan remark, "My name is Shazia Mirza. At least, that's what it says on my pilot's license." In 2003, she was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy.

Mirza believes her act helps break down cultural barriers and she may be right. For humor is a way fro many ethnic groups to make others comfortable by making fun of themselves and in a way, educate others about their beliefs and customs. She says, “Jews make jokes about themselves, so do Christians and Catholics, why can't Muslims?”

Some examples.

• "We're not all fanatics. I tell audiences how they can distinguish me from Muslim terrorists: they have bigger moustaches than I do."
• "Anyone with a moustache is now a target," she says, poking fun at strained Anglo-Muslim relations. "My mum's been attacked."
• About the male gaze: "I was walking past this building site in Mecca when a group of Muslim builders shouted, 'Show us your . . . face.' "
• About arranged marriages: "My friend Julie says, 'How can you sleep with someone you don't know?' -- but she does it all the time."
• During a show two years ago, three men jumped onstage and attacked Mirza after she recounted the time in Mecca when a man touched her inappropriately: "I felt a hand on my bottom. I ignored it. I thought, 'I'm in Mecca. It must be the hand of God.' "
• She describes a Muslim women’s swimming session at her local swimming pool in East London in revelatory detail. ‘They all swim in one direction – towards Mecca.”

When asked her technique for handling hecklers she responded, “I ask them if they've heard of a fattwah and then they usually freeze!”

Could Mirza bee a sign of Muslim moderation, that often spoke about but seldom seen creature in the Western world? Perhaps. But then contrast her art with that of musician Aki Nawaz. Two directors at his record label had threatened to resign if he released a new album describing suicide bombers and the West's immorality entitled "All is War (The Benefits of G-Had)". On his band's Web site (www.fun-da-mental.co.uk), All is War is described as "13 tracks of provocation and law breaking".

• Of the track "786 All is War", Nawaz says: "Since 9/11 it (the United States) has displayed all the evidence necessary to find it guilty of genocide and mass murder".
• In "Che Bin" he compares al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the Cuban revolutionary leader.
• In an extract from "Cookbook DIY" quoted in a British paper, he includes the lines: "I'm strapped up cross my chest bomb belt attached/Deeply satisfied with the plan I hatched".

The old saying goes, “you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar”. Muslim artists should take that to heart.