Muslims and Humour: Essays on Comedy, Joking, and Mirth in Contemporary Islamic Contexts 9781529214697

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M U S L IMS A ND H UMO U R ES SAYS O N COM EDY, JOKING A N D MI RT H IN CONTEM PORA RY I SL AM IC CONTEX TS

EDITED BY B E RN AR D SC HWEIZER AN D LIN A M OLOKOTO S - LIEDERM A N WITH YASMIN AMIN

MUSLIMS AND HUMOUR Essays on Comedy, Joking, and Mirth in Contemporary Islamic Contexts Edited by Bernard Schweizer and Lina Molokotos-​Liederman with Yasmin Amin

First published in Great Britain in 2022 by Bristol University Press University of Bristol 1–​9 Old Park Hill Bristol BS2 8BB UK t: +​44 (0)117 374 6645 e: bup-​[email protected] Details of international sales and distribution partners are available at bristoluniversitypress.co.uk © Bristol University Press 2022 The digital PDF version of Chapter 9 is available Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 licence (https://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0) which permits reproduction and distribution for non-commercial use without further permission provided the original work is attributed. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-5292-1467-3 hardcover ISBN 978-1-5292-1468-0 ePub ISBN 978-1-5292-1469-7 ePdf The right of Bernard Schweizer and Lina Molokotos-Liederman to be identified as editors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Bristol University Press. Every reasonable effort has been made to obtain permission to reproduce copyrighted material. If, however, anyone knows of an oversight, please contact the publisher. The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the editors and contributors and not of the University of Bristol or Bristol University Press. The University of Bristol and Bristol University Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication. Bristol University Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age and sexuality. Cover design by Lyn Davies Front cover image: Alona Stanova /​Alamy Stock Vector Bristol University Press use environmentally responsible print partners Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

Contents Notes on Contributors Acknowledgements

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Introduction Bernard Schweizer and Lina Molokotos-Liederman

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PART I  Theoretical Perspectives on Islam and Humour 1 Ridicule in the Qur’an: The Missing Link in Islamic Humour Studies Mostafa Abedinifard 2 Laughter in the Discursive Tradition? Emotions of Muḥammad as the Topic of a Pious Arabic–​English Reader Georg Leube 3 Humour in Islamic Literature and Muslim Practices: Virtue or Vice? Walid Ghali PART II  Muslim Humour Practices in Islamicate Societies: Textual Media 4 Using/​Abusing the Qur’an in Jocular Literature: Blasphemy, Qur’anophilia, or Familiarity? Yasmin Amin 5 A ‘Stupid Lur’ Mocks Allah and Mullah: Sociocultural Implications of the Luri Jokes Cycle Fatemeh Nasr Esfahani PART III  Muslim Humour Practices in Islamicate Societies: Visual Media and Performance 6 Al-​Bernameg: How Bassem Youssef Ridiculed Religious Fundamentalists and Survived the ‘Defamation of Religion’ Charge Moutaz Alkheder

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Arab Cartoonists and Religion: The Interdependence of Transgression and Taboo Chourouq Nasri Hizbullah’s Humour: Political Satire, Comedy, and Revolutionary Theatre Joseph Alagha ‘Putting the Fun Back into Fundamentalism’: Toying with Islam and Extremism in Comedy Mona Abdel-​Fadil

PART IV  Muslim Comedy in North America 10 Queering Islam in Performance: Gender and Sexuality in American Muslim Women’s Stand-​up Comedy Jaclyn A. Michael 11 Comedy as Social Commentary in Little Mosque on the Prairie: Decoding Humour in the First ‘Muslim Sitcom’ Jay Friesen Conclusion Bernard Schweizer and Lina Molokotos-Liederman

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Bibliography on Islam and Humour 279 Index284

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Notes on Contributors Mona Abdel-​Fadil is Senior Researcher at The Norwegian Centre for Holocaust and Minority Studies and affiliated researcher at C-​REX, at the University of Oslo, Norway. She is also a public speaker and a performer. She has worked on religion and humour (particularly Islam) from several vantage points. She is editor in chief of the popularized academic blog: ‘Religion: Going Public’. Humour shapes her research interests, methods, teaching, academic writing, and public scholarship. She was the initiator, project manager, and artistic director of ‘Laugh or Die’ (2017), a Norwegian multi-​media event and performance about humour, religion, and fear. ‘Laugh or Die’ blurred the lines between academic dissemination and comedy. Abdel-​Fadil’s recent research has focused on anti-​Islamic sentiments, and she is currently expanding on her theoretical framework of ‘the politics of affect’ in order to delve deeper into the intricate ways in which humour and satire about religion play into identity politics. Mostafa Abedinifard is Assistant Professor Without Review of Persian Literary Culture and Civilization in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia, Canada. With particular attention to Persian and Iranian literatures and cultures, Mostafa is interested in cultural historiography and comparative literature, focusing on (global South) critical and literary theory, social justice, critical diversity matters, and Islam. Mostafa’s articles have appeared in several refereed journals, including HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research, The British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Asian Cinema, de genere: Journal of Literary, Postcolonial and Gender Studies, and Social Semiotics. Joseph Alagha is Professor of Political Science, Intercultural Studies, and Sociology at Haigazian University, Beirut, Lebanon. Alagha has published extensively in the humanities and social sciences. He is the author of four peer-​reviewed university press books, two monographs, three books in Arabic, and more than one hundred refereed publications (journal articles, book chapters, review essays, book reviews, and commentaries) in four languages: Arabic, English, French, and Dutch, but mostly in English. He v

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has published more than ten articles and book chapters on the theme of ‘fun’ or ‘pious entertainment’ among Islamic movements. Moutaz Alkheder is a PhD candidate at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St Andrews, UK. Alkheder’s research project examines anti-​extremist rhetoric in Arabic television comedy. Alkheder is also a co-​author of Joking about Jihad: Comedy and Terror in the Contemporary Arab World (Hurst & Company, 2020). Yasmin Amin completed a PhD in Islamic studies at Exeter University’s (UK) Arab and Islamic Institute in 2021. Her dissertation was titled ‘Humour and Laughter in the Ḥadīth’. She obtained a postgraduate diploma in Islamic Studies in 2006 and an MA in Islamic Studies in 2010, both from the American University in Cairo, Egypt. Her research covers various aspects of gender issues, early Muslim society and culture, Arabic and Islamic humour, as well as the original texts of Islamic history, law, and ḥadīth. She is the author of Musnad Umm Salama and the Factors Affecting its Evolution (forthcoming), co-​translator of The Sorrowful Muslim’s Guide, and co-​editor of Islamic Interpretive Tradition and Gender Justice: Processes of Canonization, Subversion, and Change. Jay Friesen obtained a PhD in Cultural Studies in 2019 from the University of Alberta (U of A) in Edmonton, Canada. His SSHRC funded research focused on the connections between Canadian multiculturalism and comedy, focusing heavily on the sitcom Little Mosque on the Prairie. Currently, he is a lecturer and partnership coordinator for Community Service-​Learning at the U of A. His ongoing research investigates how humour might work as a tool for community engagement and improved classroom pedagogy. Walid Ghali is Associate Professor of Islamic and Arabic studies at the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations, Aga Khan University, UK. He received his PhD in 2012 from Cairo University (Egypt), Faculty of Arts. He joined various courses on Islamic studies and Muslim cultures at the American University in Cairo, Egypt; Copenhagen University, Denmark; Cambridge University, UK; and the Institute of Arabic Manuscripts, Egypt. Ghali has published in different research areas related to Islamic manuscripts, Islamic intellectual life and knowledge management, and Arabic literature. His forthcoming publication is on the leading Egyptian figure and Muslim reformer, Muhammad Abduh (d.1905). He currently coordinates and teaches a course on Sufism for MA students. He also coordinates and teaches various courses related to the history of Islamic manuscripts, Qur’anic studies, Arabic literature, and Pre-​Islamic poetry. He serves as a member of the Editorial Board of the Abdou-​Filali Ansari Occasional Paper Series, vi

Notes on Contributors

published by the AKU-​ISMC, and on the board of directors at the Islamic Manuscripts Association. Georg Leube is Assistant Professor at the Chair of Islamic Studies, University of Bayreuth, Germany. He currently works on the iconography of authority under the so-​called Turkmen Dynasties of the Qara-​and Aqquyunlu during the 15th century CE. His PhD, which he received at Bayreuth University, Germany in 2014, was on early Islamic history and historiography. He has taught a broad range of courses on the history and society of the premodern and modern Islamic World. He has a particular interest in approaches situating Islamicate material and textual cultures in contexts of transcultural transmission and reception. Jaclyn A. Michael is Assistant Professor of Asian Religions at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, US. Her research interests include global Islam, Muslim South Asia, gender and sexuality in religion, and performance studies. Her current book project in development is titled Performing India’s Muslims: Ethics, History, and the Politics of Belonging. This study examines Indian Muslim representation, embodiment, and identity through diverse genres of contemporary performance such as theatre, cinema, and public demonstrations. She has published on Islam and representation in both American and Indian contexts in the journals Contemporary Islam, Ecumenica: Performance and Religion, and Handbook of Contemporary Islam and Muslim Lives. She regularly teaches courses on Asian religions, the religious life of India, global Islamic religious traditions, and the Qur’an. Lina Molokotos-​Liederman holds a PhD in sociology of religion from the École Pratique des Hautes Études, France (EPHE, Paris, 2001). She is Affiliated Researcher at the Woolf Institute, Cambridge, UK and External Collaborator at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Her current research interests include humour and religion, including the role of humour and comedy in interfaith work. She is co-​founder of the Humour and Religion Network. Between 2015 and 2017 she worked on the Faith & Fashion project at the London College of Fashion, University of the Arts (UAL), UK, where she was also Research Fellow for an AHRC-​funded project on ‘Modest Fashion in UK Women’s Working Life’ (2018–​2020). She served as Editorial Manager of Religion, State & Society journal (Routledge) for three years, working in collaboration with faculty members from the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at King’s College London, UK. She has worked as a project-​based researcher for various organizations including Uppsala Religion and Society Research Centre (CRS), Uppsala University, and the Centre for European Studies, University of Exeter. She has co-​edited three academic volumes, including Religion and Welfare in Europe (Policy vii

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Press, 2017) and published numerous peer-​reviewed articles in French and English on a range of topics such as religion and social welfare in Europe; international faith-​based humanitarian action; and religion and education. Fatemeh Nasr Esfahani is an Iranian independent researcher with expertise on humour studies. She obtained a doctoral degree in sociology from the University of Isfahan, Iran in 2018. While she has a strong background in quantitative research methods and participated in a number of social surveys for ten years (2004–​2014), she has focused on Persian humour and ethnic jokes in recent years. Her research has been published in two books and several articles in Persian. Fatemeh is also interested in Iranian social history and its implications for contemporary Iran. Chourouq Nasri is Associate Professor in the department of English Studies at Mohamed I University, Oujda, Morocco. She has authored numerous publications on topics related to literature, media, and visual culture. Her recent publications include, as co-​editor, North African Women after the Arab Spring: In the Eye of the Storm (2017), the first issue of Ikhtilaf, Journal of Critical Humanities and Social Studies (2017), and Question de genre: Études des inégalités Hommes-​Femmes au Maroc (2019). Besides her academic interests, she has also an informal background in art, theatre, and creative writing. She has participated in a few art exhibitions and has directed several plays. She has also translated a poetry collection from Arabic into English (I Am Many by Moroccan haiku poet, Sameh Derouich [2019]) and has recently started publishing short stories in international anthologies and magazines. Bernard Schweizer is Professor Emeritus in the Department of English, Philosophy, and Languages at Long Island University, Brooklyn, USA. His most recent book Christianity and the Triumph of Humour: From Dante to David Javerbaum (Routledge, 2019) established him as a leading scholar in the study of religion and humour. Schweizer’s specialty is the comparative study of humour appreciation in different religious traditions, including Islam. Besides his recent monograph, Schweizer published work on this topic in Humour: International Journal of Humour Research, The European Journal of Humour Research, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Free Inquiry, as well as a book chapter in Reading Heresy: Dissent in Literature and Art. Prior to his focus on humour studies, Schweizer published numerous monographs, collections, and critical editions on topics involving various forms of radicalism, dissent, and heresy in literature and art, including the book Hating God: The Untold Story of Misotheism (Oxford University Press, 2010). Schweizer has founded the International Society for Heresy Studies and the International Rebecca West Society, and he is a co-​founder of the Humour and Religion Network.

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Acknowledgements The seeds for this book can be traced back to a religion and humour session at the 2018 International Humour Studies conference in Tallinn, Estonia, and the creation of the Humour and Religion Network (HRN) together with Roald Dijkstra a year later. In May 2019, we decided to embark on a book project, bringing together scholars with expertise in combining humour studies and Islamic studies in view of issuing a pioneering collection of essays on an untapped topic: the connections between Islam, Muslims, and humour. More than two years later, the publication of this volume has been a hugely rewarding yet unpredictable intellectual journey, marked by unforeseen events, including political vicissitudes and the ripple effects from the COVID-19 health crisis. As a result, we lost a few contributions but at the same time gained additional chapters that brought some exciting and innovative material to the book. As editors of this volume, it has been a privilege working with all contributing authors who each brought a different set of expertise and insights. The book would never have materialized without the contributions of each and every author. We have learned a great deal from our collaboration and are deeply appreciative for their tireless work drafting their chapters and working with us during the revision process until the final polishing of their contributions. Yasmin Amin deserves special mention. We are very grateful to her for contributing and sharing with us her invaluable knowledge in Islamic studies throughout the process. We would also like to extend our appreciation and thanks to Ulrich Marzolph who very kindly offered advice and shared his insights from the very beginning. Our thanks also to all the scholars who acted as external reviewers of the book proposal, individual chapters, and the draft manuscript. We have greatly appreciated and taken on board as much as possible their comments and suggestions. Last but not least, we are grateful for the support of our commissioning editor, Shannon Kneis, and the entire BUP team for their editorial and marketing support.

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Introduction Bernard Schweizer and Lina Molokotos-Liederman If one looked to the formative figures of the three monotheistic world religions for an indication of the role that laughter plays in each of the three respective faiths, then one would have to conclude that Islam is the most explicitly pro-​laughter religion among them. Prophet Muḥammad clearly appears to have had a penchant for merriment, and the various authoritative ḥadīth collections record scores of instances where the Prophet was smiling, chuckling, or laughing. By contrast, Christian religious thinkers following Saint Chrysostom have repeatedly pointed out that ‘Christ never laughed’ (Kuschel, 1994: 27; Viladesau, 2018: 213). Indeed, anybody scouring the four Gospels for indications of Jesus in the act of laughing will come away empty-handed (though Christ did display a range of other emotions from sadness to joy and anger). As for the most important prophet in Judaism, Moses does not appear to have had a mirthful disposition (Morreall, 2001: 294–​295). As judged from scenes in the Hebrew Bible –​and as reflected in statuary and paintings the world over –​Moses was a solemn man, given to delivering stern commands or berating his restive followers rather than encouraging levity. But, as Part I in our collection illustrates, when it comes to Prophet Muḥammad, a different picture emerges, namely, that of a man who liked to laugh. Taken by itself, of course, the mere presence of laughter (or smiling, for that matter) need not be conclusive proof that something is perceived as funny (Provine, 2000; Morreall, 2001). In his recent book on humour, Terry Eagleton lists a total of 23 forms of laughter (from ‘nervous’ to ‘wicked’) that –​ as he bluntly puts it –​‘have little or nothing to do with humour’ (2019: 2). Hence, some caution is indicated when linking laughter with humour. Divine laughter is a case in point since it often comes across as supremely humourless. When Yahweh laughs in the Hebrew Bible, which is not very often, he almost always does so out of contempt and disdain (Koestler, 1964: 52–​53). This is demonstrated in passages of the Hebrew Bible such as Psalm 2, where we 1

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read that ‘He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord has them in derision /​Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury.’ This grim form of laughter is also on display in Psalm 37: ‘the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming’ (37:13). Christian theologian Karl-​Joseph Kuschel frankly admits that ‘this divine laughter has nothing to do with joyful, happy, laughter’ (1994: 58), and he concludes that through such laughter ‘the perspective of God can become thoroughly frightening, threatening, and dangerous’ (Kuschel, 1994: 53). In contrast to Yahweh’s occasional displays of laughter, Allah is not reported in the Qur’an to be laughing at all, although sura 53:43 asserts that ‘It is He who causes laughter and weeping.’ However, the various ḥadīth traditions abundantly document Allah’s laughter, and a long-​standing debate exists among Muslim commentators and jurists about the meaning of these accounts of divine laughter. Different branches of Islam have approached the phenomenon in contrasting ways. The idea of a laughing God is an integral part of the Sunni creed whereas Shi’ites generally reject as inauthentic the ḥadīth that involve the laughter of God (Amin, forthcoming). Both schools of thought, however, are in basic agreement that ruling out God’s laughter altogether would be problematic ‘because to deny Him laughter would be to imply that God is missing a quality or an attribute and God is kāmil (perfectly complete)’ (Amin, forthcoming). As Amin demonstrates, Sunni commentators attribute various reasons to Allah’s laughter, ranging from mercy and benevolence, to satisfaction and pleasure. A few instances of humorous laughter are also known, such as the episode about the last man to enter paradise, whom God laughs at.1 Because ‘the Prophet’s laughter … is used as an illustration of God’s laughter’ (Amin, forthcoming) and since the Prophet’s behaviour and expression are deemed normative in the Muslim world, Muḥammad’s proclivity to laugh and enjoy jokes cannot have failed to make an impression upon the wider sphere of Islamic cultures. A vast and diverse tradition of Arab jocular literature attests to the truth of this premise. Ulrich Marzolph maintains that ‘besides artistic expressions of refined humour, we encounter a tremendous amount of simple jocular prose in jokes, jests, witticisms, pranks and anecdotes, ranging from political criticism to sheer nonsense, from humorous treatments of Islamic core values … to rather coarse bawdy jokes’ (2012: 178). Among the stand-​out works in this literary tradition are the eleventh-​century multi-​volume collection of humorous anecdotes, jokes, and stories Nathr al-​durr (Scattered Pearls) compiled by the Iranian author al-​Ābī. Another example is the fifteenth-​century collection al-​ Mustaṭraf fī kulli fannin mustazraf (The Ultimate in Every Delightful Art), which bursts with witty sayings, jocular stories, and funny anecdotes, both in verse and prose. Yasmin Amin’s chapter in this book gives numerous examples of the kind of humorous nawādir –​Arabic anecdotal stories containing humour, 2

Introduction

wit, and jest –​like those comprised in the collections by al-​Ibshīhī, al-​Ābī, Ibn al-​Jawzī, and others. Marzolph also mentions Arabic chapbooks like Nūr al-​‘uyūn fī taslīyyat al-​maḥzūn (The Lightened Eye) that are crammed with amusing contents, including riddles, jokes, and pranks. And, of course, the antics of the legendary jokester, Nasruddin, as well as the japes of Juha, an Arabian trickster figure, are legion and have entered the cultural mainstream, spawning riffs, allusions, parodies, and imitations in countless other narratives in oral and written form throughout the Muslim world and beyond. But, as Marzolph importantly points out, ‘while the theoretical foundation of humour is a universal phenomenon, the practical result of humorous disposition is not … [and] the related social frameworks and restrictions vary in different times and regions’ (2012: 172). The practical results of humour, and specifically the applicable restrictions on its exercise, vary both across various Islamic frameworks and between Islamicate nations and Western secular societies. As documented in Christianity and the Triumph of Humor (Schweizer, 2020), the story of humour in the Christian context is one of progressive liberalization. Against mandates to refrain from playing the fool, uttered with cold austerity for centuries by theologians and Church fathers –​Saint Chrysostom, Jerome, Tertullian, Saint Augustine, Basil, Hugh of Saint Victor, and others come to mind –​and regardless of Christ’s doleful admonition, ‘Woe unto you that laugh now! For ye shall mourn and weep’ (Luke 6:35), Christian-​majority societies have in the last few centuries developed a permissive humour culture characterized by an almost complete lack of enforceable restraints regarding religious (or other) taboos. In most Christian nations, explicitly sacrilegious and even outright anti-​religious comedy are now both appreciated by countless audiences and protected by legal and cultural frameworks. Judaism, too, although based on Moses’ prophetical solemnity and in the face of a jealous, humourless deity (Yahweh), has fostered the world’s most recognizable humour style; as a result, Jewishness and comedy are today sometimes seen as almost interchangeable (Epstein, 2008). The situation with Islam appears to be appreciably different. Despite the massive and venerable tradition of jocular Arabic literature and despite the Prophet’s own conspicuous proclivity for laughter and joking, the Muslim world has come in for the suspicion that as a religious and a cultural sphere it is lacking in a sense of humour. The assumption that Muslims are, at best, reluctant to laugh has become an often repeated trope in Western comments on Islam, especially after the controversies and violent conflicts following the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muḥammad. This idea of Muslim humourlessness, begotten by Victorian colonialists and Orientalists,2 has taken on a life of its own, dwelling mainly (and tautologically) in repeated references to its existence. So, rather than obsessively disavowing this tired assertion –​and far from confirming it –​our book largely sidesteps it, to pay attention to more nuanced aspects of humour’s manifold roles in Islamic 3

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contexts. Our collection explores the specific comedic productions and humour practices, as well as the preferences and restrictions with regard to amusement, joking, comedy, and laughter that pertain among Muslims in both Islamicate and Western contexts. The very word ‘humour’ can serve as an illustration of the nuanced approach that this book is taking. Someone looking for confirmation of Muslim humourlessness may be tempted to leap to the conclusion that because classical Arabic lacks an exact equivalent for the word ‘humour’ (Marzolph, 2012: 173), therefore the corresponding practices of wit, levity, and comedy must also be absent in the Arab world. But Marzolph firmly posits that empirical evidence and direct contact with Muslims in the Arab world (and beyond) would quickly put such a simplistic notion to rest. The alleged absence of an Arabic word for humour can be challenged philologically as well: By consulting the works of Arab scholars like Ibn Manzūr (author of the oldest extant Arabic dictionary), it emerges that several Arabic words denote an intellectual and experiential state consistent with the Western concept of humour. In Chapter 3 of this volume, Walid Ghali lists several Arab words with humorous denotations, including muzāḥ (joking), mudāʿaba (pleasant banter), daḥik (laughter), fukāha (jesting), hazl (jocularity), and mulāʿaba (playfulness). With this being said, it would be equally imprecise and simplistic to deny that real differences in attitudes toward humour and comedy do exist between Islamicate and secular Western cultures. It is in this area that our collection breaks new ground, notably by exploring and examining the nuances of Muslims’ various senses of humour and by uncovering the limits and restrictions placed on humour in some situations due to religious sensibilities, social norms, and legal frameworks that have evolved in Muslim-​majority societies. Naturally, any restrictions on the exercise of humour cannot be said to apply uniformly throughout the Muslim world and are indeed subject to significant local and historical variations. Likewise, when we use the term ‘Islam’, we do not subscribe to a monolithic view but very much recognize the existence of many ‘Islams’ around the world and the different ways in which Muslims live their religion.3 Rather than assuming a uniform Islamic approach to comedy and joking, the chapters in this interdisciplinary collection paint a more accurate picture of real differences and significant variations from one contemporary Islamic nation or Muslim context to another. This attention to heterogeneity is also a reflection of the different disciplines, areas of specialization, and intellectual perspectives and backgrounds of our contributing authors, including Islamic studies, cultural and humour studies, sociology, and political science. The diversity of their scholarly profiles, together with those of the two editors (bringing together literature, art, philosophy, 4

Introduction

and sociology of religion), add a multi-​disciplinary, multi-​faceted, and open-​minded approach to the theoretical and empirical study of Islam, Muslims, and humour. The collection reduces the gap between studies of humour in Islamicate nations and investigations of humour practices among Muslim communities in non-​Muslim-​majority societies in the West, notably in Canada, the USA, and the UK. This will go some way toward answering the question of what role the sociopolitical context plays and what effects the religious (or secular) milieux in which humour operates may have upon the exercise of joking and comedy. Differences in humour practices between Islamicate and Western secular societies, such as they exist, centre around the Islamic idea of avoiding excess and seeking to align behaviour with codes of permissible and virtuous conduct. Our collection confronts this topic squarely, while giving a full and patient hearing to the reasons and motivations behind such curbs on humour in Islamic contexts. Specifically, our contributors provide explicit references to scriptural passages and the corresponding faith principles to provide rationales for the regulation of humorous utterances (and other behaviours). Several scholars address this topic from a Muslim perspective, which avoids the pitfalls of reducing Muslims and their senses and sensibilities of humour to mere foils of Western superiority by constructing them as essentialized Others. At the same time, the collection does not pursue an apologetic agenda. The idea that certain kinds of speech and actions may be deemed ḥarām (impermissible) get both a thorough and a critical hearing. Although the book illuminates the reasons underlying distinctions between ḥalāl and ḥarām modes of speech and action, neither does the volume as a whole, nor any of its contributors, offer up apologetics for violent actions to punish ‘prohibited’ uses of humour. The book stands on the principle that while significant differences in the appreciation and toleration of humour types exist between Muslim-​majority and non-​Muslim-​majority societies, these differences should not be construed as condoning retributive violence against those who cross the lines of ‘permissible’ joking.4 Analyzing the reasons why Muslims resent mocking and blasphemous humour is not the same as justifying or excusing violence against humourists who cross lines into territory deemed offensive. As Mostafa Abedinifard concludes in Chapter 1 of this volume, page 36, ‘Like other forms of problematic humour in our era, blasphemous humour at the expense of Islam and Muslims can also be judiciously tackled via one or a combination of responses: unlaughter, ignoring, or critique.’ Thus, humour, joking, and satire exist in a field of tension in Muslim societies, as they do in many other societies. But in some Islamic contexts, laughter as a sign of ambivalence, irreverence, resistance, and subversion takes on the significance of a more embattled and problematic form 5

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of expression. The most explicitly literalist forms of Islam, notably the fundamentalisms of a Salafi colouring, are more likely to enforce specific limits against unacceptable joking as opposed to providing merely guidelines of an admonitory kind: The further we go from these first generations of Muslims … they laughed about everything … the stricter and more set in stone the relationship to humour becomes. Thus, the Salafist … conjured up a mythical and legendary image of Islam at its origins endeavouring at all costs to frame it as an ideal of piousness, purity, and rigor. (Mansour, 2017: 7) Salafists may even go to the length of denying altogether that the Prophet and Allah laughed, insisting that they only smiled. Conservative Muslim commentators, such as Ibn Hajar, claim that the verb ḍaḥaka (laugh), when associated with the Prophet, really means ‘to smile’ (see Chapter 2 in this book). But this raises the question why the writers of ḥadīth both used the verb basama (smile) and ḍaḥaka (laugh) when describing moments of Muḥammad’s levity. Similarly, some versions of the above-mentioned ḥadīth tradition about the last man to enter paradise replace the words ‘God laughed’ with ‘God smiled’,5 which arguably is an ideologically motivated attempt to edit laughter out of the scriptural tradition. Still, a generalized suspicion against laughter and severe restrictions placed on levity are not germane to Islam; rather, they came into existence through the pronouncements of conservative jurists, who tried to impose their solemn worldview on the entire Muslim community. For example, al-​Ghazālī, in his Iḥyāʾ ʿulūn al-​dīn (The Revival of the Religious Sciences) discusses humour and joking in a chapter titled ‘The Evils of the Tongue’, criticizing laughter and humour (see Chapter 3 in this book). Needless to say, the efforts of the conservative jurists went against not only the predominant tendency of many Muslim individuals who enjoy a clever joke like anybody else, but they also undercut the cheerful and humorous disposition of their Prophet. Of course, even fundamentalist, jurisprudence-​minded Muslims are not averse to all forms of laughter. The child’s giggle while playing peekaboo; the boy’s guffawing at a rip in the pant seat of his friend; the adult’s laughter at a clever pun –​it is hard to imagine that such instances of mirth would be frowned upon. Things might get dicier when subversive jokes target religious thematics and authority figures. But even here, not all jokes are equal, and in order to differentiate between various levels of irreverence, we propose a sliding scale of six types, applicable across a range of religious traditions and forms of religious humour, going from the lowest (least subversive) to the most severe kind of comical irreverence: 6

Introduction

1. situation comedy and character comedy (laughing about indivi­ duals’ antics); 2. anti-​clerical humour (mocking clerics of different status); 3. anti-​ecclesiastical humour (targeting religious institutions and the rituals they sanction); 4. sacrilegious humour (laughing at scriptures and basic creeds); 5. blasphemous humour (ridiculing God [gods] and prophets); 6. anti-​religious humour (laughing at the entire concept of religion). This sliding scale of comical irreverence serves as a basis of comparison across chapters, and several of our contributors make reference to it. It is not assumed that every joke fits only one of these humour targets, but the main thrust of jokes about religion can usually be aligned with one of these types. This scheme thus provides a useful standard, a tertium comparationis,6 which remains stable, while the items being compared vary widely, thus allowing for some degree of objectivity. But while we believe that drawing some prudent comparative conclusions –​both within the Muslim world, and between Islamic and non-​ Islamic societies –​has the potential of advancing our knowledge about the topic of humour and Islam, it is important to observe a sufficiently humble disposition toward commenting on (let alone judging) any other cultures’ customs, preferences, and sensibilities. The aim of this collection is not to cement ethnocentric images of Western superiority, nor do we aim to paint Islam as a refuge of purity and righteousness. Readers may draw their own conclusions about the justification –​or lack thereof –​of any regulation on humour (or any other form of human expression), a topic of growing cross-​cultural relevance given the increasing tensions between advocates of freedom of speech in the West and those seeking to protect minority and often-​discriminated groups from public expressions of bigoted stereotyping through humour (Lockyer and Pickering, 2005). Islam and humour is an emergent topic of research within the larger and growing field of religion and humour (Sanders, 1995; Berger, 1997; Gilhus, 1997; Morreal, 1999; Saroglou, 2002; Bussie, 2007; Lindvall, 2015; Feltmate, 2017; Schweizer, 2020). The comprehensive bibliography of peer-​reviewed publications on Islam, Muslims, and humour provided at the end of this volume includes almost 70 titles (including nine from the recently published special issue on humour by Critical Muslim, Vol 38, edited by Ziauddin Sardar). All of these works fall into six broad categories: 1. The role of humour and laughter in the Qur’an and the ḥadīth traditions (for example, Mir, 1991; Marzolph, 2000; Amman, 2003; Tamer, 2009). 2. Humour in early Islam, notably in the jocular narrative traditions, and in the medieval period (for example, Rosenthal, 1956; Pellat, 1963; 7

MUSLIMS AND HUMOUR

Marzolph, 1992, 1995, 2002, 2012; Maghen, 2008; Rowell, 2017; Abdulsater, 2021; Irwin, 2021; Lawrence, 2021; Tonkin, 2021). 3. Recent stand-​up comedy by Muslim performers in the West (for example, Amarasingam, 2010; Bilici, 2010; Michael, 2013; Selim, 2014; Zimbardo, 2014; Hirzalla and van Zoonen, 2016; Kesvani, 2021; Mirza, 2021; Walberg, 2021). 4. Contemporary comedy and humour practices in Islamicate societies (for example, Damir-​Geilsdorf and Milich, 2020; Ramsay and Alkheder, 2020). 5. The Danish cartoon controversy (for example, Ammitzbøll and Vidino, 2007; Davies, 2008; Kuipers, 2008, 2011; Lewis, 2008; Oring, 2008; Klausen, 2009). 6. Muslims and humour in general (for example, Al-​‘Ubaydi, 2010; Marzolph, 2012; Schweizer, 2018, 2020; Sardar, 2021). Our collection does not simply reproduce this pattern but strikes a somewhat different balance, focusing on the theological, jurisprudential, and scriptural roots of Islamic perspectives on humour, and then offering targeted explorations of the diverse functions and forms of humour among Muslims in different contexts today. Those interested specifically in the historical development of Muslims’ attitudes to humour and its expressions in the medieval period can consult the informative work on this subject by Rosenthal (1956), Pellat (1963), Marzolph (1992, 1995, 2002, 2012), Abdulsater (2021), Irwin (2021), and others. Part I of our book explores theoretical perspectives on Islam and humour. The opening chapter by Mostafa Abedinifard, a scholar of Persian literary culture and civilization, is well suited to drive this point home. The author takes a contextualist approach, focusing on the role and function of ridicule as reflected in the Qur’an. A careful historical analysis of the many ‘ridicule obsessed’ passages in Islam’s holy text leads to the conclusion that the Qur’an condemns ridicule and mockery (Q 49:11) not because these (and other forms) of humour were deemed to be sinful in their own right; rather, ridicule and mockery were marked for disapproval because they were instrumentalized by enemies of the nascent community of Muslims in the seventh century AD as a social control strategy and rhetorical means of exclusion. Abedinifard explains in fascinating detail how ridicule was instrumentalized to weaken Islam and discredit the figure of Prophet Muḥammad. He concludes that even though satire targeted toward Islam and the Prophet may be blasphemous in the views of many Muslims, the Qur’an itself does not justify any human retributions, thus leaving open the choice of ignoring irreverent comedy altogether. Georg Leube takes a close look at a collection of ḥadīth issued by (Āl) Mujāhid, an Arab scholar, who brings together 68 traditional sayings about the Prophet and his companions under the somewhat misleading title ‘This Beloved Smiling’. The chapter further illuminates the contested nature of 8

Introduction

the Prophet’s proclivity for mirth within the forcefield of Islam’s discursive tradition, with (Āl) Mujāhid at pains to shift the perception from the Prophet’s outright laughter to mere smiling. Indeed, (Āl) Mujāhid’s collection is framed on multiple levels to avoid giving the impression that the Prophet’s gravitas and moral standing were in any way compromised by his cheerful demeanour. Leube’s chapter further demonstrates the tenuous connection between laughter and humour, scrutinizing the apparent reasons for the Prophet’s laughter, many of them apparently for reasons other than humour. The author concludes that (Āl) Mujāhid’s emphasis on Muḥammad’s mirthful disposition was a strategic choice to appeal to potential converts to Islam because it humanizes the Prophet and makes the religion he stands for more approachable. Walid Ghali reviews a host of previous literature dealing with the moral implications of humour as seen from normative Islamic perspectives. The chapter highlights the presence of joking and laughter in the Qur’an, the ḥadīth corpuses, and in various Arabic narrative traditions. This pro-​laughter evidence is then contrasted with the legalistic Islamic frameworks that have evolved in order to regulate expressions of humour. The Sufi scholar al-​ Ghazālī (c. 1058–​1111) serves as the cornerstone of an Islamic tradition that, while acknowledging the value of a good-​natured humour, proscribes a number of comical practices ranging from crass and mocking jokes to bawdy, frivolous, and impious expressions of humour. Although Sufis use humour as a teaching tool and do not mind cracking self-​deprecatory jokes, they tend to see unfettered joking as a ‘vice of the tongue’ and frown upon comedy as a profession. Ghali’s overview shows that the existence of humour regulations in Islamic contexts is driven by social, interpersonal, and moral concerns. The aim of eliminating humour-​induced occasions for hostility, degradation, offence, and sacrilege may take precedence over individual freedoms. Part II treats Islamic humour practices in textual media. Yasmin Amin, a scholar of Islamic studies, sheds light on an often-​neglected facet of Islamic humour culture. She analyzes the numerous instances where iqtibās, that is, portions and snatches of the Qur’an, are deliberately inserted into a humorous context, bordering at times on sacrilegious uses of Islam’s holy scripture. Amin explores the role that this kind of trope plays in the widespread Arabic tradition of nawādir, jocular oral and literary short narratives. Translatable into the many languages of the Muslim world, these entertaining anecdotes and jokes are playful but also intend to be edifying. Some iqtibās were undeniably irreverent at the time, which shocked their audiences, but they could be appreciated after understanding the punchline. Yet, the authors and compilers of these anecdotes understood the constraints not to cross the line by ridiculing or degrading God, Prophet Muḥammad, and Islam, all taboo topics. To the Western observer, joking about subjects involving religion would seem to be quite a stretch in contemporary Iran, yet this is precisely what 9

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is happening there. Fatemeh Nasr Esfahani’s chapter about the Luri joke cycle demonstrates that Iranians have evolved an elaborate and irreverent comedic discourse about one of their own national ethnic minorities. The jokes about Luris, emphasizing their ‘stupidity’, ‘uncouthness’, and ‘irreligiosity’ resonate with similar joke corpuses about ethnic minorities in other parts of the world, such as the East Friesians in Germany, the short people of Appenzell in Switzerland, or the Hillbillies in the USA. Beyond the reminder that such humour mechanisms and approaches are quite universal, not excluding cultures under Islam, this chapter goes on to reveal just how irreverent certain jokes that Iranians like to tell each other can get, involving religious rituals and authority figures as the butts of jokes. Still, as in other chapters, here, too, the humour is mindful of certain boundaries, and the degree of offensiveness and irreverence needs to be calibrated to prevent being perceived as excessive. Part III comprises four chapters on contemporary humour practices in visual media and performance in Islamicate societies. Moutaz Alkheder focuses on the popular and controversial Egyptian satirist Youssef Bassem and examines how carefully the humourist –​dubbed the ‘Egyptian Jon Stewart’ –​calibrated his humorous jabs when he aimed them at religious thematics. While taking on the ruling powers in post-​Arab-​Spring Egypt was easier than it was under Mubarak’s rule, Youssef still found he had to tread lightly around religious topics to avoid being convicted for defamation of religion –​a charge repeatedly levelled against him. Alkheder details the rhetorical strategies that allowed Youssef ’s humorous attacks against religious opinion leaders and Islamic authority figures to go unpunished. Still, the jokes aired under the aegis of Al-​Bernameg constitute an example of self-​regulating humour, as Youssef consciously avoided comical approaches that would be considered as too provocative, or possibly as ḥarām. Youssef was skirting the limits of what was possible in public discourse, and ultimately he ceded to influences beyond the power of comedy and laughter, departing from Egypt to find exile in the USA. Chourouq Nasri’s chapter on political and religious satire offers a rare account of an under-​studied topic: Arab cartoonists who combine a highly developed sense of irony and a great deal of graphic talent to creatively speak truth to power. Pushing the official boundaries of censorship and imposing limits on themselves through self-​restraint or self-​censorship, Arab cartoonists dare to target and satirize religion in countries where religious symbols are sacred. Referring to the work of cartoonists in Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, and Morocco, the image of a complicated and contradictory situation emerges in which the artists have to struggle against different forms of cultural and political control in line with the dominant ideology. Using creative tactics to push the limits, Arab cartoonists challenge the accepted social and religious norms by shocking their audiences. Yet, their cartoons are empowering and aiming for agency. 10

Introduction

Joseph Alagha takes a close and fascinating look at the status of humour within the ideological realm of Hizbullah. This Shi‘a Islamic organization has evolved a cultural programme centring on the notion of ‘Resistance Art’, which it understands to be ‘purposeful’ art in the service of Hizbullah’s worldview. This programme includes, among other things, promoting humour, play, dance, and spectacle in a public theatre setting. Although supporting works of art that include humour, Hizbullah authorities closely circumscribe what kind of humour is permissible, and opinions on that point vary considerably within the movement itself. Alagha has interviewed a number of Hizbullah authorities and found that while some take a hard line when it comes to proscribing mocking and critical humour directed at Islamic luminaries, others are willing to give humour a wider berth, even accepting the depiction of religious figures in cartoons. Still, as Alagha illustrates clearly, the sensibilities of both the Hizbullah leadership and of the Lebanese population more broadly speaking have been offended by cartoons coming from within the Muslim community in the recent past, and the reactions ranged from disruptive protests to calls for punishing the offending cartoonist. The common-​sense expectation that humour would be an excellent weapon to wield against militant Islamists is proven to be correct in Mona Abdel-​Fadil’s chapter about comedy skits skewering ISIS. The extremism of ISIS’s jihadi ideology is ripe for humorous take-​downs, and the British comedy skit ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’, though only a few minutes long, takes comprehensive swipes at ISIS, thus demonstrating satire’s power to symbolically demolish foolishness and error through withering laughter. Though primarily intended to entertain, this skit astutely takes aim at central tenets of the cult of ISIS fighters such as martyrdom, misogyny, and fanaticism, even while making light of these tendencies. A different spoof, one that originated from within the Arab world, Daesh, places a different emphasis in its send-​up of ISIS extremism. This skit focuses more directly on the warped religious mentality of ISIS fighters, heaping scorn on them by portraying the jihadis as unsophisticated, clueless, and easily manipulated brutes. Both skits draw on references from their own cultural ambit to amplify the critical and subversive message they are carrying in a symbolic attack against fanaticisms and inhumanity. Part IV, finally, explores contemporary forms of comedy in North America, reflecting Muslim American and Muslim Canadian humour practices. Jaclyn A. Michael’s study of Muslim American women stand-​up comedians explores a completely unfettered, unrestrained, and highly irreverent form of humour performed by Muslim women. Michael introduces the readers to a group of female, transgender, and lesbian comedians performing in the USA who do not mince their words in any way. These comedians brashly declare their non-​conformism and activate self-​deprecatory joke registers 11

MUSLIMS AND HUMOUR

to explore their vulnerabilities and to foreground their ‘queer’ identities. While religion per se is not a principal humour topic of these performers, the women featured in this chapter toy with Islam in some form or another, including provocatively taking off their hijab on stage or poking fun at men prostrating themselves at prayer. This free-​spirited form of female Muslim comedy has created some controversy, and the performers have at times met with push-​back and opprobrium, including from fellow (mostly male) Muslims. Still, as a sub-​set of Muslim comedy, these women show that performing what could be seen as ḥarām comedy on stage is a possibility, though it seems to be a possibility only in a particularly permissive and liberal social context such as the USA. Jay Friesen analyzes the TV hit show Little Mosque on the Prairie, shedding light on the way Muslims were ‘normalized’ through the culturally conservative lens of the sitcom genre. Rather than packaging for easy consumption Muslim stereotypes –​including the stereotype that Muslims are disinclined toward humour –​the show went in the other direction and portrayed the characters as being relatable, ‘normal’, and essentially Canadian. Friesen concludes that no attempt was made to construct a specifically Muslim sense of humour –​or to appeal to a presumptive one –​and that the most determinant factor for the form and content of the show’s jokes was the sitcom genre itself. This genre, so the argument goes, is tendentiously conservative, but in dealing with the Muslim thematic, it paradoxically enacted a progressive agenda, insofar as its humour depicted the Muslim family at its centre as identifiably Canadian, normal, and quintessentially human. The volume ends with a chapter of concluding remarks, bringing together the main threads from each chapter and discussing the key themes that can inspire scholars to pursue further research in this fascinating area of study. This is complemented at the end of the book by a comprehensive bibliography on Islam and humour including a list of over 60 resources which we hope will expand with further research in the coming years. We trust that this collection of timely essays on Muslims and humour in Islamicate and Western contexts, albeit not exhaustive, will close a significant knowledge gap in the existing literature by offering both fresh theoretical perspectives and original examples of humour practices. Ultimately, we hope that our book will also help build bridges and open doors in cross-​cultural understandings of humour. Notes 1

The last man to enter paradise keeps asking Allah for more favours, every time promising that it will be the last favour he asks, but then he continues asking for additional favours until Allah finally laughs at him to put an end to the escalating demands (Saḥīḥ Muslim, ḥadīth 187; Ṣaḥīḥ al-​Bukhārī, ḥadīth 806).

12

Introduction

2

3

4

5 6

‘A number of Western scholars and writers, most notably colonial administrator and translator, Edward W. Lane (1801-​1876), English Orientalist David Samuel Margoliouth (1858-​1940), and Victorian novelist and poet George Meredith (1828-​1909), argued that Arabs had no sense of humour’ (Mahamdallie 9). We refer to Meredith McGuire (2008) who argued that the sacred is experienced and lived, through everyday and cultural practices, such as music, visual and performing arts, and popular culture. Liberal imams in France and elsewhere have been condemning violent attacks on caricaturists and those disseminating irreverent images. Hassen Chalghoumi, imam of a mosque in a Paris suburb and president of the Imams of France Conference, voiced his condemnation of the brutal murder in 2020 by an Islamist of a French teacher who had used a Charlie Hebdo caricature of the Prophet to discuss aspects of free speech with his students: ‘Mr Paty is a martyr for freedom of expression’ said Mr Chalghoumi, ‘and a wise man who has taught tolerance, civilisation and respect for others’ (US News & World Report, 2020). https://​subulassalaam.com/​articles/​article.cfm?article_​id=​267 Tertium comparationis (Latin, ‘the third part of the comparison’) is defined as ‘the quality which two (or more) things that are being compared have in common’.

References Abdulsater, H. (2021) ‘Humouring the humourless’, in Z. Sardar (ed) Critical Muslim (vol 38), London: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, pp 15–​23. Al-​Ābī, A. (1980) Nathr al-​Durr, Cairo: al-​Hayʼah al-​Misṛīyah al-​ʻĀmmah lil-​Kitāb. Āl Mujāhid (2009) This Beloved [PBUH] Smiling, compiled by Muḥammad ʿAlī ʿUthmān (Āl) Mujāhid, translated by Muḥammad M. ʿAbd al-​Fattāḥ, edited by Reima Y. Shakeir, al-​Manṣūra: Dār al-​Manāra/​Dar Al-​Manarah al-Manṣūra: Dār al-Manāra. Al-​‘Ubaydi, L. (2010) Al-​Fikh fi Al-​Islam, London: Saqi. Amarasingam, A. (2010) ‘Laughter the best medicine: Muslim comedians and social criticism in post-​9/​11 America’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 30(4): 463–​477. Amin, Y. (forthcoming) ‘A laughing God: between Sunni approval and Shia rejection’, in R. Dijkstra and P. van der Velde (eds) Humour in the Beginning: Religion, Humour and Laughter at the Origins of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Press. Amman, L. (2003) ‘Laughter’, in J.D. McAuliffe (ed) Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an (vol III), Leiden: Brill, pp 146–​149. Ammitzbøll, P. and Vidino, L. (2007) ‘After the Danish Cartoon Controversy,’ Middle East Quarterly 14(1): 3-​11. Berger, P. (1997) Redeeming Laughter: The Comic Dimension of Human Experience, New York: De Gruyter. Bilici, M. (2010) ‘Muslim ethnic comedy: inversions of Islamophobia’, in Andrew Shryock (ed) Islamophobia/​Islamophilia: Beyond the Politics of Enemy and Friend, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp 195–​208. 13

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Bussie, J. (2007) The Laughter of the Oppressed: Ethical and Theological Resistance in Wiesel, Morrison, and Endo, New York: T & T Clark International. Damir-​Geilsdorf, S. and Milich, S. (eds) (2020) Creative Resistance: Political Humor in the Arab Uprisings (vol 153), Bielefeld: transcript Verlag. Davies, C. (2008) ‘The Danish cartoons, the Muslims and the new battle of Jutland’, Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 21(1): 2–7. Eagleton, T. (2019) Humour, New Haven: Yale University Press. Epstein, L. (2008) The Haunted Smile: The Story of Jewish Comedians in America, New York: Public Affairs. Feltmate, D. (2017) Drawn to the Gods: Religion and Humor in the Simpsons, South Park, and Family Guy, New York: New York University Press. Gilhus, I.S. (1997) Laughing Gods, Weeping Virgins: Laughter in the History of Religion, London: Routledge. Hirzalla, F. and van Zoonen, L. (2016) ‘“The Muslims are coming”: the enactment of morality in activist Muslim comedy’, Humor 29(2): 261–​278. Ibn Manzūr, M. (1993) Lisān al-​ʿArab, Beirut: Dār Ṣādir. Irwin, R. (2021) ‘Old Arab jokes’, in Z. Sardar (ed) Critical Muslim (vol 38), London: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, pp 76–​86. Kesvani, H. (2021) ‘My sardonic tweet’, in Z. Sardar (ed) Critical Muslim (vol 38), London: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, pp 122–​132. Klausen, J. (2009) The Cartoons That Shook the World, New Haven: Yale University Press. Koestler, A. (1964) The Act of Creation, London: Hutchinson & Co. Kuipers, G. (2008) ‘The Muhammad cartoon controversy and the globalization of humor’, Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 21(1): 7–​11. Kuipers, G. (2011) ‘The politics of humor in the public sphere: cartoons, power and modernity in the first transnational humor scandal’, European Journal of Cultural Studies 14(1): 63–​80. Kuschel, K.J. (1994) Laughter: A Theological Reflection, London: SCM Press. Lawrence, B.B. (2021) ‘Sufi satire’, in Z. Sardar (ed) Critical Muslim (vol 38), London: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, pp 24–​36. Lewis, P. (2008) ‘The Muhammad cartoon conflict: implications for humor research and advocacy’, Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 21(1): 11–​16. Lindvall, T. (2015) God Mocks: A History of Religious Satire from the Hebrew Prophets to Stephen Colbert, New York: New York University Press. Lockyer, S. and Pickering, M. (eds) (2005) Beyond a Joke: The Limits of Humour, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Maghen, Z. (2008) ‘The merry men of Medina: comedy and humanity in the early days of Islam’, Der Islam 83: 277–​340. Mahamdallie, H. (2021) ‘Introduction: We have no humour’, in Z. Sardar (ed) Critical Muslim (vol 38), London: C. Hurst & Co Publishers, pp 3–14. 14

Introduction

Mansour, M.B. (2017) ‘Laughter in Islam’, booksandideas.net, 20 March. Available from: https:// ​ b ooksandideas.net/​ L aughter-​ i n-​ I slam.html [Accessed 24 November 2020]. Marzolph, U. (1992) Arabia ridens: Die humoristische Kurzprosa der frühen adab-​Literatur im internationalen Traditionsgeflecht (vol 1 and 2), Frankfurt a.M: Klostermann. Marzolph. U. (1995) ‘Still the Same Old Jokes: The Continuity of Jocular Tradition in Early Twentieth Century Egyptian Chapbooks’, in Cathy Lynn and Michael J. Preston (eds) The Other Print Tradition, New York & London: Garland, pp 161–179. Marzolph, U. (2000) ‘The Qoran and jocular literature’, Arabica 47(3): 478–​487. Marzolph. U. (2002) ‘Sanitizing Humor: Islamic Mediterranean Jocular Tradition in a Comparative Perspective’, in M. Bernardini (ed), Europa e Islam tra I secoli XIV e XVI (vol 2), Naples: Instituto Universitario Orientale, pp 757–782. Marzolph, U. (2012) ‘The Muslim sense of humor’, in H. Geybels and W. Van Herck (eds) Humor and Religion: Challenges and Ambiguities, London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp 169–​187. McGuire, M. (2008) Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Michael, J. (2013) ‘American Muslims stand up and speak out: trajectories of humor in Muslim American stand-​up comedy’, Contemporary Islam 7(2): 129–​153. Mir, M. (1991) ‘Humor in the Qur’an’, Muslim World 81: 179–​193. Mirza, S. (2021) ‘Laughing matter’, in Z. Sardar (ed) Critical Muslim, (vol 38), London: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, pp 133–​144. Morreall, J. (1999) Comedy, Tragedy, and Religion, Albany: SUNY Press. Morreall, J. (2001) ‘Sarcasm, irony, wordplay, and humor in the Hebrew Bible: a response to Hershey Friedman’, Humor 14(3): 293–​301. Oring, E. (2008) ‘The Muhammad cartoon affair’, Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 21(1): 21–​26. Pellat, C. (1963) ‘Seriousness and humour in early Islam (Al-​jidd wa’l-​hazl fī ṣadr al-​Islām)’, Islamic Studies 2(3): 353–​362. Provine, R.R. (2000) Laughter: A Scientific Study, New York: Viking. Ramsay, G. and Alkheder, M. (2020) Joking about Jihad: Comedy and Terror in the Arab World, London: Hurst & Co. Rosenthal, F. (1956) Humor in Early Islam, Leiden: E.J. Brill. Rowell, A. (2017) Vintage Humour: The Islamic Wine Poetry of Abu Nuwas, London: Hurst & Co. Sanders, B. (1995) Sudden Glory: Laughter as Subversive History, Boston: Beacon Press. Sardar, Z. (ed) (2021) Critical Muslim (vol 38), London: C Hurst & Co Publishers. 15

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Saroglou, V. (2002) ‘Religion and sense of humour: an a priori incompatibility? Theoretical considerations from a psychological perspective’, Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 15: 191–​214. Schweizer, B. (2020) Christianity and the Triumph of Humor: From Dante to David Javerbaum, Abingdon: Routledge. Schweizer, B. and Ott, K.H. (2018) ‘Does religion shape people’s sense of humour? A comparative study of humour appreciation among members of different religions and nonbelievers’, Journal of European Humor Research 6(1): 12–​35. Selim, Y.F. (2014) ‘Performing Arabness in Arab American stand-​up comedy’, American, British and Canadian Studies 23: 77–​92. Tamer, G. (2009) ‘The Qur’an and humor’, in Georges Tamer (ed) Humor in Arabic Culture, Berlin: de Gruyter, pp 3–​28. Tonkin, B. (2021) ‘War of the words’, in Z. Sardar (ed) Critical Muslim (vol 38), London: C Hurst & Co Publishers, pp 63–​75. US News & World Report (2020) ‘French imam says beheaded teacher is martyr for freedom of speech’, [online] 19 October. Available from: www.usnews. com/​news/​world/​articles/​2020-​10-​19/​french-​imam-​says-​beheaded-​ teacher-​is-​martyr-​for-​freedom-​of-​speech [Accessed 28 November 2020]. Viladesau, R. (2018) The Folly of the Cross: The Passion of Christ in Theology and the Arts in Early Modernity, New York: Oxford University Press. Walberg, E. (2021) ‘Muslim comedy in America’, in Z. Sardar (ed) Critical Muslim (vol 38), London: C Hurst & Co Publishers, pp 87–​97. Zimbardo, Z. (2014) ‘Cultural politics of humor in (de)normalizing Islamophobic stereotypes’, Islamophobia Studies Journal 2(1): 59–​81.

16

PART I

Theoretical Perspectives on Islam and Humour

1

Ridicule in the Qur’an: The Missing Link in Islamic Humour Studies Mostafa Abedinifard

Introduction: The missing link in Islamic humour studies As I was finishing the writing of this chapter, some news caught my attention: ‘Charlie Hebdo: Magazine republishes controversial Mohammed cartoons’ (Anon., 2020). The decision came a day before the trial of some of the perpetrators of the 2015 deadly attack on the satirical weekly. The news prompted various reactions, including threats on the magazine by al-​Qaeda (Express Web Desk, 2020). One especially hopeful response, however, came from Mohammed Moussaoui, president of the French Council of Muslim Worship (CFCM), who urged Muslims to ‘ignore’ the cartoons, while condemning any violence. He said, ‘The freedom to caricature is guaranteed for all, the freedom to love or not to love (the caricatures) as well. Nothing can justify violence’ (Pouchot and Williams, 2020). If anything, I hope the present ­chapter –​a contextualist rereading of ridicule in the Qur’an, its role in the early Islamic era, and its relevance to today’s debates on the connection between Islam and (ridiculing) humour –​shows how, in the face of previous violence against satires of Islam, Moussaoui’s attitude can be theologically defended. (As this chapter concludes, I do not imply Moussaoui’s reaction to be the only possible non-​violent response to such satire. The right to critique such satire, including for political reasons, should remain acknowledged, if not also encouraged, especially for minority Muslim populations subjected to such satire.) I hope to achieve this goal not only based on a historical reinterpretation of ridicule in the Qur’an, but also according to 19

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a reconsideration of the Qur’anic attitude toward disbelievers’ mockery of Islam, God, and/​or Prophet Muḥammad. Specifically, I argue that unlike what is prevalently understood in theological debates on the matter, the Qur’an’s special attention to disbelievers’ ridiculing of Islam and the Islamic is apparently not indicative of any universal moral creeds; instead, it signifies a historical problematic that could be more completely grasped if we considered the early Islamic era context. Moreover, even if assumed to reflect a universal matter, the Qur’an’s numerous unappreciative references to disbelievers’ mockery are, as explicitly noted in the scripture itself, reserved for retaliation only by God in the afterlife, and not by humans. The current scholarly literature on Islam and humour would hardly fill a few volumes and has been largely produced as a response to contentions that Muslims lack a sense of humour, as evident after the Salman Rushdie hysteria and, perhaps even more so, in the wake of the Muḥammad Cartoons Controversy (see, for example, Mir, 1991; Marzolph, 2000, 2011; al-‘Abidi, 2010; Ozgur, 2012; Shopoff, 2012).1 While resulting in heinous acts of violence, these and other comparable events also triggered rewarding debates regarding the ethical and political implications of humour and laughter (see, for example, Gokturk, 2008; Lewis et al, 2008; Kuipers, 2011). Arguably, the thriving area of critical humour studies emerged due to these and similar challenges produced by problematic aspects of humour in a globalizing world.2 However, incidents such as those outlined previously also shaped the rhetoric of much subsequent studies on Islam and humour, often restricting their possible range of arguments to a for-​or-​against dichotomy vis-​à-​vis the relation between humour and Islam/​God/​Muḥammad, not to mention limiting the range of questions concerning humour which one could ask of Islam in the first place.3 While I understand and acknowledge the importance of such for-​or-​against reactions –​which take much of their validity from the prevalent positivity toward humour in our era4 –​I engage in the debates on Islam and humour by adopting an under-​recognized vantage point, in order to tackle the issue of humour –​and lack thereof, to be more exact –​in the Qur’an, a topic that has often remained an elephant in the room within Islamic humour studies. Like readers of the Bible (van Heerden, 2001), Qur’an readers will struggle to find unambiguous, reassuring endorsements of humour. Scholarly attempts at revealing humour in the Qur’an are mainly deemed unsuccessful, with some scholars explicitly discouraging any attempt to find jocularity in the central Islamic text.5 However, given the place of the Qur’an in Islam and in the daily lives of numerous Muslims, the text’s noticeable reticence, or at best ambiguous stance, on humour as a favourable human attribute on the one hand, and its remarkable emphasis on, or even obsession with, ridicule on the other, could simply problematize, if not undermine, the arguments 20

Ridicule in the Qur’an

made for Islam’s approving attitude toward humour, primarily based on the ḥadīth tradition.6 In lieu of wittiness in the Qur’an, we identify an intriguing emphasis on the dark side of humour, that is, ridicule. Concepts relating to mockery and derisive laughter (such as haza’a bi/​istahza’a bi [deride], sakhara/​sakhara min [make fun of ], and ẓaḥaka min [poke fun at]) frequently appear in the Qur’an, and thus other related concepts (such as hamaza [slander], lamaza [calumniate; find fault with], ṭaʿana [scold; defame], and hazala [make jests; fool about]), although less frequently used, also find particular resonances.7 Studying this overabundance of ridicule in the Qur’an, as this chapter will show, can help to explain its significant scarcity/​absence of humour. While traditional exegeses chiefly consider ridicule in the Qur’an as an ethical issue, and modern Islamic humour studies approaches the topic with special emphasis on ḥadīth –​rather than on the Qur’an –​I put the Qur’an at the centre of my argument, approaching ridicule in the scripture from a historical perspective. My argument is as follows: the Qur’anic peculiar emphasis on condemning ridicule positions ridicule as an informal social control strategy (Horwitz, 1990: 2; Chriss, 2007: 2), especially in Mecca, vis-​à-​ vis the nascent community of believers (Donner, 2010). Numerous āyahs (verses), as also supported by sīra (narratives of Prophet Muḥammad’s life) and Qur’anic commentaries, indicate that Prophet Muḥammad, the Qur’an, and their believers were, during early years of the development of the community of believers, subject to systemic mockery and ridicule (Watt and McDonald, 1988; Amman, 2003a, 2003b). As inferred from numerous ridicule-​obsessed verses, read through the lens of the Meccan/​ Medinan sūra (chapter) distinctions; the importance of the literary-​ cultural tradition of hijā (invective poetry) during pre-​and post-​Islam; as well as pertinent references in some sīra and asbāb al-​nuzūl (occasions of [Qur’anic] revelation) literature, ridicule was perceived by the Qur’an and Prophet Muḥammad as threatening the integrity of the gradually emerging community of believers in the new religion, when it was only a budding socio-​religious order that Muḥammad was struggling to establish in Hijaz during his prophethood.8 In other words, the Qur’an’s curious stress on condemning ridicule at the expense of humour’s benign side –​ especially in light of the plethora of evidence for Islam’s compatibility with humour as evidenced in the ḥadīth and sīra literatures –​can be understood as having little to do with the Qur’an’s endorsing of sheer solemnity or hostility toward humour, but instead with the contingency of the process of the development of Islam in its very early stages. This argument, as I will explain, can have far-​reaching consequences for the extent to which Muslims can react differently to satires of Islam and the Islamic, especially those perceived as offensive.9 21

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A contextualist approach to ridicule in the Qur’an Essential to a ‘contextualist’ approach to the Qur’an is its ongoing relevance to our own time (Saeed, 2013). The approach contrasts with the ‘textualist’ method prevalent in readings of the Qur’an over the past centuries –​a method relying primarily on the ‘literal’ meanings of the scripture as well as on the text itself rather than on any contexts. The main objection to chiefly textualist interpretations, offered by proponents of contextualist approaches, is that textualists often sever the Qur’an from many contemporary issues faced by Muslims, hence offering stagnant meanings and interpretations of the text. That the textualist approach has often been prominent, however, does not mean that the contextualist method is non-​Islamic or that it was unprecedented in premodern eras.10 Indeed, the contextualist approach is not intended to defy or refute traditionalist approaches to Qur’anic exegesis; rather, it is intended to complement and enhance those methods. Nevertheless, today’s contextualism has developed into a more systematic and detailed version of interpretation, containing tenets such as placing a ‘great hermeneutic value on the historical context in which the Qur’an was revealed –​the early seventh century CE –​and subsequently interpreted’ (Saeed, 2013: 4). As Fazlur Rahman puts it, ‘The Qur’an is the divine response, through the Prophet’s mind, to the moral and social situation of the Prophet’s Arabia’ (1982: 5). As such, the contextualist approach is primarily engaged with separating the ‘mutable’ aspects of the Qur’an from the ‘immutable’ ones (Saeed, 2013: 12). Contextualists, as Saeed puts it, argue that scholars should be highly sensitive to the social, political, economic, intellectual, and cultural circumstances of the revelation, as well as the setting in which interpretation occurred in the past and occurs today. Contextualists thus tend to see the Qur’an as a source of practical guidelines. They believe that these guidelines should be implemented in new ways whenever changing circumstances warrant them, and so long as these novel implementations do not impinge on the fundamentals of Islam. (Saeed, 2013: 4) While I do adopt a contextualist approach in my reading of ridicule in the Qur’an, my interpretation could be used to show that, unlike what Saeed believes, in a contextualist approach, the Qur’an need not necessarily or merely be regarded as ‘a source of practical guidelines’ (2013: 4). Rather, in relation to a topic such as ridicule, the Qur’an may reflect a primarily, if not merely, historical situation at the time of its creation, rather than involving universal prescriptive principles. Nevertheless, Saeed’s caution that a novel interpretation of the Qur’an should never ‘impinge on the fundamentals of Islam’ (2013: 4) should be heeded. In my attempt to reconstruct, or –​to be 22

Ridicule in the Qur’an

more humble –​imagine, the situational context around the Qur’an’s attitude toward ridicule, I hope to relate the Qur’an to our own contemporary context and concerns, particularly to the issue of recurring, violent reactions to satires of Islam. In adopting a ‘contextualist approach’ to the Qur’an, I do so not so much by relying on other sources to contextualize the Qur’an, but rather by centring on the Qur’an itself as a historical document, which I then accompany with pertinent references to other sources to shed historical light on ridicule as a topic often read as immutable in the Qur’an. This approach is compatible with some recent developments in Qur’anic and Islamic studies in which the scholars, while remaining concerned with traditional accounts of the life of Prophet Muḥammad through the ḥadīth and sīra literatures, start from the Qur’an itself as ‘the most important source of information about the early community of Believers’ (Donner, 2010: 53), but then complement their readings of it with other external sources and documents, as needed (see Rahman, 1982; Donner, 2010, 2011). As in many areas dealing with premodern historical studies, there are numerous uncertainties around the texts and contexts referred to in Islamic studies. It is due to such uncertainties that, for example, Donner suggests that scholars must reverse the usual procedure when studying a [Qur’anic] text: rather than using the context to illuminate the meaning of the [Qur’anic] text, we must start with the Qur’an text itself, and try to deduce from hints inside it what a plausible historical context (or several contexts, in case it is not a unitary text) might be. (Donner, 2011: 25) Since Qur’anic sūras do not follow a chronological order, scholars have often tried to create some coherence in reading the scripture. One important way has been to distinguish between ‘Meccan’ and ‘Medinan’ chapters. Scholars have traditionally attributed either of the two cities of Mecca and Medina (as the place of revelation) to the verses in each chapter, with each attribution indicating a period associated with the Prophet’s staying in that place. However, these periods also signify different statuses of the Prophet’s power and of his relationship with the disbelievers. To be specific, before immigrating from Mecca to Medina, that is, during the initial stages of his invitation to others to welcome his new religion in Mecca, the Prophet lacked much social power, starting his community of believers with a few of his relatives and closest friends. Mainly dealing with Muḥammad’s early years as a prophet, the Meccan chapters in the Qur’an, therefore, are primarily concerned with matters of belief and disbelief in God, God’s prophet(s), and/​or the afterlife, as well as apocalyptic warnings and promises to the Prophet and his followers of eschatological punishments for the disbelievers. By contrast, reflecting a more stable period in the development of Prophet 23

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Muḥammad’s community of believers, that is, a time when they ‘were no longer the persecuted minority but an established community with the Prophet as its leader’ (Abdel Haleem, 2016: xviii), the verses in the Medinan chapters contain much ‘legal’ material, regulations and rulings on social and personal issues presumably intended as guidelines for the believers’ new ‘community of the saved’ (Donner, 2010: 81). As we will see in the next section, the Meccan/​Medinan distinction can be elemental in better understanding the Qur’an’s special focus on disbelievers’ ridicule.

The Qur’an’s obsession with ridicule: a historical remnant Despite its stern tone throughout, the Qur’an has been argued to contain examples of humour, especially, although not exclusively, as a ridiculing element against the disbelievers (Mir, 1991; Tamer, 2009). Examples of the Qur’an’s endorsement of ridiculing humour in the service of the faithful, as mentioned in Tamer (2009), include, for instance, the Qur’anic account of Prophet Ibrāhīm’s (Abraham’s) ridiculing statement to the idols; his deriding of the idol-​worshippers (about what they choose to worship); and his ironically holding the largest idol accountable for the destruction of the other idols (see, respectively, Qur’an 37:91–​92; 37:95; 21:62–​63). All these instances could be argued to contain ridiculing humour as an implicitly celebrated practice by the Qur’an.11 Still, such a celebratory attitude toward humour in the Qur’an is almost negligible in the face of its numerous implied chastisements of ridicule, especially of God, of God’s messengers, of Prophet Muḥammad, and of God’s ‘signs’. Indeed, so important is the latter type of ridicule for the Qur’an that it explicitly identifies a group of attackers of Islam as ‘mockers’ (mustahzi’ūn) –​‘those [from the Quraysh tribe in Mecca] who relentlessly confronted Muḥammad’s preaching with aggressive derision’ (McAuliffe, 2006: 185).12 Given the sheer number of ridicule-​focused verses, it would not be inaccurate to deem the Qur’an as being obsessed with ridicule. In the face of the scripture’s special emphasis on ridicule, one should ask: How can we make sense of the Qur’an’s imbalanced treatment of humour/​laughter vs ridicule? Also, how can we combine this imbalance with the completely different picture of humour as depicted in the ḥadīth tradition (Maghen, 2008)? To comprehend the Qur’an’s preoccupation with the Meccan disbelievers’ and the Medinan hypocrites’ ridiculing laughter, and to better grasp the context in which such ridicule occurred, let us study the ridicule verses. Table 1.1, as discussed in the following, helps us to fill important gaps in Islamic humour studies. That faith-​based accounts of the Qur’an, such as religious commentaries and exegeses, often understand the Qur’an as ethically/​theologically condemning any faith-​/I​ slam-​targeting ridicule runs 24

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Table 1.1: A taxonomy of ridicule in the Qur’an Meccan/​ Medinan

The ridiculed

The ridiculer

Stated/​implied function of the verse(s)

Promised/​ implemented/​ implied divine (otherworldly or otherwise) punishment

2:14–​15

Medinan

The believers

The hypocrites13

Consoling the Prophet

Yes

4:140 (cf. 6:68)

Medinan

God’s revelation

Disbelievers

Warning the believers against befriending ridiculers

Yes

5:57–​58

Medinan

‘Your [believers’] religion’

Hypocrites and disbelievers14

Warning the believers against befriending those who ridicule their religion

No

6:5

Meccan

The idea of resurrection

Disbelievers

Consolation

Yes

6:10

Meccan

Messengers before Muḥammad

Their own people

Consoling the Prophet against the Quraysh ‘mockers’

Yes

6:68–​70

Meccan

God’s revelations

Disbelievers/​ wrongdoers15

Discouraging the Prophet/​ believers against the ridiculers’ company

Yes

9:64–​68

Medinan

‘God, His revelations, and His Messenger’

Hypocrites16

Consolation against ‘hypocrites’ and ‘evildoers’

Yes

9:79

Medinan

The generous believers

Hypocrites

Consolation

Yes

11:8

Meccan

‘What they mocked’

Disbelievers

Consolation

Yes

Ridicule in the Qur’an

25

Chapter: Verse(s)

(continued)

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Table 1.1: A taxonomy of ridicule in the Qur’an (continued) Meccan/​ Medinan

The ridiculed

The ridiculer

Stated/​implied function of the verse(s)

Promised/​ implemented/​ implied divine (otherworldly or otherwise) punishment

13:32

Medinan

Messengers before Muḥammad

Disbelievers [in those messengers]

Consolation

Yes

15:10–​12

Meccan

Messengers [before Muḥammad]

‘Various communities of old’/​ ‘evildoers’

Consolation

No

15:94–​96

Meccan

‘[Muḥammad’s] message’

‘The idolaters’ and disbelievers

Consolation

Implied

16:33–​34

Meccan

[previous messengers]

Disbelievers in previous eras

Consolation

Yes

18:103–​08

Meccan

‘[God’s] messages and messengers’

Disbelievers

Consolation

Yes

21:36

Meccan

‘[Muḥammad]’

‘Disbelievers’

Consolation

Yes [21:37–​40]

21:41

Meccan

‘Messengers before you [Muḥammad]’

Their own people

Consolation

Yes

23:109–​10

Medinan

‘My servants [believers]’

Disbelievers

Addressing, and warning, disbelievers

Implied

25:41–​42

Meccan

‘You [the Prophet]’

Disbelievers

Consolation

Yes

26:6

Meccan

God’s revelations

Disbelievers

Consolation

Yes

MUSLIMS AND HUMOUR

26

Chapter: Verse(s)

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Table 1.1: A taxonomy of ridicule in the Qur’an (continued) The ridiculed

The ridiculer

Stated/​implied function of the verse(s)

Promised/​ implemented/​ implied divine (otherworldly or otherwise) punishment

30:9–​10

Meccan

God’s revelations to previous messengers

Their own people

Consolation

Yes

31:6

Meccan

‘The way of God’

Some people17

Consolation/​warning

Yes

36: 30–​32

Meccan

M‘a [any] messenger’

‘Human beings’

Consolation

Yes

37:11–​23

Meccan

God’s signs/​the afterlife

‘Disbelievers’

Consolation

Yes

39:45–​48

Meccan

Unspecified [‘that at which they used to laugh’]

‘Those who do not Consolation believe in the Hereafter’/​ ‘the Evildoers’

Yes

40: 82–​85

Meccan

Unspecified [‘the very punishment they mocked’]/​past ‘messengers’/​their ‘clear signs’

The people of the past

Consolation

Yes

43:5–​8

Meccan

‘Many a prophet’

‘Earlier people’

Consolation/​against ‘the disbelievers of Mecca’

Yes

43:46–​48

Meccan

Prophet Moses

‘Pharaoh and his courtiers’

Consolation

Yes

45:9

Meccan

‘Our [God’s] signs’

‘He’18

Consolation

Yes

Ridicule in the Qur’an

Meccan/​ Medinan

27

Chapter: Verse(s)

(continued)

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Table 1.1: A taxonomy of ridicule in the Qur’an (continued) Meccan/​ Medinan

The ridiculed

The ridiculer

Stated/​implied function of the verse(s)

Promised/​ implemented/​ implied divine (otherworldly or otherwise) punishment

45:33–​35

Meccan

Unspecified

Disbelievers

Consolation

Yes

45:33–​35

Meccan

‘The Hour’/​the afterlife

Disbelievers

Consolation

Yes

Prophet Hud/​‘the punishment they [Prophet Hud’s people] had mocked’

Prophet Hud’s people

Consolation /​warning to Mecca’s disbelievers of Prophet Muḥammad

Yes

46:26–​28

28

49:11

Medinan

Believers [men and women]

Believers [men and women]

Enhancing the believers’ unity/​preventing community attrition

No

58:8

Medinan

Believers

Hypocrites/​the Jews of Medina

Consolation

Yes

83:29–​36

Meccan

Believers

‘Those who sinned’ [leaders of the Quraysh in Mecca]

Consolation

Yes

83:29–​36

Meccan

Disbelievers

Believers [their laughter at the disbelievers is considered a punishment for the disbelievers’ previous laughter at them]

Consolation

N/​A

Source: Nasr, 2015; Abdel Haleem, 2016.

MUSLIMS AND HUMOUR

Chapter: Verse(s)

Ridicule in the Qur’an

the risk of representing the Qur’an as oppositional to a plethora of ḥadīth narratives (see Maghen, 2008). On the other hand, while non-​religious accounts remain more objective in their understanding of the topic, they could still be enhanced. From the latter group, here I engage with Tamer (2009) and Amman (2003a, 2003b). Attempting to tackle the challenge of the Qur’an’s stance on humour, Georges Tamer, based on the instances he presents for humour in the Qur’an, concludes that the scripture is compatible with humour only insofar as that humour does not entail ‘sin’: ‘[T]‌he Qur’an does not condemn joyful life as such, but specifically that which is related to sin’ (Tamer, 2009: 9). Tamer’s (2009) theory is wanting at least in two ways. First, it entails a tautological approach to the topic, referring us to the Qur’an itself for what it means to be ‘sinful’, thus ironically reproducing the traditionalist, faith-​ assuming, exegetical explanations of ridicule in the Qur’an. Moreover, the theory fails to justify the remarkable negation of derision throughout the Qur’an, as seen in Table 1.1, including of the disbelievers’ and the hypocrites’ mockery of God, of the believers, and of God’s messenger(s)/​signs. How could non-​believers’ ridiculing practices entail any sins for themselves, or even for the believers? To redress this situation, I propose modifying Tamer’s (2009) statement, making it more comprehensive using history-​conscious information in the Qur’an. A rectified theory will account for the power relations involved in the immediate context of the new religion in the Arabic peninsula, including the importance of hijā (invective) as a medium rooted in pre-​Islamic Arabic culture and literature (more on this in the following), and the role of ridicule as an informal social control strategy on the one hand, and, on the other, the numerous hardships facing Prophet Muḥammad and his not-​too-​many companions in their attempts to gradually form a community of believers from scratch. Based on the ridicule-​obsessed verses mentioned previously, most of which meaningfully appear in the Meccan chapters, I recommend reformulating Tamer’s claim as follows: The Qur’an endorses only the type of humour –​at times even ridiculing –​that either helps to reinforce, or at least does not sabotage, the formation/​integrity of the nascent community of believers. More specifically, the scripture condemns any humour –​always of ridiculing type –​that in any form or shape threatens the integrity or solidarity of the nascent community of believers in Mecca and (to an incomparably lesser degree) Medina. Underlying this claim is the presumption that the issue of ridicule in the Qur’an has less to do with ethics or theology than with the immediate politics of the seventh century AD in Hijaz. In the following, I offer evidence in support of this claim. As seen in Table 1.1, the majority of the ridicule-​obsessed verses appears in the Meccan chapters (25 verses or verse clusters, compared with nine Medinan ones), increasing the possibility of the Meccan verses being 29

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revealed to help lessen, in different ways, the likelihood of the collapse of the gradually growing, yet inevitably vulnerable, community of believers against the more powerful sociocultural order of the non-​believers, that is, the Quraysh ‘mockers’ around them. In many such verses, the Prophet is given the example of previous divine messengers, ‘all’ of whom were also mocked by their own people. Addressed to the Prophet, many such verses inform him of how the ridiculers of God’s revelations in the past were all overwhelmed by the punishments/​signs they disparaged. Most ridicule-​ obsessed verses, as noted in Table 1.1, end with a promised punishment, by God, of the ridiculers as deniers of the ones they mocked. The fact that most ridicule-​obsessed verses appear in Meccan, rather than Medinan, chapters is significant in yet another way. Had such verses been intended to be read as a universal and non-​temporal refutation, or intolerance of, disbelievers’ mockery, then they would be more likely to appear in the Medinan chapters, where the majority of ethico-​legal considerations for believers’ lives occurs. In other words, in itself, ridicule seems to have little, if any, theologically moral value in the Qur’an;19 rather, for the Qur’an, it is apparently the rhetorical power and weight of ridicule against the community of believers that determines its potential danger for the Muslims. As expected, the Medinan chapters of the Qur’an contain far fewer ridicule-​obsessed verses. What is especially interesting about these few instances is that they can also be shown to concern a fear of the splitting of solidarity among the believers as a group, that is, the collapse of a difficultly grown and still vulnerable community, even if slightly more established than when the Prophet and his followers stayed in Mecca. These few Medinan verses, either explicitly or as discerned through Qur’anic exegeses, are concerned with the munāfiqūn, that is, ‘the hypocrites, [a new group] who pretended to profess Islam but were actually working against the Islamic state [in Medina]’ (Abdel Haleem, 2016: xviii). In other words, the Medinan ridicule-​focused verses attack potential splitters of the newly established community of believers, thus buttressing the theory in this chapter that the Qur’an’s pessimistic attitude toward ridicule functioned as a defensive mechanism against the culturally pervasive force of ridicule as a social control strategy, that is, as an attempt to neutralize the destructive power of ridicule vis-​à-​vis the burgeoning group of Muḥammad’s followers during his prophethood. It is only fitting that the last occurrence of a ridicule-​focused verse in the Qur’an reassures the believers that they will be the eventual mockers of the disbelievers on the Day of Judgement. Thus, not only does the scripture console its believers and ensure the integrity of their community against the scorn to which they are constantly subjected, but it also promises them a triumphant, reversed destiny in the future should they remain loyal to their messenger. Where not obviously stated, the ‘consolation’ function, 30

Ridicule in the Qur’an

repeatedly appearing in ridicule-​obsessed verses, is strongly deduced from numerous verses, while also referred to by some classical exegetes in their commentaries.20 That almost all such verses end with a promised punishment for the disbelievers/​hypocrites shows how they simultaneously served another function, that is, a disciplinary and threatening one toward non-​believers through negatively encouraging them to join the believers’ community. Following Donner (2010, 2011), I have been utilizing the term community of believers, instead of Muslims, throughout this chapter to refer to the followers of Prophet Muḥammad during his prophethood. This embryonic community, which, according to numerous resources, faced much hardship during its gradual growth, from ‘ridicule’ to ‘serious abuse’ was, Donner argues, too diverse and ecumenical to be unproblematically deemed a ‘Muslim community’ (2011: 41). In his attempt to make his community of believers grow into a reliable core of people, Prophet Muḥammad did not shy away from allying with non-​believers (polytheists) via ‘pacts of alliance’ or from including other monotheists, that is, ‘Jews or Christians who were sufficiently pious’ (Donner, 2010: 50, 69). It was only toward the end of his life, when he had gained ‘political and military strength’, that ‘[Muḥammad] announced a new policy of noncooperation with polytheists’ (Donner, 2010: 50). While Donner intends his argument to highlight further inclusivity during early Islam, his observation also indicates the unique difficulties Muḥammad faced in forming and maintaining believers against numerus disintegrating forces of disbelief. For the Prophet, a strong enough core population had to be consolidated and maintained in the first place, before anything more ambitious could ensue. Yet, what did belief mean for the Qur’an? Drawing on Qur’anic evidence, Donner shows that the early Believer’s movement centered on the ideas of monotheism, preparing for the Last Day, belief in prophecy and revealed scripture, and observance of righteous people, including frequent prayer, expiation for sins committed, periodic fasting, and a charitable and humble demeanour toward others. (Donner, 2010: 68–​69) Interestingly, the first several items –​that is, ‘monotheism, preparing for the Last Day, belief in prophecy and revealed scripture’ (Donner, 2010: 68–​69) –​ are stated or strongly implied in most ridicule-​obsessed verses, showing how such verses were likely concerned with the struggles around the formation, from scratch, of a faithful group. The ridicule, already comprehended within a culture of invective-​as-​attack, would then be perceived as an assault on a budding society that practised a new way of living and being, a community that might otherwise have hardly, if at all, gained ground. Apparently, the sustenance and growth of this blossoming society was ever-​important to 31

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Prophet Muḥammad, hence the implementation of punitive strategies even at an informal, interpersonal level to help lessen the probability of its collapse.21 As an autonomous claim, the argument outlined in this chapter was hitherto unstated. However, at least two scholars, though fleetingly, come close to uttering something akin to this argument, which deserves mentioning. Georges Tamer (2009), while recognizing that ‘the Qur’an contains statements and situations which reflect various aspects of humour in a broad sense’, concludes that this humour ‘is connected to power and serves as expression of superiority or aggression’, and as such is directly associated with ‘sarcasm’ (Tamer, 2009: 23–​24). Therefore, he remarks, ‘it is not allowed for the believers to apply it to each other in order to keep the unity of the community intact’ (Tamer, 2009: 23–​24). Furthermore, Ludwig Amman, in his discussion of the types of ‘mockery’ in the Qur’an, contends that ‘the [Qur’anic] prohibition [of mockery] is uttered in a series of rules against anything likely to split the Muslim community’ (2003b: 401). Nevertheless, I hope my extended argument in this chapter, about the historical importance of the ridicule to, and in, the Qur’an, complements these claims.22 First, neither of the scholars put forward their arguments systematically; rather, their claims appear as momentary projections within their discussions. Moreover, both scholars subscribe to subsequent theological/​jurisprudential readings of ridicule-​obsessed verses by Islamic exegetes through ascribing to ridicule a universal, moral function in the world of the Qur’an. This ascription problematizes the alleged historical interpretations in these scholars’ claims, while also, by implication, contradicting the ḥadīth-​based evidence gathered (among others by Tamer, 2009) in support of Islam’s positive attitude toward jocularity, even ridicule, among Muslims. By contrast, the argument in this chapter treats the Qur’an’s prohibition of ridicule within the immediate context of community formation in early Islam, rather than as a universal, moral creed against certain uses of mockery by Muslims and/​or non-​Muslims. In doing so, it acknowledges the plethora of humour and ridicule practised by and among Muslims themselves, even sometimes allegedly at the expense of (accepted Islamic mores in) the Qur’an or ḥadīth, or of Prophet Muḥammad and/​or his companions’ seriousness and gravitas (see Maghen, 2008; Tamer, 2009; Marzolph, 2011; see also Chapter 2 and Chapter 4), as opposed to paradoxically implying such practices to be incompatible with the Qur’an.

Ridicule and the social order: the rhetorical power of hijā Politically speaking, the argument in this chapter, as far as the relation of ridicule to the social order is concerned, gives rise to an important question: If ridiculing Islam and Muslims in the immediate context of the religion was 32

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conceived as a danger for the religion and its followers, can it not be perilous for them during the present time? This question may be answered with resort to theories in critical humour studies, and by regarding the role of hijā in classical Arabic literature and society. In the language of humour studies, the question can be restated as follows: Can targeted humour/​r idicule influence the social order? Or, as the late Christie Davies would put it: Is humour a ‘thermometer’ or a ‘thermostat’ (Davies, 2007: 300; see also Davies, 2011)? The answer varies depending on which social order a said type of humour attempts to reinforce, and which one to undermine. Like other discourses, humour can be said to have a rhetorical dimension (Smith, 1993; Conley, 2004; Weaver, 2011). Studies on the functions of ridicule vis-​à-​vis social order posit that derision, especially when issued by subjects subscribing to a hegemonic order and when targeting marginalized, subordinate, or non-​hegemonic norms in a society, is more likely to have further rhetorical power, and therefore to affect the social order, than otherwise (see Abedinifard, 2015). This can explain, for example, why in heteronormative societies, mainstream gender humour (such as that targeting women or homosexuals, or male honour-​directed humour) enjoys higher circulation than what I have elsewhere called and analyzed as ‘fringe gender humour’, such as humour espousing a feminist or lesbian standpoint (see Chapter 5 in Abedinifard, 2015). Similarly, this can also explain not only the existence, but also the relatively untroubled dissemination of much ethnic(ist) humour in some societies and cultures compared with the spread –​if any –​of anti-​ethnicist humour in the same societies and cultures. This can be explained by the fact that, compared with fringe humour, mainstream forms of humour enjoy the endorsement of stronger ‘norm circles’.23 Such widespread reception indicates an imbalance in the prevalence of mainstream versus fringe humour in a society. Moreover, it also suggests that mainstream humour is more likely to elicit approbatory laughter –​rather than an irksome ‘unlaughter’ –​from members of the hegemonic norm circles of a society.24 Thus, humour can indeed have social consequences, although not all types of humour, and not equally, for that matter.25 The far-​reaching consequences of mainstream humour, compared with fringe humour, in a society is demonstrable also through examining mainstream humour as a rhetorical discourse that taps into the hegemonic norms in a society and culture in order to exercise a desired effect, for example, to induce shame, fear, and so on. This is exactly what happened in numerous instances of hijā –​an infamous and much-​dreaded medium practised in classical Arabic poetry. In contracst to madḥ (panegyric), but similarly hyperbolic in tone and style, hijā originates from the pre-​Islamic era, when it was employed by astute poets to boast the exaggerated superiority of their tribe by inducing shame and defamation in another. The medium gradually evolved into ‘a highly elaborate literature of verbal aggression’ (Sprachman, 1995: xxvii), through which the hajja (ridiculer, invectivist) 33

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would castigate their mahju (the ridiculed, victim). Among others, the victim could be any combination of the following: ‘individuals (the hajja’s literary rivals; stingy or former patrons; other contemporaries); groups (inhabitants of particular cities; members of a particular profession or social class; members of a particular religion or sect); [and] nonhuman targets (the poetry of other poets [parody and pastiche]; the idolatrous religions and their idols [polemic])’ (Sprachman, 1995: xxviii). Mainly due to poets’ alleged enjoyment of supernatural connections, the poet’s hijā was feared despite their resorting to ‘gross exaggerations, blatant fictions, patent lies, and obscene diction’ (van Gelder, 2007). Moreover, in contradistinction to what we now know as social satire, hijā ‘aimed at humiliating and ridiculing the opponent rather than reforming him [sic]’ (van Gelder, 2007). Prophet Muḥammad is said to have condemned hijā, especially ‘that which led to social fragmentation (tashtīt)’ (Sprachman, 1995: xxvii), yet resolved to tackle its perceived effects on his newly emerging community of followers,26 thus confirming the Qur’an’s previously mentioned attitude toward ridicule as a social control strategy. Specifically, he is also said to have endorsed the practice of composing hijā to target ‘idolaters’ or in defence of the new religion (Sprachman, 1995: xxvii; van Gelder, 2007). Prophet Muḥammad’s sensitivity to the perceived disintegrating power of ridicule combined with his active endorsement of it to tackle such anti-​social order power attest to the importance of ridicule-​as-​rhetoric and to its effects on social order during the early Islamic era. Just as the quantity of ridicule-​obsessed verses significantly decreases when we move from the Meccan to the Medinan chapters in the Qur’an –​reflecting the increasing size and power of the community of believers –​so too does the once feasible necessity for the censure of ridicule as an informal social control strategy lose significance. During the present time, when Islam enjoys almost two billion followers worldwide and ‘is the fastest growing major religion’ in the world (Lipka, 2017), satirization by disbelievers cannot serve as a serious threat to community solidarity, but self-​identifying Muslims exercising violence in reaction to such satire can harm others’ perceptions of the religion and its followers. It can be argued that most violent reactions to satires of Islam have occurred in places where Muslims are a minority, and where they might be said to find themselves in a situation not dissimilar to that of the nascent community of believers in the new religion in seventh-​century Hijaz. Indeed, it has been argued that within Muslim-​minority countries, such ridiculing depictions of the Prophet Muḥammad will cause ‘moral injury’ to the Muslim minority (Mahmood, 2009: 859), or at least sabotaging these countries’ ‘long-​term project of creating a public space where Muslims feel safe, valued, and equal’ (March, 2011). The picture becomes even more complicated when a state leader fuels Islamophobic sensations by drawing on the imagined 34

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dichotomy of ‘the “enlightenment” of Europe [and] the “barbarism” of Islam’ to condem the ensuing violence (Fadel, 2020). These are all valid concerns, and I admit that such a minority-​vs-​majority situation does necessitate ethical considerations with regard to the use of ridicule against the religious beliefs of a minority population. Nevertheless, it should also be borne in mind that according to the Qur’an, and as discussed in the following section regarding blasphemy and its connection with satires of Islam, the said situation still does not justify any human retributions.

The Qur’an and the blasphemous This discussion of ridicule in the Qur’an would be incomplete without reference to the way in which satire against Islam may relate to blasphemy in Islam. Despite the varied accounts of blasphemy among Islamic jurisprudents, and notwithstanding the contested nature of the concept, perceptions of blasphemy in Islam have unfortunately instigated violence in the past. I started this chapter with reference to two such incidents during the past few decades, that is, the Rushdie affair and the Charlie Hebdo attacks –​and most recently, with further violence related to the latter in France. What connects both incidents is ‘the perceived disrespect for Islam, the Prophet Muḥammad, and the Quran’ (Esposito, 2011: 155). As such, ‘concerns over violence related to accusations of blasphemy remain strong’ (Stewart, 2013: 73), not only for non-​Muslims, but also for many Muslims residing in Islamicate societies with institutionalized laws on blasphemy.27 In Islam, traditionally, ‘blasphemy is [defined as] speech that insults or shows a lack of reverence for God, holy persons, or sacred things’ (Stewart, 2013: 71). In other words, blasphemy relates not only to God, but also the Prophet Muḥammad (sabb al-r​ asūl), his companions (sabb al-​ṣaḥābah), and/​or –​ in the Shi‘i context –​the imams. It is notable, however, that jurisprudential laws against blasphemy in Islam emerged not from the Qur’an or even from canonical narratives of the Prophet’s life, but from Islamic scholars’ ruminations on the subject that started at least a century after Prophet Muḥammad’s death (Wiederhold, 1997). Like many other topics in Islam that have become subject to rereading by modern scholars, the notion of blasphemy and its jurisprudential weight have also been reviewed by many modern scholars, who question traditionalist interpretations of the subject. Abdullah Saeed’s (2013) excellent overview of why the debate requires reconsideration in modern Qur’anic scholarship is noteworthy here: In Islamic theological and legal literature, there are certain issues on which there seems to be ‘consensus’ among scholars but without the necessary backing from clear and unambiguous Qur’anic texts or the actual practice of the Prophet. One example is the death penalty for 35

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blasphemy (sabb allāh or sabb al-​rasūl). There is unanimity among jurists that, in an Islamic jurisdiction, if a person uses foul language concerning the Prophet (sabb al-​rasūl), that person must be killed. However, there is no clear Qur’anic basis for this unanimous view and the Qur’anic position on this issue is not necessarily supportive of such a view. Many texts of the Qur’an provide details of how obscene language was used against the Prophet by his opponents. He was accused of being a poet, a liar, and a madman. Yet nowhere in the Qur’an is any temporal punishment –​let alone death –​stipulated for that behaviour. Rather, the punishment for such behaviour, as specified in the Qur’an, is to be meted out on the Day of Judgement. Although the actual act of blasphemy is, from a Qur’anic point of view, a great sin, no death penalty is mentioned in the Qur’an. The presence of consensus in pre-​modern juristic scholarship on the death penalty for blasphemy should not therefore deter Muslims of today from critiquing and further examining it, given that the existing penalty in traditional Islamic law is not based on a clear commandment in the Qur’an or in the Sunna. The mere existence of unanimous agreement without a strong basis in the Qur’an and the practice of the Prophet should not be used as a basis for believing the issue to be an ‘immutable’ [fact]. (Saeed, 2013: 92–9​ 3) Similar arguments have been made by Islamic scholars about apostasy in Islam (Esposito, 2011: 75). The same observation also appears to be applicable to ridicule in the Qur’an, in that nowhere does the scripture entail any human-​initiated punishments for disbelievers’ or hypocrites’ ridiculing of God, God’s signs, and/​or Prophet Muḥammad. Indeed, as previously noted, in numerous Qur’anic verses, where a penalty is promised for such ridiculing practices, the said penalty is always relegated to the afterlife and left to be exercised by God. As such, while ridicule vis-​à-​vis Islam/​the Qur’an may be perceived as blasphemous by some Muslims, it does not, at least according to Islam’s chief and central text, entail human retribution. As the Qur’an itself puts it, following a ridicule-​focused verse, ‘The righteous are not in any way held accountable for the wrongdoers; their only duty is to remind them, so that they may be mindful of God’ (6: 69). Like other forms of problematic humour in our era, blasphemous humour at the expense of Islam and Muslims can also be judiciously tackled via one or a combination of responses: unlaughter, ignoring, or critique.

Conclusion Intervening in ongoing debates on the place of humour in Islam, which mostly heed the ḥadīth and sīra literatures at the expense of the Qur’an, this chapter concentrated on ridicule in the Qur’an, attempting to explain the scripture’s 36

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inimical attitude toward humour compared to its conspicuous preoccupation with ridicule as a condemnable practice. Adopting a sociohistorical and contextualist approach to the Qur’an, and relying on theories in critical humour studies, this chapter argued that the Qur’an’s peculiar view of humour and ridicule seems to have had roots in the sociopolitical contingencies of seventh-​century Hijaz, and specifically in the challenges which Prophet Muḥammad was facing as he struggled to start, and later maintain and grow, a community of believers from scratch. I argue that one serious challenge, as also reflected in the historical role of invective in the pre-​and post-​Islamic eras, was tackling ridicule as a social control strategy, when exercised against Islam, its prophet, and/​or its God as the constituent elements of a budding, non-​hegemonic social order, especially at the burgeoning of Islam in Mecca, and also later in Medina. Accordingly, as a chastised and impermissible practice in the Qur’an, ridicule was to be a mutable rather than a universal matter. While not explored here due to the limited scope, it would be worth exploring how, in Islamic jurisprudential literature, ridicule as an arguably chiefly historical topic may have transformed into a universal one. It is likely that as the early developmental years of Islam receded further into the past, Muslims increasingly came to understand the ridicule-​obsessed verses in the Qur’an as containing a ‘moral’, and hence, immutable, rather than a historical and contextual value. This hypothesis is feasible, given the aforesaid similar fate of blasphemy or the alleged comparable transformation of certain key conceptions among Muslims within a couple of centuries after the advent of Islam (see, for example, Donner, 2011). I put forward the argument in this chapter not as a case for the proliferation of satires against Islam and Muslims, but with the aim of historicizing a formerly de-​historicized subject to fill a gap in Islamic humour studies. More specifically, this rereading of ridicule in the Qur’an –​by removing the previously perceived incompatibility between the scripture’s attitude toward humour vis-​à-​vis that in the ḥadīth –​is intended to contribute also toward elaborating what Rahman calls ‘an ethics of the Qur’an’ (1982: 154), and thus to especially provide insights on how Muslims should respond to satires of Islam/​the Qur’an/​Prophet Muḥammad. As acknowledged, however, satires targeting Islam/​Muslims might have varying effects in different social milieus, especially leaving a destructive impact on Muslims where they remain a minority. Needless to say, in these and other cases, Muslims’ right to unlaugh, ignore, and/​or critique derisions of their religion always remains an option. Acknowledgements The author is grateful to the volume’s editors as well as Omid Azadibougar, Yaser Mirdamadi, Arash Naraghi, and Arian Zand for their helpful comments on previous versions of this chapter. 37

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Notes 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

To my knowledge, the only extant literature on Islam and humour, in English, which predate such events are Pellat (1963) and Rosenthal (1956). For helpful critical overviews of the scant literature on Islam and humour, see Maghen, 2008; Tamer, 2009: 4–​5. Rather than necessarily signifying funniness, humour is here taken to mean not only any discourse that elicits laughter but also any text or practice created with the intention of producing laughter, whether this purpose is fulfilled or not. (For laughter as ‘the language of humour’, see Zijderveld, 1983.) I owe my definition of humour to Billig, 2005: 177–​ 79. One important implication of this definition would be that it renders scholars more inclusivity in terms of what they can study as humour. These challenges, often entailing identity politics, feature prominently in critical humour studies. See, for example, Lockyer and Pickering, 2005, 2008; Weaver, 2011. Besides the often-​academic pro-​Islam-​and-​humour perspective, some Muslim scholars take the middle ground, arguing for humour in Islam while also cautioning against the moral limits of humour (see, for example, al-​‘Abidi, 2010). Still, other scholars remain intolerant of combining Islam and humour; according to ʿAta’i, for example, ‘in Islam, only smiling is appropriate in this world, and the mirthful laughter of the mu’minun [the believers] will be appropriate] in the yawm al-​qiyamah [Day of Resurrection]’ (1389/​ 2010: 96). At the heart of condemning others (here, Muslims offended by some Islam-​targeting humour) for lacking a sense of humour rests a ‘positivist’ presumption about the intrinsic goodness of humour and laughing, regardless of its content (see Billig, 2005). As Kuipers remarks about ‘the downside of protesting against jokes … [r]‌efusal to accept the comic frame is unpleasant and abrasive: people objecting to humour “spoil the fun”, show they “can’t take a joke” and thus “have no sense of humour” ’ (2011: 73). For one’s having a sense of humour as a necessary personal characteristic being a historical construct, see Wickberg, 1998. For attempts at locating humour in the Qur’an, see Mir, 1991; Tamer, 2009. Mir’s (1991) effort has been questioned by Marzolph (2000: 481–​82), and especially by Maghen (2008: 280, n.4; also 281) and Tamer (2009: 4–​5), all of whom challenge, albeit to different extents, the humorousness of Mir’s (1991) examples. Tamer proposes his own examples (2009: 8–​21). Others, such as Heidari (1379/​2000: 482), provide many ‘satirical’ examples from the Qur’an; however, they all feature God as a ridiculer of the disbelievers, thus making it difficult to deem them as typically human humour. Marzolph admits that ‘[t]‌he topic of humor in the Quran is not a particularly promising area of research’ (2000: 482). Similarly, Amman remarks, ‘The qur’anic discourse does not allow for anything beyond truth and its denial; the realm of play, fiction and joking remained ontologically incomprehensible and morally suspect in relation to these narrow premises’ (2003b: 400). A few examples of otherwise strong arguments for humour in Islam, with a focus on the ḥadīth tradition, include Maghen, 2008 (see especially pp 332–​37); al-‘Abidi, 2010; and Marzolph, 2000, 2011. According to Amman, ‘The nouns and verb forms derived from h-​z-​’ appear forty-​three times, those derived from s-​kh-​r fifteen times’ (2003b: 400). Containing ‘a general desire to historicize the text of the Qur’an’ (Rippin, 1988: 2), the genre of asbāb al-​nuzūl (occasions of revelation), despite its controversial aspects, remains an important tool in providing context for, at least some, Qur’anic verses. The sabab (associated occasion) genre does so by ‘incorporating glosses, masoretic clarification (for example, with variants), narrative expansion and, most importantly, contextual definition’ (Rippin, 1988: 2). 38

Ridicule in the Qur’an 9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

Following Hodgson’s (2009) conceptualization of the ‘Islamicate’, I am using ‘Muslim’ here as a general term that also signifies individuals associated with dominantly Islamic cultures, even if they themselves are non-​believing/​non-​practising of Islam as a religion. For examples of the traditionalist contextualist approach to Qur’anic exegesis, see Chapter 3 in Saeed, 2013. Along with other similar uses of ridiculing humour, Tamer (2009: 14–​18) mentions the extended example of Ibrāhīm’s treatment of the idols as an instance of ‘social satire’ in the Qur’an, that is, its utilization of irony or ridicule to draw the audience’s attention to what it conceives as absurd or as a vice (as opposed to religious virtue). For occurrences of this term in the Qur’an, see verses 2:14; 15:95; cf. 4:140; 9:65; 11:8; 26:6; 36:30; 45:33. For a sabab narrative involving a hypocrite’s hidden intentions being revealed to the believers, see al-​Wāhidī, 2008: 2; Nasr et al, 2015: 17. For varied interpretational possibilities based on classical exegeses, see Nasr et al’s (2015) commentary on 5:57. According to Nasr et al, ‘[T]‌he command [in the verse] seems to pertain specifically to the circumstances of the new Islamic community in Mecca’ (2015: 308). For several interpretations of this verse, within the classical tafsīr (exegesis) tradition, see Nasr et al, 2015: 364–365. For sabab narratives involving a hypocrite’s secret scoff at God/​the Prophet/​God’s revelation being disclosed, as well as their fear of such disclosure, see al-​Wāhidī, 2008: 89. For an asbāb al-​nuzūl narrative that contextualizes the verse within a framework of competition for the attention of the Meccan people between the Qur’an and Naḍr ibn al-​Ḥārith’s fictional stories brought from other lands, see Nasr et al’s (2015) commentary on 31:6. (Cf. 45:8–​9, which shares a similar occasion of revelation narrative.) While also understood as a ‘general reference’, this and the preceding verse are, traditionally, said to have been revealed ‘regarding Naḍr ibn al-​Ḥārith, who would transmit foreign stories, or “discourses”, and use them to distract the people from listening to the Qur’an’ (Nasr et al, 2015: 1217; cf. 31:6). One exception to this may be verse 49:11. However, when read in light of some pertinent asbāb al-​nuzūl narratives (see, for example, al-​Wāhidī, 2008: 142), even this verse could be interpreted as non-​universal. For an account, in sīra literature, of how the verse 6:10 was revealed to Prophet Muḥammad due to his ‘distress’ caused by disbelievers’ ‘revil[ing] and mock[ery]’ of him, see Ibn Isḥāq, 1967: 181. For other references, in the tafsir tradition, to the consoling role of the ridicule-​obsessed verses, see Nasr et al’s (2015) commentary on verses 43:6–​7. For a discussion of the verse 2:26, which, according to several asbāb al-​nuzūl narratives, was revealed to offset Prophet Muḥammad’s opponents’ ridicule of an extended simile in the Qur’an, which involves a ‘fly’ and a ‘spider’, see Rippin, 1988. Scholars have suggested a similar preventive-​disciplinary function for irtidād (apostasy) in Islam (see Esposito, 2011: 74). My account of Amman’s (2003b) argument is based on two encyclopaedia entries by him in McAuliffe (2003). I have not accessed his German scholarship. As conceptualized by Elder-​Vass (2010, 2012), in his complex theory of the connection between agency and social structure, a ‘norm circle’ represents any social circle or group which is ‘concerned with specifically normative questions’ and whose members share a ‘a collective intention to support’ its norms ‘by advocating the practice[s]‌, by praising or rewarding those who enact [them], by criticising or punishing those who fail to enact [them], or even just by ostentatiously enacting [the practices] themselves’ (Elder-​Vass, 2010: 122–24, emphasis in original).

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24

25

26

27

Coined by Billig, unlaughter is different from merely not laughing; it signifies ‘a display of not laughing when laughter might otherwise be expected, hoped for or demanded’ (Billig, 2005: 192). The social consequences of humour need not be related to its immediate targets; targeted humour could also have what I call ‘structural functions’, that is, functions vis-​à-​vis the broader social structures that inform the humour, even if they do not directly concern the immediate targets (see Abedinifard, 2016; Abedinifard, 2019). One important, yet uncomfortable and controversial topic, which demands a separate study, is the alleged killing of some invectivists, including Abu Afaq and ‘Aṣma bint Marwān, at the order of Prophet Muḥammad. My projected thesis is that such killings should also be understood in light of the rhetorical power of hijā on the one hand, and the political fears associated with the attrition of the community of believers on the other. An explicit case supporting this claim is the Yale University Press ‘Publisher’s Statement’ and ‘Author’s Statement’, added to the beginning of Klausen, 2009. For recent studies concerned with laws on blasphemy in Islamicate societies, see Fenwick, 2017; Peterson, 2020.

References Abdel Haleem, M.A.S. (2016) ‘Introduction’, in The Qur’an, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, pp xi-​xxxiv. Abedinifard, M. (2015) ‘Humour and gender hegemony: The panoptical role of ridicule vis-​à-​vis gender’, PhD thesis, Edmonton, Alberta: University of Alberta. Abedinifard, M. (2016) ‘Structural functions of the targeted joke: Iranian modernity and the Qazvini man as predatory homosexual’, HUMOR, 29(3): 337–​357. Abedinifard, M. (2019) ‘Persian “Rashti jokes”: Modern Iran’s palimpsests of gheyrat-​based masculinity’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 46(4): 564–​582. al-​‘Abidi, L. (2010) al-​Fakah fi al-​Islam, Beirut: Dar al-​Saqi. al-​Wāhidī, A.A. (2008) Asbāb al-​Nuzūl, trans Mokrane Guezzou, Amman, Jordan: Royal Aal al-​Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought. Amman, L. (2003a) ‘Laughter’, in J.D. McAuliffe (ed) Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an (vol III), Leiden: Brill, pp 146–​149. Amman, L. (2003b) ‘Mockery’, in J.D. McAuliffe (ed) Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an (vol III), Leiden: Brill, pp 400–​401. Anon. (2020) ‘Charlie Hebdo: Magazine republishes controversial Mohammed cartoons’, BBC, [online] 1 September. Available from: www.bbc.com/​ news/​world-​europe-​53985407 [Accessed 1 September 2020]. ʿAta’i, M.R. (1389/​2010) ‘Khandeh va geryeh dar ayat-​e Qur’an-​e Karim’, Meshkat, 29(4): 96–​110. Billig, M. (2005) Laughter and Ridicule: Towards a Social Critique of Humour, London: Sage. Chriss, J.J. (2007) Social Control: An Introduction, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

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Conley, T. (2004) ‘Argumentation: What jokes can tell us about arguments’, in W. Jost and W. Olmsted (eds) A Companion to Rhetoric and Rhetorical Criticism, Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp 266–​277. Davies, C. (2007) ‘Humor and protest: Jokes under communism’, International Review of Social History 52(S15): 291–​305. Davies, C. (2011) Jokes and Targets, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Davies, C., Kuipers, G., Lewis, P., Martin, R., Oring, E. and Raskin, V. (2008) ‘The Muhammad cartoons and humor research: A collection of essays’, Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 21(1): 1–​46. Donner, F.M. (2010) Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Donner, F.M. (2011) ‘The historian, the believer, and the Qur’an’, in G.S. Reynolds (ed) New Perspectives on the Qur’ān: The Qur’ān in Its Historical Context 2, Oxford, UK: Routledge, pp 25–​37. Elder-​Vass, D. (2010) The Causal Power of Social Structures: Emergence, Structure and Agency, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Elder-​Vass, D. (2012) The Reality of Social Construction, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Esposito, J.L. (2011) What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam, Auckland, NZ: Oxford University Press. Epress Web Desk (2020) ‘Al-​Qaeda threatens Charlie Hebdo for reprinting controversial caricatures of Prophet Mohammed’, The Indian Express [online], 13 September. Available from: https://i​ ndiane​ xpre​ ss.com/a​ rtic​ le/​ world/​char​lie-​hebdo-​al-​qaeda-​prop​het-​mohamm ​ ed-6​ 5946​ 08/​ [Accessed 13 November 2020]. Fadel, M.H. ‘How cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad mark a return to the propaganda of the Middle Ages’, Middle East Eye [online], 4 December. Available from https://​www.middle​east​eye.net/​opin​ion/​how-​carto​ons-​ prop​het-​muham​mad-​mark-​ret​urn-​pro​paga​nda-​mid​dle-​ages [Accessed 4 December 2021]. Fenwick, S. (2017) Blasphemy, Islam and the State: Pluralism and Liberalism in Indonesia, Oxford, UK: Routledge. Gokturk, D. (2008) ‘Jokes and butts: Can we imagine humor in a global public sphere?’, PMLA, 123(5): 1707–​1711. Heidari, M.J. (1379/​2000) ‘Tanz dar Qur’an-​e Karim’, Sahifeh-​ye Mobin, 2(6): 87–​97. Hodgson, M.G. (2009) The Venture of Islam, Volume 1: The Classical Age of Islam, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Horwitz, A.V. (1990) The Logic of Social Control, New York, NY: Plenum Press. Ibn Isḥāq, M. (1967) The Life of Muhammad, trans A. Guillaume, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

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Kuipers, G. (2011) ‘The politics of humour in the public sphere: Cartoons, power and modernity in the first transnational humour scandal’, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 14(1): 63–​80. Klausen, J. (2009) The Cartoons that Shook the World, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Lipka, M. (2017) ‘Muslims and Islam: Key findings in the U.S. and around the world’, Pew Research Center, [online] 9 August. Available from: https://​ www.pewr​esea​rch.org/​f act-​tank/​2017/​08/​09/​musl​ims-​and-​islam-​key-​ findin ​ gs-i​ n-t​ he-u ​ -s​ -a​ nd-a​ rou ​ nd-t​ he-w ​ orld/​ [Accessed 4 December 2021]. Lockyer, S. and Pickering, M. (eds) (2005) Beyond a Joke: The Limits of Humour, New York, NY: Palgrave. Lockyer, S. and Pickering, M. (2008) ‘You must be joking: The sociological critique of humour and comic media’, Sociology Compass 2(3): 808–​820. Maghen, Z. (2008) ‘The merry men of Medina: Comedy and humanity in the early days of Islam’, Der Islam 83(2): 277–​340. Mahmood, S. (2009) ‘Religious reason and secular affect: An incommensurable divide?’, Critical Inquiry 35(4): 836–8​62. March, A.F. (2011) ‘Speaking about Muhammad, speaking for Muslims’, Critical Inquiry 37(4): 806–​821. Marzolph, U. (2000) ‘The Qoran and jocular literature’, Arabica 47(3): 478–​487. Marzolph, U. (2003) ‘Humor’, in J.D. McAuliffe (ed) Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an (vol II), Leiden: Brill, pp 464–​465. Marzolph, U. (2011) ‘The Muslim sense of humor’, in H. Geybels and W. Van Herck (eds) Humour and Religion: Challenges and Ambiguities, London: Continuum, pp 169–​187. McAuliffe, J.D. (ed) (2003) Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an (6 vols), Leiden: Brill. McAuliffe, J.D. (2006) ‘The tasks and traditions of interpretation’, in J.D. McAuliffe (ed) The Cambridge Companion to the Qur’ān, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp 181–​210. Mir, M. (1991) ‘Humor in the Qur’an’, The Muslim World, LXXXI(3–​ 4): 179–1​93. Nasr, S.H., Dagli, C.K., Dakake, M.M., Lumbard, J.E.B. and Rustom, M. (eds) (2015) The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary, New York, NY: HarperOne. Ozgur, I. (2012) ‘Cafcaf: An Islamic humor magazine, no joke!’, Contemporary Islam, 6: 1–​27. Pellat, C. (1963) ‘Seriousness and humour in early Islam (Al-​jidd wa’l-​hazl fī ṣadr al-​Islām)’, Islamic Studies 2(3): 353–​362. Peterson, D. (2020) Islam, Blasphemy, and Human Rights in Indonesia: The Trial of Ahok, Oxford, UK: Routledge.

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Pouchot, F. and Williams, S. (2020) ‘France’s Charlie Hebdo reprints Mohammed cartoons for trial’, Barron’s, [online] 1 September. Available from: www. barrons.com/​news/​france-​s-​charlie-​hebdo-​reprints-​mohammed-​cartoons-​ for-​trial-​01598969112?tesla=​y [Accessed 13 November 2020]. Rahman, F. (1982) Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rippin, A. (1988) ‘The function of asbāb al-​nuzūl in Qur’ānic exegesis’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 51(1): 1–​20. Rosenthal, F. (1956) Humor in Early Islam, Leiden: E.J. Brill. Saeed, A. (2013) Reading the Qur’an in the Twenty-​First Century: A Contextualist Approach, London, UK: Routledge. Shopoff, S.M. (2012) ‘Sacred comedy: Recognizing religion and humor’, MA thesis, San Diego: San Diego State University. Smith, S.A. (1993) ‘Humor as rhetoric and cultural argument’, Journal of American Culture 16(2): 51–​63. Sprachman, P. (1995) Suppressed Persian: An Anthology of Forbidden Literature, Costa Meza, CA: Mazda. Stewart, D.J. (2013) ‘Blasphemy’, in G. Bowering, P. Crone, W. Kadi, D. J. Stewart, Q.Z. Muhammad and M. Mahan (eds) The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp 71–​73. Tamer, G.J. (2009) ‘The Qur’ān and humor’, in G. Tamer (ed) Humor in Der Arabischen Kultur: Humor in Arabic Culture, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp 3–​28. van Gelder, G.J. (2007) ‘Hijāʾ’, in K. Fleet, G. Krämer, D. Matringe, J. Nawas and K.E. Rowson (eds) Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, [online]. Available from: http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1163/​1573-​391​2_e​ i3​ _C ​ OM ​ _3​ 04​ 53 [Accessed 13 September 2020]. van Heerden, W. (2001) ‘Why the humour in the Bible plays hide and seek with us’, Social Identities 7(1): 75–​96. Watt, W.M. and McDonald, M.V. (trans) (1988) (trans) The History of al-​ Tabari Vol. 6: Muhammad at Mecca, New York, NY: State University of New York Press. Weaver, S. (2011) The Rhetoric of Racist Humour: US, UK, and Global Race Joking, Surrey, UK: Ashgate. Wickberg, D. (1998) The Senses of Humor: Self and Laughter in Modern America, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Wiederhold, L. (1997) ‘Blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad and his companions (sabb al-​rasul, sabb al-​sahabah): The introduction of the topic into shafi‘i legal literature and its relevance for legal practice under Mamluk rule’, Journal of Semitic Studies 42(1): 39–​70. Zijderveld, A.C. (1983) ‘Laughter: The language of humour’, Current Sociology 31(3): 26–​37.

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2

Laughter in the Discursive Tradition? Emotions of Muḥammad as the Topic of a Pious Arabic–​English Reader Georg Leube

Introduction This contribution presents a fascinating product of Arabic-​Islamic scholarly traditions, namely a bilingual Arabic–​English anthology of the ḥadīths (sayings and deeds) of Muḥammad, focusing exclusively on contexts in which the Prophet of Islam is depicted as laughing. The anthology, originally compiled and published in Arabic by the contemporary scholar Muḥammad ʿAlī ʿUthmān (Āl) Mujāhid, was republished in a bilingual version by the Egyptian publisher Dār al-​Manāra in 2009 under the title This Beloved [PBUH] Smiling. Situated at the intersection of Arabic-​Islamic scholarly traditions and strategies aimed at the dissemination and propagation of Islamic knowledge, this anthology suggests an emic perspective on how the bodily laughter of Muḥammad may be foregrounded, notwithstanding the prophetic gravitas widely expected from the founder of a contemporary world religion. To adequately engage with this text, this chapter begins with a brief overview of the different modes in which academic research has engaged with the field of humour and laughter in Muslim scholarly traditions. This is supplemented by a theoretically oriented survey of negotiations of proper conduct in (contemporary) Muslim societies, as well as a reconstruction of the specific positionality of (Āl) Mujāhid as a contemporary Islamic scholar and editor of thematically focused anthologies of ḥadīth. Building on this background, later sections will inductively reconstruct the epistemic and moral dimensions of the laughter depicted in the ḥadīths included in this 44

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compilation. The chapter concludes by analyzing the triple prefaces of the bilingual edition presented by the author,1 translator, and publisher.

Framing humour and laughter in Muslim scholarly traditions In two programmatic articles, Mir (1991: 187, cf. Mir, 2000) suggests that a comical dimension existed in the Qurʾānic text and that irony, seen by him as ‘the principal device’ of this comical dimension, formed a pervasive feature of the sūrat Yūsuf, the twelfth sūra of the Qurʾān. While agreeing that humour does indeed appear in the Qurʾān, Tamer (2009a: 5) proposes a different understanding of two of Mir’s most prominent examples, stating that ‘[b]‌oth stories lack any sense of humour or irony’. As similar controversies are also well attested in biblical studies (see the debate between Friedman, 2000 and Morreall, 2001), we are confronted with a general problem of how to be sure that humour that appears to be rooted in normative scriptural traditions does not in fact reside in the eye of the (contemporary) beholder. As pointed out by Marzolph (2011: 172–​174) and Efimova (2017: 76), this is particularly problematic due to the (debatable) lack of a premodern Arabic word for the concept of humour and the omission of comical genres in the Arabic-​Islamic reception of classical rhetoric, which precludes an engagement with premodern Islamic humour on its own terms.2 Within the academic configurations of contemporary Islamic studies, this problem is aggravated by a sensitivity toward the transcultural application of general principles or categories to Muslim contexts in the wake of the deeply disruptive interventions of modern colonialism and globalized cultural appropriation. Accordingly, research into humour in Islamicate societies is commonly conducted along the lines of genre-​based inquiry into particular texts, with a particular emphasis on the transcultural intertextuality of humorous anecdotes. This strand of research was prefigured by Rosenthal (1956) and continued by the magisterial work of Marzolph (in particular, 1992 and 2011). The genres with which this strand of research engages include not only the genre of ‘humorous anecdotes’, but also parodies and the social criticism voiced in picaresque poetry in the tradition of the famous maqāmāt (Arabic literary genre of entertaining, witty anecdotes about lowly characters) of al-​Ḥarīrī. While this strand of research contributes greatly to the understanding of narrative cultures and the transcultural long-​term development of storytelling in the Greater Mediterranean, it remains on the level of genre-​related literary studies, focusing exclusively on those examples of humour specifically labelled as such in the scriptural traditions of Arabic-​Islamic learning. A second strand of research attempts to overcome this limitation by focusing not on the elusive concept of humour, but on the regulations and licences of laughter and joking (Marzolph, 2011: 173; Efimova, 2017: 74–​75, 45

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cf. Eagleton, 2019: 1–​35). While necessarily concerned to a great extent with normative views on the ‘body politics’ regulating the corporal expression of humour and other emotions, the studies of Ammann (1991) and others have succeeded in laying the foundations for a cultural history of Arabic-​Islamic laughter in premodern times. This strand of research has demonstrated the large extent to which the bodily manifestation of laughter by Muḥammad in particular became contested during the longue durée of Arabic-​Islamic scholarly discourses, giving rise to erudite philological debates as to whether or not a particular word describing Muḥammad’s laughter could acquire a special meaning and be reserved for use in the context of the Prophet of Islam (Maghen, 2008). Although the extent to which laughter is motivated by humorous emotions is greatly contested in the study of humour, this philological engagement with a clearly circumscribed semantic field enables the study of laughter (and possibly humour as a motivation for laughter) in contexts that could not be systematically integrated in humour research proceeding along the category of genre. Resonating with the first strand of research hitherto outlined, research on contemporary Muslim humour tends to proceed along the lines of genre to engage with cultural artefacts of the contemporary Islamic world that are explicitly labelled as comical and humorous (see the contributions of Peter Dové, Shereen Abou El Naga, Sara Binay, Roland Spiller, Doris Ruhe, and Andreas Pflitsch in Tamer, 2009b). At the same time, the category of humour and other emotions that are bodily expressed through laughter appears to be almost unconsidered in studies of the reception and appropriation of the Arabic-​Islamic scholarly traditions in pious and proselytizing discourses conducted by contemporary Muslims. Nonetheless, the publication of a digital booklet entitled When God and Muhammad Laugh (2015), published for Amazon Kindle under the likely pseudonym Muhammad Altabari,3 demonstrates that humour does represent a significant category that is deployed within the popular discourses of making Arabic-​ Islamic learning accessible and attractive in the globalized modern world. In his preface, Altabari (2015) explicitly addresses the polemical milieu of current debates about Islam. This reference to the contemporary transcultural reception of Islam and Islamic discursive traditions is implicitly used by the (anonymous?) author of this booklet to justify his engagement with this topic, notwithstanding his lack of prior scholarly or institutional reputation. Many people in the West still have a negative view of Prophet Muḥammad, the founder of Islam. They view him as a killer, a terrorist, an impostor, a pedophile and any other negative image you can think of. These perceptions have not changed much since the Middle Ages until now. Most of these perceptions are based on misinformation and deliberately distorted information. […] Prophet Muḥammad 46

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was pretty much like any of us. He married, had children, borrowed money and even joked :D [sic]. […] This book presents the lighter side of Prophet Muḥammad’s life. It tells jokes surrounding his life and his companions. […] If you like to know more about the Prophet’s life, I suggest you read hadith or a collection of the teachings, deeds and sayings of Prophet Muḥammad in addition to Koran. (Altabari, 2015: pos. 26–​52) Altabari does not define his methodology in selecting the ḥadīths he chose for his translation, which are implicitly selected according to his personal sense of humour. This selection accordingly does not proceed on the basis of a philological marker such as the semantic field of bodily laughter, but also includes anecdotes which Altabari (2015) suggests interpreting as ‘pranks’ engineered by Muḥammad for the entertainment of himself and his companions. As represented by this compilation, Altabari’s (2015) work should be interpreted as deeply rooted in the contested discourses of the popularization of Arabic-​Islamic learning. His own role is humbly defined in the introduction as one who gives those interested in Islam and its prophet a first glance at these traditions, before suggesting they continue with the work of others. This modesty is also reflected in the exclusive publication of his work in a comparatively unprestigious digital edition. This contribution to the present volume discusses the slightly more ambitious project of introducing Arabic-​Islamic scholarly traditions to a global audience through the bodily expression of Muḥammad’s emotions as transmitted in ḥadīths compiled by the contemporary scholar Muḥammad ʿAlī ʿUthmān (Āl) Mujāhid. Notwithstanding the apparent straightforwardness of these contemporary thematic collections of ḥadīths sold to a global audience, it is crucial to understand these publications within the contested discourses of Arabic-​Islamic contemporary negotiations of ‘proper conduct’, which will be introduced briefly in the following section.

Negotiating proper conduct in contemporary Muslim societies Due to the multiplicity and plurality characteristic of Muslim societies, sketching ‘Muslim’ sensitivities, attitudes, or prescriptions toward humour and laughter must proceed from a clear and circumscript contextualization. The same caveat holds for the operative relevance of these specifically ‘Muslim’ perspectives on the production and negotiation of humour in the contemporary globalized world. Instead of departing from (or concluding with) overarching normative frameworks, the following overview suggests a relational approach to Muslim intellectual history, which sees any cultural artefact as fundamentally entwined within the epistemological, social, and 47

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economic configurations of its production and reception. According to this argument, the specific positionality of an utterance emerges as the crucial variable in interpreting the negotiation of humour or laughter in historical and contemporary Muslim societies. In his seminal essay, Asad (1986) suggests that in an anthropological study of Islam and Muslim societies, Islam should be approached as a discursive tradition. Instead of inconclusively returning to questions of ‘true’ Islam and ‘ideal’ Islamic normativities, Muslim and Islamicate societies should be understood as engaged in ongoing and contested negotiations of multiple and intersecting norms, involving various individuals and groups within the social, economic, institutional, and scholarly configurations of Islamic societies. Crucially, this framing allows a rather precise definition of Muslim intellectual history due to its dynamic deployment of a shared resonating corpus of authoritative texts and habitus, combining the Qurʾān and ḥadīth with other normatively charged genres and traditions, such as sīra (the biography of Muḥammad), taʾrīkh (history), faḍāʾil (works on the merits of specific locales), adab (biographical anecdotes conveying normative values), and others. This resonates strongly with the frameworks proposed by Foucault (1969) and Althusser (2011) by suggesting an approach to competing epistemologies through the establishment and analysis of dispersions of individual elements and the relational framing of social context in a configuration of multiple fields governing the social distribution of intersecting types of capital. Expanding on the methodological framework of Bourdieu, Verter (2003) suggests analyzing these ongoing and dynamic negotiations by establishing the religious field in terms of a negotiation of ‘spiritual capital’. Crucially, this spiritual capital cannot be substantialized in a totalizing mode of ‘absolute Islam’, but should rather be approached as a positional good, deployed relationally depending on the social, economic, and other configurations in which it is embedded. As proposed by Schrode (2008), the resulting localized patterns of ‘orthodoxy’ and ‘heterodoxy’ can be seen to privilege particular modes and practices of legitimization at the expense of other strategies, which may be marginalized within particular contexts. Following Seesemann (2018), these competing strategies, by means of which negotiations of localized and relational Islamic normativity are conducted, can be described as competing epistemological paradigms, opposing, for example, arguments privileging sanad (the chain of transmission) over dalīl (scriptural evidence) and maqāṣid (the aim and objective of a particular argument). Accordingly, these epistemological paradigms, or, to echo the terminology of Foucault (1993), hermeneutical techniques, are deployed by individuals to establish themselves in relation to other individuals within the overarching configurations governing the religious field in a particular time and space. 48

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Probably one of the most visible and contested examples of the potentially tragic4 consequences of this renegotiation of epistemological paradigms and habitus in the religious field of Islam, as entangled in a global context during the second half of the twentieth century, is the suggestion made by Hamid Nasr Abu Zaid (1999) to apply ‘modern’ contextualizing hermeneutical techniques to the normative texts of Islam. As a professor at the Department of Arabic Language and Literature at the University of Cairo, Abu Zaid became the focus of public campaigns accusing him of apostasy due to his (scholarly) approaches to the Qurʾān, ultimately resulting in his being divorced from his wife and leaving Egypt. As shown by Thielmann (2003), Abu Zaid’s opponents did not, however, champion a status quo devoid of any innovation or global influence. Instead, their campaign against Abu Zaid deployed a number of previously marginalized Islamic concepts, such as the notion of the duty of the state to uphold the ḥisba (public order), in a creative and innovative way that was tuned into the juridical and media-​ related configurations of Egypt in the 1990s. As this example illustrates, it is crucial not to apply a static opposition of ‘conservative’ versus ‘progressive’ Islam to the study of contemporary contested negotiations of proper conduct and scholarly activity within Muslim societies. While the formal excommunication of Hamid Nasr Abu Zaid demonstrates the potential magnitude of conflict when negotiating proper hermeneutical techniques for engaging with the corpus of authoritative texts of Islam, this chapter presents a case study of successful accommodation. Notwithstanding the pervasive notion of prophetic gravitas as widely expected from the founder of a contemporary world religion, the bilingual English and Arabic edition of a collection of ḥadīths selected due to their depiction of Muḥammad as laughing/​smiling (ḍaḥika; examined in the next section) marks the success of the philological enterprise of (Āl) Mujāhid in securing his place in the contested configurations and discourses of contemporary Islamic learning.

The positionality of the author: Muḥammad ʿAlī ʿUthmān (Āl) Mujāhid

It is difficult to compile a ‘standard’ biography of Muḥammad ʿAlī ʿUthmān (Āl) Mujāhid. No information on his biography or education seems to exist online,5 which may indicate that the author of the compilation studied in the present contribution is not affiliated to any academic institution visible online. In addition, there is no personal website or evidence of the author’s engagement with other online media, such as videos posted online. Nonetheless, his activity in editing anthologies of ḥadīth, such as the one discussed in this contribution, is both original and firmly rooted in the normativities and practices of Arabic-​Islamic scholarly traditions. Accordingly, the following reconstruction of (Āl) Mujāhid’s positionality 49

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proceeds exclusively from the information contained in those of his publications that are accessible, including a brief indication of my own positionality and original interest in this fascinating contemporary Arabic-​ Islamic scholar. I first came across the Arabic–​English bilingual edition of the collection of ḥadīths depicting Muḥammad as laughing/​smiling while introducing students to the topography of booksellers in Cairo in 2016. Although my students were adequately impressed by the busy professionalism of the bookseller’s cabins in the market at the Azbakiyya; by the wealth of beautifully bound volumes offered by the Cairene dependency of the Beirut publisher Dār al-​Kutub al-​ʿIlmiyya; and by the profound erudition of the scholars engaging in the sale of historiographical and juridical texts in the Ḥārat Darb al-​Atrāk and around the great mosque of al-​Azhar, they were particularly intrigued by the selection of titles in European languages offered by the industrious bookstore and publisher Dār al-​Salām, situated beside the busy multi-​lane street of Shāriʿ al-​Azhar. Although this company has its main showroom and offices in the suburb of Naṣr City, its dependency on Shāriʿ al-​Azhar is increasingly recommended in Cairene bookstores for classical Arabic titles, attesting to the astonishingly wide range of texts offered in the showroom or brought from the non-​public storage upstairs. The Arabic–​English bilingual edition of (Āl) Mujāhid’s collection of ḥadīths printed in 2009 by the publisher Dār al-​ Manāra in al-​Manṣūra, Egypt, is typical of the non-​Arabic-​language books aimed at a non-​ specialist international audience that are sold at Dār al-​Salām. Ranging from complete Arabic–​English bilingual editions of authoritative Islamic texts, such as the Ṣaḥīḥ of al-​Bukhārī, to illustrated books introducing children to Islamic rituals, these texts are usually printed in Egypt and Saudi Arabia by publishers specializing in editions for an international Muslim audience. The seamless embeddedness of this genre of non-​Arabic, thematically focused introductions within Arabic-​Islamic scholarly traditions is also well illustrated by This Beloved [PBUH] Smiling ([Āl] Mujāhid, 2009), as many of the other non-​Arabic-​language titles are translations of texts originally written in Arabic. I have not succeeded in obtaining a copy of (Āl) Mujāhid’s original Arabic edition of ḥadīths depicting Muḥammad as laughing/​smiling, entitled Wa-​ ʿindaʾidhin Ḍaḥika l-R ​ asūl (Thus the Prophet Laughed). Within the preliminary bibliography of (Āl) Mujāhid that is established in the annex of this chapter, this title resonates with a number of thematic compilations of ḥadīths that are dedicated to the bodily expression of emotions by Muḥammad and his male and female companions. The titles that resonate most strongly with the Arabic title of This Beloved [PBUH] Smiling, translated above as ‘Thus the Prophet Laughed’ (number 8 in the preliminary bibliography of the author) are ‘Thus 50

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the Prophet, God Bless Him and Grant Him Peace!, Became Angry’ (17) and ‘Thus the Prophet, God Bless Him and Grant Him Peace!, Cried’ (19), as well as the two titles (20 and 21) that are dedicated to crying male and female companions of Muḥammad. Although this is not explicitly confirmed by (Āl) Mujāhid (2009), I suggest interpreting these compilations of ḥadīth dedicated to the bodily expression of emotions by Muḥammad and his companions as a series aimed at making the founder of Islam accessible to contemporary Muslims and prospective converts to Islam. This interpretation of This Beloved [PBUH] Smiling as part of a planned series of thematically arranged collections of ḥadīths resonates with the stated purpose of (Āl) Mujāhid as described in the preface to another of his works, entitled ‘Supplies Concerning Ḥadīths about Holy War’ (22). This book completes the series in which I have collected ḥadīths of him [Muḥammad], God bless him and grant him peace!, concerning a given topic [ḍimni ʿunwānini wāḥidin]. I began with ‘100 Ḥadīths that Form the Basis of Islam’ [4]‌) and continued with ḥadīths concerning Muḥammad’s taking refuge in the book ‘Things the Prophet of God, God Bless Him and Grant Him Peace!, Took Refuge from’ [11]. Now I present the third part of this series, entitled ‘Supplies Concerning Ḥadīths about Holy War’. ([Āl] Mujāhid, n.d.: 5)6 That the philological enterprise of (Āl) Mujāhid is consciously political is suggested in the second part of his introduction to ‘Supplies Concerning Ḥadīths about Holy War’. Here, he frames his scholarly endeavour as deeply rooted in the contested discourses of Islam and (Western) Modernity, and suggests that his role should be seen as immediately involved in global struggles of cultural hegemony. God, accept this work as pure in your venerable gaze and make it useful for my brothers and sisters! Give us victory over those who wish evil on Islam and the Muslims, taking care of them and destroying them. God, let no flag remain for them, so they may be a sign for those who come after them, oh Mighty and Strong. God, we slaughter them for you and take refuge with you from their evil deeds. The slave needful of God, the servant of the Qurʾān and the prophetic tradition, Muḥammad ʿAlī ʿUthmān Mujāhid. ([Āl] Mujāhid, n.d.: 5) In accordance with the topic of holy war (jihād), (Āl) Mujāhid subscribes to a drastic view of the contemporary world in the prayer that concludes his thematical compilation. As this passage supplies additional information regarding the (discursive) positionality and worldview of (Āl) Mujāhid 51

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that is not found in his other publications, I give a full translation in an endnote.7 Notwithstanding the somewhat disturbing imagery deployed in this passage, however, it is important to note that similar images and expressions constitute recurring stereotypes within the contemporary discourse of militantly Muslim rhetorics. Accordingly, this highly rhetorical passage needs to be understood as embedded within a particular discourse that does not necessarily reflect the specific personal motivation of the author or his audience. Instead, this passage should be understood as a discursive marker placing the author within a particular strand of contemporary Muslim piety. As, however, the author does not give any explicitly political motivation in the Arabic–​English bilingual edition of This Beloved [PBUH] Smiling, this chapter will now turn to an analysis of the epistemic and moral dimensions structuring the laughter of Muḥammad in these ḥadīths.

Epistemic and moral dimensions of the Prophet’s laughter This section provides an overview of the structure of the ḥadīths selected by (Āl) Mujāhid. To this end, the section proceeds inductively, building on approximative quantifications to indicate the relative frequency of the different epistemic and moral dimensions motivating Muḥammad’s laughter. This will later be supplemented with a discussion of the types of humour according to the typology suggested by the editors of the present volume. By contrast, the typology of laughter very briefly sketched by (Āl) Mujāhid (2009) in his preface will be discussed as part of the ‘triple framing’ of the Arabic–​English edition. (Āl) Mujāhid’s (2009) selection in This Beloved [PBUH] Smiling includes 68 ḥadīths, each of which depicts Muḥammad as laughing or smiling. Besides the Arabic stem I, ḍaḥika, to laugh, which occurs in the majority of the ḥadīths, two ḥadīths describe Muḥammad’s laughter with stem X, istaḍḥaka ([Āl] Mujāhid, 2009: 28 and 50).8 The other root used to describe Muḥammad’s laughter is basama, to smile, from which 14 ḥadīths feature stem V, tabassama (2009: 46, 51, 56, 77, 79, 120, 150, 154, 159, 160, 162, 176, 179, and 194). In two ḥadīths, tabassama and ḍaḥika are used as synonyms, as Muḥammad is depicted as smiling (mutabassiman) and is subsequently asked by his companions what made him laugh (mā aḍḥakaka) (2009: 120 and 162), while one ḥadīth explicitly uses tabassama as a variant of ḍaḥika (2009; ḥadīth 46). Significantly, (Āl) Mujāhid glosses over the lexical difference between these words, building on the (controversial) claim rooted in Arabic-​ Islamic lexicographic traditions that the word ḍaḥika acquires the special meaning of ‘to smile’ in the context of Muḥammad as the Prophet of Islam, notwithstanding the very physical difficulty of picturing a smile that exhibits 52

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the back teeth, which is explicitly attributed to Muḥammad according to this line of argument. Although the length of the ḥadīths varies, only ḥadīth numbers 19 and 63 in (Āl) Mujāhid’s collection feature Muḥammad laughing more than once (twice) (2009: 59, 63, and 181). Accordingly, (Āl) Mujāhid consistently follows the philological approach of Ammann (1991) and others, which avoids the risk of over-​interpreting humour by focusing exclusively on the bodily representation of emotions through laughter. Needless to say, the extent (or existence) of humour and humorous emotion motivating each instance of the Prophet’s laughter is open to debate. No explanation is given for the sequence according to which the ḥadīths are quoted. As far as I can see, the sequence was determined by none of the common principles ordering the arrangement of ḥadīths in thematic and general collections, such as by the topic, the collection of ḥadīths that is quoted, the name of the transmitter, or even the alphabetical order determined by the beginning of the ḥadīth. Neither do I see an overarching thematic structure that could explain the sequence of the ḥadīths. (Āl) Mujāhid lists 15 collections of ḥadīṭh as his sources (2009: 198–​199). By contrast, Wensinck’s Concordance (1992), which gives a complete index for nine of the most current collections of ḥadīth, lists many additional occurrences of the roots ḍaḥika (Wensinck, 1992, vol 3: 483–​486) and basama (Wensinck, 1992, vol 1: 180), to take just two of the possible roots that could depict Muḥammad as smiling or laughing. This demonstrates that in his selection, (Āl) Mujāhid indeed included only a few of the ḥadīths that present Muḥammad as laughing or smiling. An interesting sequence appears to underlie the deployment of ḥadīth numbers 40 and 41 in (Āl) Mujāhid’s (2009) collection, both of which depict ʿUthmān and ʿAlī, respectively, performing a ritual act, laughing, and then asking bystanders why they do not ask them why they laughed (ḍaḥika). When the bystanders dutifully enquire about their good humour, both explain that Muḥammad performed the same ritual act, including laughing afterwards and asking bystanders why they did not ask the reason for his laughter (2009: 116 and 118). This mirroring of Muḥammad’s explanation of his laughter in the explanation of their laughter during their replication of Muḥammad’s performative act arguably frames the audience of these ḥadīths as part of the story, as if we should be expected to similarly wonder why Muḥammad/​ʿUthmān/​ʿAlī had been laughing. This type of recursive framing, that is, emotionally involving the audience by encouraging us to see the events from the perspective of the followers of the authoritative figures within the plot, constitutes a recurring mode of narratively involving the audience in Arabic-​Islamic scholarly traditions.9 In this case, the sequence of ḥadīth numbers 40 and 41 likely mirror the historical sequence of ʿUthmān and ʿAlī as rulers over the early Islamic umma (community). 53

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The narrative structure of Muḥammad laughing and then asking his audience to ask him why he laughed occurs in ten of the ḥadīths selected by (Āl) Mujāhid (2009: 50, 82–​83, 108–​110, 113–​122, 162, and 181–​183). In all of these cases, Muḥammad explains his laughter by means of transcendental knowledge, which makes him aware of something which he then explains. Although the epistemic dimensions motivating the laughter of Muḥammad frequently intersect, as represented by (Āl) Mujāhid’s selection, this type of transcendental knowledge represents an epistemic dimension that arguably constitutes the main motivation of Muḥammad’s laughter in 21 of the 68 ḥadīths (2009: 20–​21, 28–​30, 35–​38, 50, 54–​58, 79–​81, 84, 95–​98, 103–​ 104, 108–​115, 120–​122, 127–​147, 181–​183, and 191–​193). A fairly typical example is the following: One day, the prophet of God, God bless him and grant him peace!, laughed. He was asked: ‘Prophet of God, what made you laugh?’ He replied: ‘People who will enter paradise in chains!’ [In a variant, this is explained:] These are people who were enslaved by those who left Mecca with Muḥammad [al-​muhājirūn], who forced them to convert to Islam. ([Āl] Mujāhid, 2009: 50)10 Besides this type of grotesque imagery, of which Muḥammad was aware due to transcendental knowledge, another epistemic dimension motivating the laughter of the Prophet can possibly be described as ‘benevolent forbearance’, as demonstrated by Muḥammad toward his companions. In these cases, Muḥammad reacts with laughter to the acts of his followers that are clearly seen as inappropriate or questionable. This epistemic dimension arguably motivates Muḥammad’s laughter in 33 of the 68 ḥadīths (2009: 24–​26, 33–​34, 39–​47, 51–​53, 59–​73, 77–​78, 85–​86, 90–​93, 95–​100, 105–​107, 122–​126, 152–​164, 166–​167, 170–​180, 184–​185, and 188–​197), where he is frequently confronted by the highly corporal misbehaviour of his followers. A good example of this is the following: Safīna said: The prophet of God, God bless him and grant him peace!, let some blood and said to me: ‘Take that blood and bury it so the wild animals, the birds, and the people cannot get it!’ I went away and drank it. When I mentioned this to him, he laughed. ([Āl] Mujāhid, 2009: 34) In other ḥadīths, Muḥammad smiles about an argument between his daughter Fāṭima and his cousin and son-​in-​law ʿAlī, who fight over which of them should be seen as loved best by Muḥammad ([Āl] Mujāhid, 2009: 51). In these instances, Muḥammad’s smiling should arguably be seen as a normative injunction to forgive the improper acts of Muslims, accepting that they acted foolishly out of love for Muḥammad. At the same time, 54

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Muḥammad’s reaction with laughter makes it very clear that this behaviour does in fact contradict proper normative behaviour and should in no way be seen as constituting a tradition worthy of emulation by later generations of Muslims. Instead, Muslims should follow Muḥammad’s example in clearly recognizing improper behaviour, while acting with forbearance if fellow Muslims misbehave due to commendable motivations. The normative injunction to behave with forbearance toward other Muslims according to the example of Muḥammad is more prominent in a third epistemic dimension of Muḥammad’s laughter, as represented in (Āl) Mujāhid’s (2009) selection of ḥadīths. This ‘normative’ or ‘exemplary’ dimension of Muḥammad’s laughter is particularly prominent in six of the ḥadīths (2009: 82–​83, 99, 116–​119, and 147), a good example being the following: ‘Jarīr b. ʿAbdallāh, may God be content with him!, said: The prophet of God, God bless him and grant him peace!, never sent me away since I converted to Islam, nor did he look at me without laughing’ ([Āl] Mujāhid, 2009: 94). As the laughter of Muḥammad in this story apparently signalled his approval of Jarīr, this ḥadīth demonstrates that the laughter of the Prophet of Islam could indeed be a sign of favour. As (Āl) Mujāhid (2009) does not frame our understanding of these ḥadīths, we are presumably expected to differentiate between cases where Muḥammad laughs to gloss over the blatant misbehaviour of his companions and cases where Muḥammad’s laughter is a sign of prophetic approval from the context given within the individual ḥadīths. Finally, 11 of the 68 ḥadīths selected by (Āl) Mujāhid (2009) represent Muḥammad laughing about the trickery and machinations of his companions (2009: 22–​23, 27, 31–​32, 48–​49, 74–​76, 87–​89, 148–​151, 165, 168–​169, and 186–​187). While this epistemic dimension of laughter displayed by Muḥammad arguably resonates best with a contemporary international audience, it is also the dimension presenting the largest potential challenge to the notion of prophetic gravitas, as Muḥammad’s laughter in these ḥadīṭhs could be interpreted as a condonement of the immoral acts performed in these stories. A good example is the following: [Abū Bakr went on a trading journey to Buṣrā with Nuʿaymān and Suwaybiṭ.] Because Suwaybiṭ was in charge of the provisions, Nuʿaymān came to him and said: ‘Give me something to eat!’ [Suwaybiṭ] replied: ‘No, we will wait for Abū Bakr!’ Nuʿaymān was, however, a man who liked to play tricks, so he swore revenge. Thus, he approached some people driving camels and asked: ‘Would you buy a slave [ghulāman] from me? He is Arab and lively, however he is a bit cheeky [dhū lisān] and likes to claim that he is a free man. [They accept and he points them to Suwaybiṭ.] Thus, they came to him 55

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[Suwaybiṭ], saying: ‘We have bought you.’ Suwaybiṭ replied: ‘He’s lying, I am a free man!’ They replied: ‘Yes, we have heard about your stories’, binding a rope to his neck and taking him away. [Abū Bakr comes back, returns the money and sets Suwaybiṭ free.] The prophet, God bless him and grant him peace!, laughed about this story together with his companions for a whole year [ḍaḥika … ḥawlan]. ([Āl] Mujāhid, 2009: 31) A similarly tricksterish behaviour that incited Muḥammad to laugh notwithstanding its contradiction of accepted Islamic regulations is presented in the following story of how his companion, ʿAdī b. Ḥātim, shortened the duration of the ritual fasting (ṣawm): ʿAdī b. Ḥātim, may God be content with him!, said: When the verse ‘Eat and drink until the twilight enables you to distinguish between a white and a black thread’ [Qurʾān 2:187] was revealed, I took a white and a black thread and held them under my pillow, so when I looked at them, I could not distinguish them from each other. When I mentioned this to the prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, he laughed. ([Āl] Mujāhid, 2009: 165) This story redeploys the prescription of ritual fasting, which is held to be mandatory during the month of Ramadan for the whole time that the sun’s light enables the distinction of a white from a black thread. Accordingly, ʿAdī b. Ḥātim’s placement of both threads in the darkness under his pillow represents a clear circumvention of the regulations, which implicitly assume that the threads should be compared under the sky, with open eyes by an individuum capable of vision, looking at the threads, and so on. In another ḥadīth, ʿAbdallāh b. Rawāḥa is caught by his wife while sleeping with his female slave. To convince her that he had not in fact been having intercourse, he refers to Muḥammad’s prohibition of reciting Qurʾānical verses while in a state of ritual impurity, and proceeds to compose some somewhat stilted verses congenially translated by Muḥammad M. ʿAbd al-​Fattāḥ as follows: ‘Allah’s Messenger came reciting his Book /​Like the shining light of dawn did he look /​He came with guidance so we are sure /​That what he says can never be unsure For prayers he would forsake sleep /​When polytheists would be asleep’ ([Āl] Mujāhid, 2009: 75–​76; cf. a translation of the same episode in Maghen, 2008: 337–​338). When the husband told Muḥammad on the following day that he had indeed been able to convince his wife that this doggerel was part of the Qurʾān and that he therefore could not possibly be in a state of ritual impurity, Muḥammad laughed (2009: 74). As ʿAbdallāh b. Rawāḥa is also mentioned to have extemporized poetry in other instances (see, for example, 56

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his biography in Ibn Saʿd [2012], vol. 3: 398–​401), this anecdote arguably has a didactic value in familiarizing the readers of (Āl) Mujāhid’s (2009) selection of ḥadīths with the characters of Muḥammad’s companions. In another ḥadīṭh, Muḥammad laughs because some of his companions are paid by non-​Muslim Arabs to recite the first sūra of the Qurʾān while pretending that it is a specific incantation for treating the bites of snakes and scorpions (2009: 48). This anecdote resonates with the recurring framing of non-​Muslim Arabs as dumb and superstitious, which underlies the designation of the pre-​Islamic period on the Arabian Peninsula as al-​jāhiliyya (period of ignorance). Due to the embeddedness of the ḥadīths selected by (Āl) Mujāhid (2009) within Arabic-​Islamic scholarly traditions, it is difficult (at least in the view of the present author) to conclusively ascertain the ‘order’ or ‘type’ of humour that may contribute to the bodily representation of laughter by Muḥammad in each of the ḥadīths. Indeed, I believe it would be difficult from a Muslim standpoint to conclusively argue that one and only one ‘type’ of humorous sentiment could motivate any of the instances in which Muḥammad is remembered to have laughed. Thus, the pranks of Muḥammad’s companions Nuʿaymān and ʿAbdallāh b. Rawāḥa translated previously certainly resonate with a type of humour that draws on situation comedy and character comedy. However, both Nuʿaymān and ʿAbdallāh b. Rawāḥa are counted among the companions of Muḥammad (ṣaḥāba), who are remembered as the main source of normativities within Muslim cultural memory. This arguably makes traditions about their engagement in pranksterish behaviour ambiguous, as it may be seen to cast doubt on the seriousness and veracity of ṣaḥāba as the main source of Islamic tradition. This in turn implies that the ‘order’ or ‘type’ of humour displayed in this ḥadīth implicitly goes far beyond situation comedy featuring non-​ṣaḥābī figures. Arguably, the attribution of pranksterish behaviour to Nuʿaymān and ʿAbdallāh b. Rawāḥa therefore may question the veracity and seriousness of Islamic traditions (as transmitted by the ṣaḥāba) to a degree that resonates with laughter at scriptures and articles of faith. This ambiguity should be seen as pervading the entirety of the thematic compilation of ḥadīths selected by (Āl) Mujāhid (2009). While the ḥadīths selected certainly present Muḥammad and his companions as accessible and relatable human beings, it also suggests that other emblematic and contested moments within Islamic cultural memory may be motivated by not entirely impersonal and serious concerns. This ambiguity should also be seen to motivate (Āl) Mujāhid’s (2009) consistent interpretation of the Arabic stem ḍaḥika, which commonly signifies laughter, as a ‘smile’ whenever this word refers to Muḥammad (as discussed later in this chapter). While this interpretation, which assigns a specific meaning to the word ḍaḥika when describing the agency of Muḥammad exclusively, is rooted in Arabic-​Islamic scholarly traditions (as pointed out by [Āl] Mujāhid, 2009), it in turn presents 57

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further difficulties when Muḥammad is described as laughing/​smiling until his molar teeth became visible. According to this strand of argument, it is fascinating that this potential ambiguity that pervades the ḥadīths selected by (Āl) Mujāhid (2009) arguably even extends beyond the undoubtedly human personalities of Muḥammad and his companions to God himself. Thus, Muḥammad is depicted as laughing about the tale of ‘the last man to enter paradise’, a tale that presents a compelling demonstration of the frailty of human agency when confronted with the divine agency of God, but which derives a considerable degree of its quality from the possibility that God himself may, indeed, have decided to use His infinite wisdom and omnipotence to mock an unfortunate human being. From ʿAbdallāh b. Masʿūd, may God be pleased with him!, from the prophet of God, God bless him and grant him peace, who said: The last man to enter paradise will barely make it over the bridge of al-​ Ṣīrāṭ. [Having passed, he will thank God profoundly.] Then, God will raise a tree for him. He will say: Lord, bring me to it, so that I may stand in its shade and drink its water! [God agrees under condition that he will not ask for anything else.] Then, God will raise another tree for him, which is better than the first. [The man asks to be admitted to its shade and God relents after reminding him of his promise not to ask for anything further than the first tree. This is repeated with a third tree, better than the first two, which stands directly at the gate of paradise.] The man will exclaim: Are you making fun of me [a-​tastahziʾa bī], even though you are the Lord of the worlds? God will reply: No, I do not make fun of you, although I certainly am capable of doing whatever I want. ([Āl] Mujāhid, 2009: 95–​96; cf. the systematic evaluation of God being described as laughing in Holtzman, 2010) Notwithstanding the didactic value and the transcultural accessibility of Muḥammad by means of this type of anecdote, these ḥadīths could arguably be seen as undermining the seriousness of Islam and its prophet to an audience that is not sufficiently familiar with the huge wealth of ḥadīth transmitted in Arabic-​Islamic scholarly discourses. Due to their agency in selecting, translating, and publishing this thematically focused selection of ḥadīṭhs, (Āl) Mujāhid, his translator, and the editor of Dār al-​Manāra take care to make it very clear that they do not intend to ridicule Muḥammad or Islam. While the strategic framing deployed in the prefaces and notes to the ḥadīths will form the subject of the next part of this article, it should already be noted that the different sources of the ḥadīths are diligently indicated throughout the Arabic–​English bilingual edition. In addition, the inclusion of a bibliography 58

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of a number of highly prestigious Arabic collections of ḥadīth as the ‘main sources’ ([Āl] Mujāhid, 2009: 198–​199), as well as a glossary of 38 Arabic terms arranged according to the Arabic alphabet (2009: 200–​205) and an Arabic–​Latin transliteration table (2009: 206–​207), should be interpreted together with the clean layout and good paper of the book as part of the strategic framing intended to dispel suspicion of undermining the standing of Muḥammad and Islam.

Three levels of framing: author, translator, and publisher As I have not obtained a copy of the Arabic original of This Beloved [PBUH] Smiling ([Āl] Mujāhid, 2009), the following analysis of the triple framing of the collected ḥadīths by means of prefaces by the author, the translator, and the manager of the publisher proceeds exclusively on the basis of the bilingual Arabic–​English edition, which contains the foreword of (Āl) Mujāhid in an English translation.11 This analysis will follow the three prefaces in the order author, translator, publisher, to illustrate the relational framing and reframing of Muḥammad’s laughter as contained in the ḥadīṭhs. Following the structural conventions of Arabic-​Islamic scholarly discourses, the ‘introduction’ by (Āl) Mujāhid (2009) begins with an invocation of God (basmala). In a display of scholarly erudition and stylistic brilliance, this basmala resonates with the content of his thematic collection of ḥadīth due to its praise of God with the words of the Qurʾān verse 53:43: ‘He is the One who makes laugh and cry’ (2009: 16). While this quote is very appropriate to the subject of this collection, it also represents the only instance in the Qurʾān that represents God as the One who causes laughter, demonstrating (Āl) Mujāhid’s knowledge of the Qurʾānic scripture. After this praise of God and the following more or less generic taṣliya (praise of Muḥammad) as ‘the one after whom there is no prophet’ ([Āl] Mujāhid, 2009: 16), (Āl) Mujāhid proceeds with a brief argument downplaying the bodily display of emotion shown by Muḥammad, suggesting that ‘most of his laughing was (like our normal) smiling’ (2009: 16; the source for this suggestion is supplemented in the preface by the translator, which will be discussed later). Furthermore, a normative injunction to earnestness is suggested by the quote of a ḥadīth advising ‘Do not laugh (too) much, for (too) much laughter (is apt to) deaden the heart’ (2009: 16). This call for moderation is explained with the claim that ‘Islam […] is a religion of moderation’ (2009: 17), before the status of laughter as one of the integral components of Islamic tradition is corroborated by the quotation of three ḥadīths designating ‘smiling’ as a charity, a testimony stating that Muḥammad ‘smiled’ more than anybody else the narrator had ever seen, and the statement of Ibn ʿUmar that while the early Islamic companions of Muḥammad used 59

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to laugh, ‘the faith in their hearts was bigger (i.e., superior) than mountains’ (2009: 17). In the following paragraph, (Āl) Mujāhid (2009) presents some ‘proprieties’ concerning the admissibility of laughter as indicated by Muḥammad. In this way, a ḥadīth forbidding laughter at ‘the passing of wind’ is quoted before (Āl) Mujāhid suggests that Muḥammad’s laughter relates to ‘situations in which (people would normally) laugh (or smile)’ (2009: 17–​18). Accordingly, the bodily manifestation of the humorous emotions of Muḥammad is deployed explicitly as contributing to the accessibility of the Prophet of Islam on the basis of a ‘human nature’ shared by Muḥammad and any other human being. Subsequently, (Āl) Mujāhid (2009) suggests the following typology of laughter depending on its context, implicitly suggesting that Muḥammad’s laughter should be interpreted as evoked by the same types of situations in which ‘anybody’ would laugh. Interestingly enough, there are various causes of laughing, including: (i) things that arouse wondering, (that is) things that people find strange and things which rarely happen; (ii) things that arouse joy and happiness; and (iii) things that arouse anger, and this kind of anger is normally so vigorous that it causes the person in question to laugh because of the thing which has stimulated that anger; this may also be accompanied by his feeling that he is able to defeat his opponent and that the latter is under his control. Such a person may moreover laugh when he manages to restrain his anger and turn away from the person who has enraged him. ([Āl] Mujāhid, 2009: 18) Building on this suggestion to understand the laughter of Muḥammad as represented in the ḥadīṭhs as being part of the human nature shared by the Prophet and his audience, (Āl) Mujāhid then invites his ‘dear readers’ to ‘enjoy the situations in which the Messenger of Allah (PBUH) smiled’ (2009: 18). His concluding prayer takes up the subject of the thematic collection of ḥadīths in asking God to ‘gather us together in “the home that will remain forever” (that is, the Hereafter), facing each other on thrones, laughing and full of joy in the Gardens of Delight (Paradise)’, before inviting his readers to petitionary prayers to God on his behalf and on behalf of all other Muslims (2009: 18–​19). In contrast to the explicit references to world politics made in (Āl) Mujāhid’s framing of his thematic collection of ḥadīths on jihad ([Āl] Mujāhid, n.d.: 5), the preface to this thematic collection of ḥadīths depicting Muḥammad as laughing ([Āl] Mujāhid, 2009) is not explicitly political and also does not explicitly refer to the seriality of (Āl) Mujāhid’s work. Instead, (Āl) Mujāhid displays his erudition and stylistic brilliance in the thematic fine-​tuning of his basmala and concluding prayer to the subject of this collection, suggesting that 60

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Muḥammad as the prophet of the ‘religion of moderation’ can be approached and understood by contemporary Muslims as a human being expressing his emotions ‘moderately’ by means of laughter and smiling. In his ‘translator’s note’ (2009: 12-​15), Muḥammad M. ʿAbd al-​Fattāḥ does not refer to the subject of this collection of ḥadīths in his introductory basmala and taṣliya, or in the concluding prayer. This ‘neutral’ framing of his personal involvement in the establishment of an Arabic–​English bilingual edition of the ḥadīths indicates that he sees his role as contributing to the propagation of ‘the path of guidance’ (2009: 12), making it ‘easy for as many Muslims as possible to benefit from it’ (2009: 15). Resonating with this ‘neutral’ framing of his own role, he echoes the customary enumeration of the interventions of the editor in Arabic scholarly editions, framing his agency as a ‘methodology’ followed in translating this book (2009: 12). The interventions enumerated include 1) the abridgement of the headings given to the ḥadīths by (Āl) Mujāhid, 2) the retainment of the Arabic original including any additions necessary for their interpretation, 3) the shortening and systematization of the chains of transmitters (isnāds) and the establishment of a bibliography of references where the full chain can be found, 4) the shortening of philological glosses by (Āl) Mujāhid made superfluous due to his English translation, 5) the proper understanding of ‘the Arabic word “ḍaḥika” as attributed to the Prophet (PBUH)’, as ‘the common denominator of this book’, as being ‘to smile’ rather than ‘to laugh’, indicating Ibn Ḥajar’s commentary on the Ṣaḥīḥ of al-​Bukhārī as the source of this interpretation, and 6) the retainment of some words in a transliterated Arabic form and their inclusion in a glossary at the end of the book, as well as the inclusion of a table of transliteration (2009: 12–​14). Finally, he indicates the source of his translation of Qurʾānic quotations (2009: 14). I would argue that ʿAbd al-​Fattāḥ’s scholarly habitus in enumerating his ‘technical’ interventions in the text represents a conscious strategy of suggesting a very restrictive view of his personal agency. Thus, he does not address the situatedness of, for example, points (1), the abridgement of the headings, and (5), the indication of the ‘proper’ understanding of the bodily manifestation of Muḥammad’s emotions, on quite distinct levels of textual intervention. While most of the annotations signed by him are indeed restricted to ‘technical’ details, such as the explanation of Arabic terms, he does once comment on ‘what brother Muḥammad, the author of this book, has mentioned here’ (2009: 45), and mentions another ḥadīth –​which depicts Muḥammad as laughing because an enemy is hit by an arrow, exposing his pudenda –​stating that Muḥammad’s laughter is due to the enemy being hit and not to the baring of his genitalia (2009: 185). ʿAbd al-​Fattāḥ does not indicate his motivation for translating this particular thematic collection of ḥadīths. Instead, he implicitly presents the topic of the laughter and emotions of the Prophet as similarly unproblematic 61

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as any other thematic focus that could guide the selection of ḥadīths. In this context it may be significant that he gives a clear indication of the intended readership for this Arabic–​English bilingual edition, which he describes as ‘English-​speaking readers –​especially the new converts among them’ (2009: 13). Accordingly, his framing suggests that the importance of introducing a global, English-​speaking audience to the authentic traditions of Muḥammad is paramount and effectively overshadows the subject of this anthology. The topic of this collection of ḥadīths is taken up in the ‘preface’ signed by Muḥammad ʿUthmān (distinct from Muḥammad ʿAlī ʿUthmān [Āl] Mujāhid) as ‘manager’ of the publishing house of Dār al-​Manāra. The titles on offer online suggest that Dār al-​Manāra specializes in Arabic–​English bilingual editions and English translations of Islamic treatises originally composed in Arabic. As far as I could see, the seven titles available online represent either bilingual editions or English translations of premodern Arabic treatises by Ibn Kathīr, al-​Tirmidhī, and Ibn Taymiyya, suggesting that the inclusion of (Āl) Mujāhid’s contemporary collection of ḥadīths depicting the laughter of Muḥammad should be seen as something of an experiment within the programme of this publisher (see Ibn Kathīr, 2000, 2002, n.d. a, n.d. b; Ibn Taymiyya, 2000; Ibn Kathīr et al, 2001; al-​Tirmidhī, 2003). ʿUthmān attunes his introductory basmala and taṣliya to the topic of (Āl) Mujāhid’s collection as follows: Praise be to Allah Who makes whom He wills laugh and makes whom He wills weep [see Qurʾān 53:43 translated earlier], and blessings and the peace of Allah be upon His Prophet Muḥammad whom He sent as a source of guidance to Muslims even through his smiles and tears, as well as upon his household, Companions, and whoever follows his guidance until the Day of Resurrection. ([Āl] Mujāhid, 2009: 10) Giving the ‘aim’ of the publication of the Arabic–​English bilingual edition as ‘smile with the Prophet’, ʿUthmān then explicitly suggests an emotionally involved reading of the ḥadīths contained in (Āl) Mujāhid’s collection. By reading the ḥadīths which include these situations, you, dear reader, can smile along with the Prophet (PBUH) and recall the feeling that made him (PBUH) smile in the situation in question, be it happiness, delight, wonder, astonishment, or any other feeling. We invite you to join us in this special and blessed journey with the smiles of our beloved Prophet (PBUH), for this is apt to benefit you in two ways: to learn from the prophetic guidance included in the mentioned ḥadīths and to smile with the Prophet (PBUH). ([Āl] Mujāhid, 2009: 10) 62

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Accordingly, the laughter of the Prophet displayed in (Āl) Mujāhid’s (2009) thematic collection of ḥadīths is framed as an emotional incentive, inviting the readers to follow the guidance (hudā) of Muḥammad as the Prophet of Islam. Implicitly, (Āl) Mujāhid’s thematic collection of ḥadīths displaying the laughter of Muḥammad is chosen for the bilingual Arabic–​English edition by Dār al-​Manāra due to its presumed resonance with an English-​ speaking ‘Western’ audience. The inclusion of this collection resonates well with the other English titles offered by Dār al-​Manāra, which also address presumed ‘global’ or ‘Western’ concerns, such as the position of women in Islam (Ibn Taymiyya, 2000) or ‘the’ Islamic view of Jesus (Ibn Kathīr, 2002). This line of argumentation suggests that traditions mentioning the laughter of Muḥammad represent a minor aspect within the wealth of Arabic-​ Islamic scholarly traditions, and that they were selected for publication in a bilingual edition due to their resonance with the ephemeral concerns of ‘Western’ readers.12 According to this argument, any notion distracting from Muḥammad’s prophetic gravitas generated by the ḥadīths compiled by (Āl) Mujāhid (2009) should be seen not as a blemish on Muḥammad, but as a reflection of the ‘shallowness’ of a non-​Muslim English-​speaking contemporary audience who initially fail to grasp the salvation offered by deeper engagement with this text. In light of the topic of the present volume, it appears significant that none of the three English prefaces uses the word ‘humour’. Instead, (Āl) Mujāhid, ʿAbd al-​Fattāḥ, and ʿUthmān focus exclusively on the permissibility and extent to which Muḥammad expressed his emotions by laughing. Accordingly, this philological precision of engaging only with those ḥadīths in which Muḥammad is explicitly depicted as laughing emerges as a consistent strategy that avoids the possible contestation of an unambiguous projection of humorous or comical motivations onto Muḥammad. Instead, the audience of this compilation is free to empathize with Muḥammad due to the ‘general human nature’ shared by contemporary readers and the founder of Islam, thereby retaining the wealth of possible interpretations and motivations (including humour) that drive the anecdotes selected in this thematical compilation of ḥadīths.

Conclusion: Competing normativities in a globalized world The Arabic–​English bilingual edition of the thematic collection of ḥadīths depicting Muḥammad’s laughter indicates the economic and scholarly success of (Āl) Mujāhid’s endeavour to secure his status within the contested discursive tradition of contemporary Islam. At the same time, his agency should be seen as linked to an explicitly political agenda propagating a particular view and interpretation of Muslim traditions through his 63

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appropriation of the material included in his thematic compilation of ḥadīths, which may be affiliated to government-​linked sponsorship originating from Saudi Arabia. As the compiler of this collection, (Āl) Mujāhid (2009) operates within a serial framework of thematic collections of ḥadīth. By contrast, both the translator and the editor of the Arabic–​English bilingual edition imply that their selection of this particular compilation is aimed exclusively at introducing non-​Arabic-​reading (potential) converts to Islam to the authoritative texts of Islamic cultural memory. In an elegant shifting of the argumentative burden, their prefaces imply that the responsibility for the existence of this thematic collection of ḥadīths falls on the buyers of the book, whose interest in the bodily representation of Muḥammad’s emotions can be used as a device to introduce a non-​Arab global audience to the authoritative texts of Islam. True to the philological methodology of the selection, none of the prefaces engages with humour as an analytical category. This is likely due to an awareness of the problematic subjectivity inherent in unambiguously attributing particular emotions to Muḥammad. Besides these legitimizing strategies deployed in the three prefaces of the book, the didactic genre of a bilingual edition or chrestomathy does resonate with the dominant epistemological paradigms of contemporary Muslim discourses, as suggested by Seesemann (2018). While the sanad would indeed be rather dependent on the (likely somewhat limited) personal scholarly prestige of (Āl) Mujāhid (2009) and the editor, this thematic collection of ḥadīths resonates strongly with the epistemological paradigm of dalīl (scriptural evidence), as the anecdotes selected all come from the most authoritative collections of prophetic utterances. Furthermore, the prefaces argue strongly for the validity of the maqāṣid (aim and objective) motivating this collection, suggesting that while the risk of lessening the prophetic gravitas of Muḥammad can be limited by proper framing, this particular topic can be used to introduce (potential) converts from a global and English-​speaking audience to Islam and its authoritative scriptures. Appendix: A preliminary bibliography of Muḥammad ʿAlī ʿUthmān (Āl) Mujāhid The following Arabic titles by Muḥammad ʿAlī ʿUthmān (Āl) Mujāhid are listed on the last page of (Āl) Mujāhid (2010) and in the online catalogue of the King Fahad (Fahd) National Library (available from: http://​ecat.kfnl. gov.sa:88/​hipm​ain/​ [accessed 4 June 2020]). The order follows (Āl) Mujāhid (2010), and the years of the various editions are given according to the online catalogue, (Āl) Mujāhid (2009), and (Āl) Mujāhid (n.d.). Overall, the dates of the publications range from 2001 to 2019, and the multiple editions of some titles attest to the economic success of his work:

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1. Miʾat Daʿwa Mujāba mina l-​Duʿāʾ al-​mustajāb (100 Prayers that Will be Answered for Those Who Pray in Earnest) (2000, 2005) 2. Hāʾulāʾ maʿa l-​ʿIshra al-​Mubashsharīn bi-​l-​Janna (These Belong to Those to Whom the Paradise Has Been Promised) (2001) 3. Hāʾulāʾ Daʿā lahum al-​Rasūl, Ṣallā Llāhu ʿalayhi wa-​Sallam (These Are Those for Whom the Prophet, God Bless Him and Grant Him Peace!, Has Prayed) (2001, 2010) 4. Miʾat Ḥadīth ʿalayhā Madār al-​Islām (100 Ḥadīths that Form the Pivot of Islam) (2001) 5. Kayfa Budiʾa l-​Khalq? (How Did the Creation Begin?) (2001) 6. Mafātiḥ al-​Baraka fī l-​Rizq (Keys of Blessing in Daily Sustenance) (2001) 7. Khiṣāl al-​Aṣḥāb (The Characters of the Companions [Of Muḥammad]) (2001, twice) 8. Wa-​ʿindaʾidhin Ḍaḥika l-​Rasūl, Ṣallā Llāhu ʿalayhi wa-​Sallam (Thus the Prophet, God Bless Him and Grant Him Peace!, Laughed) (2002; Arabic–​English bilingual editions: 2006 and 2009) 9. Miʾat Mawqif maʿa l-​Yahūd wa-​l-​Naṣārā (100 Positions Regarding Jews and Christians) (2002) 10. Hāʾulāʾ mina l-​Shuhadāʾ (These Belong to the Martyrs) (2002) 11. Mimmā Taʿawwadha Rasūl Allāh, Ṣallā Llāhu ʿalayhi wa-​Sallam (Things the Prophet of God, God Bless Him and Grant Him Peace!, Took Refuge From) (2002) 12. (Mafātiḥ al-​Maghfira): Mukaffirāt wa-​Dawāʾ al-​ Dhunūb ([Catalogue only: Keys of Mercy:] Atonement and Healing for the Sins) (2003) 13. Min Ajmal al-​Dhikr wa-​l-​Duʿāʾ (Some of The Most Beautiful Meditations and Prayers) (2002) 14. Fī Hāʾulāʾ Nazala Waḥy al-​Samāʾ (About These, Qurʾānic Revelations Have Been Revealed) (2005) 15. Min Ajmal al-​Waṣāyā (Some of The Best of Testaments) (2005) 16. Nisāʾ ḥawla l-​Rasūl, Ṣallā Llāhu ʿalayhi wa-​Sallam (Women Around the Prophet of God, God Bless Him and Grant Him Peace!) (n.d.) 17. Wa-​ʿindaʾidhin Ghadiba l-​Rasūl, Ṣallā Llāhu ʿalayhi wa-​Sallam (Thus the Prophet, God Bless Him and Grant Him Peace!, Became Angry) (2007, 2008, 2019) In addition to those titles listed in (Āl) Mujāhid (2010), the online catalogue of the King Fahad (Fahd) National Library also lists the following titles: 18. Nisāʾ ḥawla l-​Anbiyāʾ (Women Around the Prophets) (2005) 19. Wa-​ʿindaʾidhin Bakā l-​Rasūl, Ṣallā Llāhu ʿalayhi wa-​Sallam (Thus the Prophet, God Bless Him and Grant Him Peace!, Cried) (2005) 20. ʿIndamā Bakā Ṣaḥābī (Thus a Companion [Of Muḥammad] Cried) (2007, 2008, 2009) 65

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21. ʿIndamā Bakat Ṣaḥābiyya (Thus a Female Companion [of Muḥammad] Cried) (2007, 2008, 2011, 2019) Finally, the following title is mentioned in an undated PDF ([Āl] Mujāhid n.d.). 22. Al-​Zād fī Aḥādīth al-​Jihād (Supplies Concerning Ḥadīths about Holy War) (n.d.) Notes 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

The terms ‘author’ and ‘authorship’ are used in this contribution as a shorthand indication of the multiple acts of compilation, redaction, and editorship characteristic for Muslim scholars working within the scholarly traditions of Islam. To be sure, this very succinct assessment should be qualified in light of the pervasive engagement of Arabic–​Islamic scholars and traditionaries with humour and its categorization, which is embedded in various genres such as adab (biographical anecdotes conveying normative values), tafsīr (Qurʾānic commentary), or lexicography. Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-​Ṭabarī is widely remembered as one of the most prestigious and influential premodern Muslim scholars. The frequently traumatic and destructive outcome of colonialist modernization is discussed by influential thinkers, such as Fanon, 1979, 1982, 2011, as well as Āl-​i Aḥmad, 1387/​ 2008. For the general framing of modernity as a social technology and infrastructure, see Weber, 1976. As pointed out by one of the anonymous reviewers of this chapter, Muḥammad ʿAlī ʿUthmān (Āl) Mujāhid is listed as a contributor on various online outlets such as Shabakat al-​Alūka (alukah.net), Ṣayd al-​Fawāʾiḍ (saaid.net), Shabakat al-​Wuthqā (wuthqa.net), and others, which may possibly be linked to ‘Wahhābī’ financing operations connected to Saudi Arabia. This resonates strongly with the printing of a number of works of Muḥammad ʿAlī ʿUthmān (Āl) Mujāhid with the publisher affiliated to the investment corporation al-​ʿUbaykān, which is one of the main printing outlets of the Saudi government. I thank the anonymous reviewer for underlining the importance of the online outlets, as well as the affiliation with al-​ʿUbaykān, to the positionality of the author. For further background on the Wahhābī movement and networks, see note 18 in Chapter 4. Where not indicated otherwise, all translations of text from (Āl) Mujāhid (n.d.) are by the author of the present chapter. ‘[This book] has been completed with the help of God. God, make it useful my brothers and sisters among the Muslims, accepting it from me, oh most Merciful of the merciful!, including it among the weight of my good deeds on the day I will meet You, the day when no translator [tarjumān] will stand between the servant and his Lord. God, give victory to Islam and the Muslims everywhere, in Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Chechnya, as well as around Jerusalem. God, give victory to Islam and the Muslims against the brothers of monkeys and pigs [ikhwān al-​qirada wa-​l-​khanāzīr]. God, give us victory, God, against the Jews and their supporters, liberating the Masjid al-​Aqṣā from the claws of the Jews [min barāthin al-​yahūd], granting us, oh God, to pray in it before our death. God bless our beloved master, our model and Prophet Muḥammad together with his family and his companions and grant them eternal and abundant peace’ (Āl) Mujāhid, n.d.: 118). The literal meaning of the Arabic stem X istaḍḥaka, to make laugh (transitively), does not quite fit either of these instances; accordingly, it should either be read in the passive genus verbi as ustuḍḥika, he was made to laugh, or interpreted as synonymous with stem I ḍaḥika, to laugh. 66

Laughter in the Discursive Tradition? 9

10

11

12

See Leube (forthcoming) for an investigation of this narrative structure in anecdotes localized within ʿAlī’s march to Ṣiffīn in early and classical Arabic-​Islamic historiography. Where not indicated otherwise, the author of the present chapter translates the Arabic text of (Āl) Mujāhid (2009), instead of quoting the English translations by Muḥammad M. ʿAbd al-​Fattāḥ. I quote the preface of Muḥammad ʿAlī ʿUthmān (Āl) Mujāhid (2009) according to the English translation made by Muḥammad M. ʿAbd al-​Fattāḥ. Additions in rounded brackets are additions by the translator that stand between rounded brackets in the English version of the preface. It should be noted that negotiations of normativities pertaining to laughter and the bodily display of emotions constitute an integral component of traditions and discourses of adab that predate modern globalization by several centuries. Nonetheless, I argue that the stated and implied strategic mission of the publisher Dār al-​Manāra should be interpreted within the configurations of the production of books for a globalized and contemporary audience.

References Abu Zaid, N.Ḥ. (1999) Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid: Ein Leben mit dem Islam, ed N. Kermani; trans C. Magdi, Freiburg: Herder. Āl-​i Aḥmad, J. (1387/​2008) Gharbzadagī, Tehran: Intishārāt-​i Jāmadarān. Altabari, M. (2015) When God and Muhammad Laugh: A Collection of Jokes and Funny Stories of Prophet Muhammad and His Companions, trans M. Altabari, Pakistan: Al Mizan Foundation. Althusser, L. (2011) Sur la Reproduction, Paris: Puf. al-​Tirmidhī (2003) The Characteristics of Prophet Muḥammad, ed S. Cook; trans B. al-​D. I. A. Shalabī, al-​Manṣūra: Dār al-​Manāra. Ammann, L. (1991) Vorbild und Vernunft: Die Regelung von Lachen und Scherzen im mittelalterlichen Islam, Hildesheim: Olms. Asad, T. (1986) The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam, Washington DC: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University. Eagleton, T. (2019) Humour, New Haven: Yale University Press. Efimova, O.B. (2017) ‘Osnovnye napravleniâ i problemy gelologičeskih issledovanij v Islamovedenii’, Islamovedenie 8(3): 71–​81. Fanon, F. (1979) Les Damnés de la Terre, Paris: Maspero. Fanon, F. (1982) Peau Noire Masques Blancs, Paris: Éditions du Seuil. Fanon, F. (2011) L’an V de la Révolution Algérienne, Paris: La Découverte/​ Poche. Foucault, M. (1969) L’Archéologie du Savoir, Paris: Gallimard. Foucault, M. (1993) ‘About the beginning of the hermeneutics of the self: Two lectures at Dartmouth’, Political Theory 21(2): 198–​227. Friedman, H.H. (2000) ‘Humor in the Hebrew Bible’, Humor 13(3): 257–​285.

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Holtzman, L. (2010) ‘Does God really laugh?’–​appropriate and inappropriate descriptions of God in Islamic traditionalist theology’, in A. Classen (ed) Laughter in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, Berlin: De Gruyter, pp 165–​200. Ibn Kathīr (2000) The Battles of the Prophet, trans W. ʿA. al-​M. Shihāb, al-​ Manṣūra: Dār al-​Manāra. Ibn Kathīr (2001) Portraits from the Life of Prophet Muḥammad, ed N. K. al-​ D. Abū l-​Yazīd; trans T. A. l-​S. Muḥammad, al-​Manṣūra: Dār al-​Manāra. Ibn Kathīr (2002) The Islamic View of Jesus, ed N. K. al-​D. Abū l-​Yazīd; trans T. A l-​S. Muḥammad, al-​Manṣūra: Dār al-​Manāra. Ibn Kathīr (n.d. a) Stories of the Qurʾān, trans al-​Sayyid al-​Halawānī, al-​ Manṣūra: Dār al-​Manāra. Ibn Kathīr (n.d. b) The Miracles of the Prophet, ed S. Cook; trans N. Uways, al-​Manṣūra: Dār al-​Manāra. Ibn Saʿd (2012) Ṭabaqāt: Al-​Ṭabaqāt al-​Kubrā, ed M.ʿA. al-​Q. ʿAṭā, Beirut: Dār al-​Kutub al-​ʿIlmiyya. Ibn Taymiyya (2000) Fatwas of Muslim Women, trans S. Gad, al-​Manṣūra: Dār al-​Manāra. Leube, G. (forthcoming) ‘Gnosis on the Via Dolorosa? Epistemologies of hidden meaning in early and classical Arabic-​Islamic accounts of ʿAlī’s march to Ṣiffīn’, Journal of Late Antiquity. Maghen, Z. (2008) ‘The merry men of Medina: Comedy and humanity in the early days of Islam’, Der Islam 83: 277–​340. Marzolph, U. (1992) Arabia Ridens: Die humoristische Kurzprosa der frühen adab-​Literatur im internationalen Traditionsgeflecht, Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. Marzolph, U. (2011) ‘The Muslim sense of humour’, in H. Geybels and W. van Herck (eds) Humour and Religion: Challenges and Ambiguities, London: Continuum, pp 169–​187. Mir, M. (1991) ‘Humor in the Qurʾān’, The Muslim World 81(3–​4): 179–​193. Mir, M. (2000) ‘Irony in the Qurʾān: A study of the story of Joseph’, in I.J. Boullata (ed) Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Qurʾān, Richmond: Curzon, pp 173–​187. Morreall, J. (2001) ‘Sarcasm, irony, wordplay, and humor in the Hebrew Bible: A response to Hershey Friedman’, Humor 14(3): 293–​301. (Āl) Mujāhid, M.ʿA.ʿU. (2006/​2009) This Beloved [PBUH] Smiling (2nd edn), ed Y. R. Shakeir; trans M. M. ʿAbd al-​Fattāḥ, al-​Manṣūra: Dār al-​Manāra. (Āl) Mujāhid, M.ʿA.ʿU. (2010) Hāʾulāhi daʿā lahum al-​rasūl, ṣalā llāhu ʿalayhi wa-​sallam, Beirut and Cairo: Muʾassasat al-​Rayyān and Maktabat ʿIbād al-​Raḥmān. (Āl) Mujāhid, M. ʿA. ʿU. (n.d.) Al-​Zād fī aḥādīth al-​jihād, [online] Available from: https://​k-​tb.com/​book/​hade​eth5​695 [Accessed 4 June 2020]. Rosenthal, F. (1956) Humor in Early Islam, Leiden: Brill. 68

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Schrode, P. (2008) ‘The dynamics of orthodoxy and heterodoxy in Uyghur religious practice’, Die Welt des Islams, 48: 394–​433. Seesemann, R. (2018) ‘Epistemology or ideology? Toward a relational perspective on Islamic knowledge in Africa’, Journal of Africana Religions, 6(2): 232–​268. Tamer, G. (2009a) ‘The Qurʾān and humor’, in G. Tamer (ed) Humor in der Arabischen Kultur, Berlin: De Gruyter, pp 3–​28. Tamer, G. (ed) (2009b) Humor in der Arabischen Kultur, Berlin: De Gruyter. Thielmann, J. (2003) Naṣr Ḥāmid Abū Zaid und die wiedererfundene ḥisba: Šarīʿa und Qānūn im heutigen Ägypten, Würzburg: Ergon. Verter, B. (2003) ‘Spiritual capital: Theorizing religion with Bourdieu against Bourdieu’, Sociological Theory, 21(2): 150–​174. Weber, E. (1976) Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870–​1914, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Wensinck, A.J. (1992) Concordance et indices de la tradition musulmane, Leiden: Brill.

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3

Humour in Islamic Literature and Muslim Practices: Virtue or Vice? Walid Ghali

Introduction If humour is a universal human attribute, then why is there no apparent consensus among Muslims about the permissibility of humour? The Qur’an confirms that it is God who gifted humankind with the ability to laugh. ‘It is He who makes [one] laugh and weep, and it is He who causes death and brings life’ (53:43). The most straightforward interpretation of this verse is that laughing is a gift from God to humankind, and ‘[it] is in the context of God’s primordial and eschatological roles of creator and terminator that God is credited with causing humankind to laugh and to weep’ (Amin, 2021: 26). Nowhere in the Qur’an is laughter directly condemned. It was reported in one famous hadith that Prophet Muḥammad joked and laughed with his companions and encouraged them to do so, as long as they do not lie. When some of his companions said, ‘O Prophet Muḥammad, yet, you also joke with us!’ He replied: ‘Yes, I do. But I only tell the truth’ (al-​Tirmidhī, n.d.: 357). Moreover, the Prophet not only laughed, but also jested and played practical jokes on his family members and companions. Among the many jokes recorded in the hadith tradition is one in which the Prophet informed an elderly woman that there will be no old women in paradise. She was naturally agitated by this and started to weep piteously. Then the Prophet quoted the Qur’anic verse (56:35) which states that all the women in paradise will be virgins (and hence young), and, her sadness evaporated. Moreover, there is a vast collection of books of anecdotes and jokes belonging to the humour genre, generating laughter and amusement, yet also 70

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with an educational component. This collection is obvious evidence that humour, in Arabic literature, has a long-​standing tradition. Thinkers and scholars produced many works in this genre, such as al-​Jāḥiẓ’s (c.776–​868/​ 869) al-​Bukhalā’ (Book of Miseries); Abū Ḥayyān al-​Tawḥīdī’s (c.923–​1023) Kitāb al-​imtāʻ wa-​al-​muʼānasah (Book of Enjoyment and Bonhomie); Abū Isḥāq al-​Ḥuṣrī’s (1022) Jamʿ al-​jawāhir fi al-​mulaḥ wa al-​nawādir (Collection of Jewels from Jokes and Anecdotes); Ibn al-​Jawzī’s (c.1116–​1201) Akhbār al-​ḥamqā wa al-​mughaffalīn (Reports on the Fools and the Foolish); and the famous work of al-​Ibshīhī (c.1338–​1448), al-​mustaṭraf fī kull fann mustaẓraf (A Quest for Attainment in Each Fine Art), to name a few. These examples and the vast corpus of anecdotal collections show no condemnation of humour per se in Islam. Yet, its effect on individuals and the social impact of joking is right in the centre of the regulation of humour, which must have gone through several stages, as is discussed hereafter. This chapter attempts to answer how humour came to be potentially regarded as a vice, despite all of the evidence of its acceptance from the Qur’an and the hadith corpus. The different definitions of humour and the references to it from the Qur’an and hadiths will be documented. Following on from that, the focus will shift to answering how and why humour was regulated, and the essential legal terminologies related to this matter. As has always been the case, Sufis and Islamic jurists were members of the same circle in the first four centuries of Islam; therefore, the views of Sufis are also examined. Al-​Ghazālī (c.1058–​1111) is known to be both a Sufi and a jurist. Using his reflections on joking and laughter clarifies how humour was regulated and censored, which could inform our understanding of how humour changed from being a virtue to being understood as more of a vice.

The definitions of humour1 As laughter is closely linked to humour and regarded as its manifestation in either sound and/​or facial expressions, usually suggestive of happiness, a look at the word laughter in the heritage sources shows that scholars were also interested in explaining and classifying it. At least in three different dictionaries, namely Tāj al-​‘Arūs (The Bride’s Crown), al-​Ṣaḥḥaḥ (The Crown of Language and the Correct Arabic), and al-​Mu’jam al-​Wasīt (Intermediate Dictionary), the words mizāḥ or muzāḥ (joking) are defined as being antonyms of jidd (seriousness). Abū Ghudda (1917–​1997) gives a list of words associated with humour, like muzāḥ, mudāʿaba (pleasant banter), duʿāba (prank), inbisāṭ (enjoyment), daḥik (laughter), ṭurfa (anecdote), fukāha (jesting), maraḥ (fun), hazl (jocularity) and mulāʿaba (playfulness). In the introductory section of his book al-​Muzāḥ fī-​l-​Islām (Joking in Islam), he provides the legal, technical definition of each term and explains the 71

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linguistic differences between them (Abū Ghudda, 2006: 15–​24). For example, muzāḥ denotes being at ease with others to lighten up the atmosphere and achieve enjoyment, without causing any harm (Abū Ghudda, 2006: 13). Writing about inbisāṭ (happiness), he gives the example that al-​Bukhārī (c.256–​870), the famous hadith scholar, used the same word to title his chapters about humour and laughter, ‘Bāb al-​Inbisāt ilā al-​Nās’, which jurists used as a vehicle to legalize humour (Abū Ghudda, 2006: 16). The Arabic ter minology of humorous literature is admittedly vague: nādira denotes a short, witty, subtle, and amusing anecdote; laṭīfa a pointed anecdote; mullḥa a pleasant, witty anecdote; fukāha a funny, humorous anecdote or joke; and muḍḥika a joke or anecdote making somebody laugh (Meisami and Starkey, 1998: 293). Al-​Thaʻālibī (c.429–​ 1038) was a prolific writer and linguist to whom author and historian Khalīl b. Aybak al-​Ṣafadī (c.764–​1363) attributes 86 works, including several works that touch upon humour and include nawādir (witty anecdotes), miscellaneous information, and collections of proverbial expressions for edification and education. One significant feature of al-​Thaʿālibī’s dictionary is that he adds Qur’anic verses and prophetic traditions, as well as proverbs, poetry, and witty anecdotes, to the definition of each term, making it more of a literary encyclopaedia (Amin, 2021). In his famous work, fiqh al-​Lugha (Arabic Philology), al-​Thaʻālibī devotes a whole section to the classification of laughter and its different types, ranging from smiling to trying to suppress laughter to chuckles, chortles, giggles, and cackles to roaring laughter and falling about laughing. Al-​ Thaʻālibī adds, the word laughter in its various forms derives from the root ḍ-​ḥ-​k and occurs ten times in the Qur’an,2 where once it conveys harmless amusement3 and twice it denotes joy.4 The remaining verses use laughter to denote mockery (Al-​Thaʻālibī, 1885: 128). I conclude this section with a western definition of humour. Jakob Jónsson defines humour as ‘comical sayings and events, expressions and situations that might provoke a smile or laughter’ (1985: 7). Mir (1991) argues that the definition is practical and simple because the word comical suggests playfulness and amusement. He adds that ‘while Jónsson’s definition does not point to what many would call the most essential ingredient of humour –​ geniality or kindliness –​the words “playfulness” and “amusement” already hint at it’ (Mir, 1991: 182). This section has attempted to provide a brief overview of different definitions of humour and the complexities connected to them such as the lack of consensus. The next section, however, aims to identify a few examples of humour in the Qur’an and hadith, and in Sufi traditions, before discussing how Islamic jurists used these examples to regulate humour in the section to follow. 72

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Humour in the Qur’an and hadith Given the place of the Qur’an in Islam and in the daily lives of Muslims, many scholarly attempts were made to study and even to reveal humour in the Qur’an. Most, if not all, studies of humour and its relation to Islam mention examples from the Qur’an to show its permissibility. Tamer (2009) argues that the Qur’an includes instances of humour, especially as a ridiculing element against disbelievers. One example is the Qur’anic account of Prophet Ibrāhīm’s (Abraham’s) statement about idols and his derision of the idol-​ worshippers (about what they choose to worship), as well as his ironically making the largest idol accountable for Ibrāhīm’s destruction of the other idols (Tamer, 2009: 8–​21).5 But ridicule is a contested rhetorical strategy in the Qur’an. In Chapter 1 of this book, Mostafa Abedinifard argues that the peculiar Qur’anic emphasis on condemning ridicule concerns the dynamics of ridicule as an informal social control strategy, especially in Mecca, vis-​à-​vis the nascent community of believers. He provides numerous Qur’anic verses, also supported by external source materials, indicating that Prophet Muḥammad, the Qur’an, and the believers depicted in them were, during the early years of the development of the community of Muslim believers, subject to systemic mockery and ridicule.6 As mentioned in the previous section, words from the root ḍ-​ḥ-​k occur many times in the Qur’an and address different people on different occasions. For example, much has been written about Sarah’s laugh, with her laughter being attributed to joy at the visit of angels and astonishment at being given news about a son, while at other times her laughter has been denied and the word fa-​ḍaḥikat (she laughed) explained away as another word for menstruation (Qur’an 11:71). Other verses such as 23:110,7 43:47,8 and 83:299 depict the disbelievers laughing at the believers for believing and having faith, while verses 80:3910 and 83:3411 show the believers being vindicated and laughing in heaven at the disbelievers (Amin, 2021). While the instances of laughter that have been mentioned are not explicitly humorous, Tamer (2009) concludes in his study that the Qur’an is compatible with humour in some cases, but only insofar as when humour does not entail ‘sin’: ‘[T]‌he Qur’ān does not condemn joyful life as such, but specifically that which is related to sin’ (Tamer 2009: 9). In the Qur’an, istihzāʾ (mockery) and sukhriya (derision) are often associated with laughter. Al-​Ghazālī defines the two acts as ‘[d]isdain, disparagement and alluding to one another’s shortcomings in order to make people laugh either by mimicking action or saying. However, if this happens in the absence of the mocked person it will be called Ghayba [backbiting]’ (al-​Ghazālī, 2004, 3:176). Engaging in one or both of these acts or forms of speech is regarded 73

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as a major sin and is prohibited because it entails psychological harm. This is clearly stated in Qur’an: O you who believe! Let not one people deride another; it may be that they are better than them. Nor let women deride other women; it may be that they are better than them. And do not defame yourselves or insult one another with nicknames; how evil is the iniquitous name after having believed! And whosoever does not repent, they are the wrongdoers. (Qur’an 49:11) The negative impact of mockery on the individual and by extension on society as a whole are at the centre of the prohibition of these two acts and the laughter attached to them. Many prophetic reports warn against ridiculing and mocking others and counsel that mutual respect should be the principle governing believers’ lives (Ibn ‘Uthaymīn, 1995: v. 2:260). However, it was said that the Prophet endorsed the practice of composing hijā (invective poetry) to target ‘idolaters’ or in defence of the new religion of Islam (van Gelder, 1989; Sprachman, 2012: xxvii). I conclude this section with Rosenthal (1956) speaking of humour in the prophetic tradition. He writes that the otherworldliness of Islam did little to stop the actual enjoyment and literary appreciation of humour. With all his seriousness and the foreboding of impending doom, the Prophet Muhammad himself possessed much cheerful humanity, and his followers through the centuries have always preserved a good-​natured love of jokes and pranks. (Rosenthal, 1956: 8)

Sufi uses of humour This section examines the relationship between Sufism and humour. As the mystical dimension of Islam, Sufism and Sufis play a pivotal role in Muslims’ lives. Before Sufism took shape in the eighth century, zuhd (ascetism) was a form of Islamic piety attributed to those who renounce worldly pleasure and choose isolation. While zuhhād (ascetics) were often critical of laughter, Sufis are known to have laughed and used humour as a vehicle for their teachings. Sufis’ relationship to humour can be described as twofold: the first instance is when Sufis or saints are subjects of jokes; the second is when they crack jokes themselves, perhaps as an educational tool. There have been several studies explaining Sufi humour. For instance, Ulrich Marzolph has written several articles about Mullah Nasruddin or Nasreddin Hoca,12 as well as the way in which jokes translate between various Muslim cultures (specifically, Arab, Persian, and Turkish).13 Frager and Fadiman (1998) further argue that Sufi humour juxtaposes two views of life: the conventionally acceptable way 74

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and the one that the authors describe as the ‘out on the side sometimes upside-​down way’, which is the jocular side. The authors present examples of Sufi teaching through humour (Frager and Fadiman, 1998: 161). Tamer argues that ‘a large number of medieval Arabic jokes and anecdotes contain specific Islamic subjects. A favourite theme is the flippant way naïve Bedouins deal with Islamic rites, like prayer and fasting. Another group includes funny stories about people who pretend to be prophets and how they parody Qur’anic statements or refer to Islamic teachings jokingly in order to escape jeopardy. Other jokes contain satires on religious figures like the jurists and Sufis’ (Tamer, 2009: 5). One such example is attributed to a false prophet emerging during the reign of the seventh Abbasid caliph al-​Maʾmūn (d.218/​833). Al-​Maʾmūn asked if the self-​proclaimed prophet could tell him about the revelations he received. When the man failed to report anything, he was incarcerated. The next morning he was brought back to al-​Maʾmūn who asked him whether he received any revelations during the night, to which the man replied that angels do not go to jail (Zaydan, 2020: 36–​37). Rahman (2014) explains how Sufis use humour and jokes to teach their disciples about human vulnerability, the rigors of inner and outer spiritual work, and the hazards of the ego. For example, Rahman roots the Mulla’s stories in Islamic spirituality by coupling them with sayings from the Qur’an, Sunna, and Sufi sayings: The most popular of the Mulla is the picture of him riding backwards on his donkey, sometimes followed by adoring students. In this picture, many metaphos abound. The Mulla has tamed his donkey ego –​it knows in what direction to go. The Mulla does not believe in hierarchy and faults religious institutions and clerics for their rigidity and lust for glory and power. Rather than turn his back on students, he prefers to face them. Most of all, he is happy to break conventional patterns of thinking and being. The Mulla does not care what you think of him; he does not seek your approval. Without a reputation or image to uphold, he laughs at his foibles and invites you to join him. He has a rare readiness to admit his mistakes. Because he does not aspire to be a teacher, he is a true teacher. (Rahman, 2014: 10) Ormsby reports the following anecdote, as a further illustration of the Sufi teaching to avoid judging people: Abū Saʿīd b. Abī l-​Khayr (d.1049) [was] a Khorasanian saint of the previous generation whom al-​Ghazali often quotes. Once a man said to Abū Saʿīd, ‘I saw your disciple So-​and-​So on the road last night and he was blind drunk!’ The saint replied, ‘Praise be to God! At least he 75

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was on the road.’ Again, in later life he became quite fat, a fact which exposed him to criticism from grimmer -​and thinner -​colleagues. One of them said to him, ‘Your throat is so thick that it hardly fits through your collar!’ Abū Saʿīd replied, ‘To me it seems even more remarkable that my neck, thanks to all that God has bestowed on me, fits at all in the frame of the seven heavens!’ This reply contains the characteristic elements of ‘Sufi humour’: it is at once exuberant and self-​mocking; yet, while it expresses genuine gratitude to God, it is slyly self-​aggrandizing. It uses humour to make a complex and paradoxical point. (Ormsby, 2015: 130) Tamer (2009) refers to Radtke’s (2009) analysis of qabḍ (heavy-​heartedness) and basṭ (relaxed mood) as two attitudes fundamental to Islamic mysticism, which is generally regarded as a rather dark and gloomy world of tears. Happiness is usually regarded as the happiness felt with God. Yet, there are types and forms of Sufi humour that make fun of respectable, revered, and saintly people. According to Radtke: This dualism is based on the differentiation of two images of God facing the Sufi: the figure of the strict God [deus iustus] and the figure of the gentle God [deus bonus]. While the strict God would be connected to the idea of heavy-​heartedness, the relaxed mood depends on the image of the gentle God. Only the figure of the gentle God allows such a setting of the relaxed mood and joy, which would also possibly permit laughter. (Radtke cited in Tamer, 2009: xv) Confirming the notion of laughter as a God-​given attribute, Sufis believe that human beings do not have control over every action or reaction; they give examples of the heart beating, but they also add weeping and laughter. These reactions are inherent human qualities gifted by God regardless of race or religion. Based on this, Chittick (2005) makes an interesting observation by suggesting three divine names for laughter (ʾasmāʾu llāhi l-​ḥusnā), although they are not mentioned in the standard list of divine names: l-​Ḍaḥūk (he who laughs), al-​Muḍḥik (the bestower of laughter), and al-​Mubkī (the bestower of weeping) (Chittick, 2005: 138). That being said, Sufis tend to refrain from using humour in order to exercise self-​control. Hence, they avoid engaging in any violations caused by humour, such as lying or harming others. Additionally, their zuhd is at the core of their lifestyle. Corbin suggests that ‘Sufi humour represents an attempt to establish a certain distance from the self ’, and that it is ‘part of a discipline of detachment’ (Corbin, 1971: 26–​27). Moreover, Schimmel (1978) noted that any ‘Sufi path consists of a constant struggle against nafs’ (instinct-​driven ego forces). The multiple-stage journey in the struggle 76

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against the lower self or ego has been called by the Sufis jihād al-​nafs (the Greater Jihad or Combat with the Self) (Schimmel, 1978: 112). Knysh (2017) further explains that ‘soul purification’ and ‘self-​improvement’ or ‘self-​transformation’ are part of each Sufi’s internal struggle with his or her restive, instinct-​driven nafs. Therefore, Sufis need to reach the stage of tahdhīb al-​nafs (self-​discipline or soul purification), which can be achieved by reducing the corruptive drives of nafs that, according to verse 12:53, prompt one to evil (ammāra bil-​sūʾ). Then comes al-​nafs al-​lawwāma (self-​blaming) that is mentioned in verse 75:2, and the Sufi order Malāmatiyya derives its name from this self-​blame. Finally, al-​nafs al-​muṭmaʾinna (soul at peace), in verse 89:27, is by its very nature incapable of disobeying its Lord (Knysh, 2017: 88). Regardless of whether nafs go through three stages as described in the Qur’an or seven as elaborated in Sufism, according to Shaqīq al-​Balkhī (d.195/​ 810), one of the founders of the zuhd movement, these stages do not have to remain permanently; after reaching their zenith, they are to be followed by the penultimate stage al-​shawq ilā-​l-​janna (longing for paradise) (Sviri, 2020: 45). Shaqīq al-​Balkhī describes the change at this stage as follows: The seeker: When you see him, he is always laughing, rejoicing in what he has. He is neither miserable nor bountiful, he is not a slanderer; he does not indulge in fault-​finding and does not speak ill of people. He is the one [known as al-​ṣawwām al-​qawwām] constantly fasting, the one constantly standing up [at night for prayer]. (Sviri, 2020: 177) The transformation of nafs to reach the final stage is intended to bring happiness and is thus very important in Sufism. This is also illustrated in a short anecdote about Rābiʿa and al-​Ḥasan al-​ Baṣrī. They were sitting under a tree on the shore of a lake just outside a popular bazaar, discussing spiritual matters. When it was time for prayers, al-​Ḥasan unfurled his prayer rug and placed it on the water. Standing miraculously on the floating rug, he invited Rābiʿa to join him. She, in turn, spread out her prayer rug, perched on it, levitated above him, and invited him to join her. She teased him: ‘Isn’t this what you want, for the people in the bazaar to see us and be astounded by our magical feat?’ She continued, ‘What you did, a fish can do. What I did, a moth can do. You forget that what we are called to do is more difficult and more important: transforming our beings’. (Rahman, 2014: 23) This anecdote shows that once Sufis and zuhhād reach the end of the path, they can be seen laughing and being joyful without engaging in any sinful acts such as backbiting or speaking ill of people. 77

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When reaching the final stage of al-​nafs al-​muṭmaʾinna, which means, according to verses 89:27–​28, coming to God well-​pleased and well-​ pleasing, this longing for paradise ceases because it is assured. The call for self-​transcendence is found not just in philosophical, moral systems but also in the ethics of religions as diverse as Buddhism, Confucianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Humour, at its best, has a similar moral and religious significance because ‘it involves this self-​transcendence liberating us from the narrow perspective of fight-​or-​flight emotions and helps us to see ourselves as other people do’ (Berger, 1997: 190–​200).

Al-​Ghazālī’s two perspectives on humour It is important to be sensitive to the social, political, economic, intellectual, and cultural circumstances as the setting in which interpretations and legal deliberations occur. This also applies to al-​Ghazālī and his views on some subjects, especially in regards to humour. His views are manifested in his magnum opus, Ihya’ Ulūm al-​Dīn (The Revival of Religious Sciences), which was written in the eleventh century. The book is based on his personal religious experience and is regarded as a classic introduction to the pious Muslim’s way to God, hence the spiritual dimension, already mentioned in the previous section. On the other hand, the primary purpose of Shari’ah, the maqāṣid (aims or purposes), according to al-​Ghazālī, is to protect people from the transgressions of the untamed self if one has fallen prey to its desires (al-​Ghazālī, 2004, verse 1:66: 199, 203). Al-​Ghazālī’s views on humour occur in a chapter titled āfāt al-​lisān (The Vices of the Tongue) in his Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-​dīn (The Revival of Religious Sciences). Ormsby argues that al-​Ghazālī’s: final position is more nuanced than this might suggest; he fully recognizes that, as al-​Jahiz had stated over two centuries before, in the opening pages of his Book of Misers, ‘laughter lies at the root of human nature’ (wa-​huwa [al-​ḍaḥik] shayʾun fī aṣl aṭ-​ṭibāʿ wa-​asās al-​tarkīb). Moreover, laughter, like weeping, comes ultimately from God; as proof, al-​Jahiz cites the Quran: ‘It is He who makes [one] laugh and weep and it is He who causes death and brings life.’ Al-​Jahiz draws out the implications of the striking chiasmus of this verse by noting that God ‘put laughter opposite life and weeping opposite death’. (Ormsby, 2015: 125) Ormsby further believes that al-​Ghazālī ‘like his Sufi predecessors, such as Abū Ṭālib al-​Makkī (d.386/​996) or al-​Qushayrī (c.1072–​1073), from whom he learned so much, also likes to use tales and anecdotes to reinforce his arguments, which are often casually flippant … after all, a funny story, like a good joke, is remembered’ (Ormsby, 2015: 129). For example, al-​Ghazālī 78

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mentions the story of Junayd (d.298/​910), a Persian mystic and one of the most famous of the early Islamic saints, who said: Our master Sarī [al-​Saqaṭi] was sick and we could neither find a remedy for his illness, nor could we discover its cause. We were told of a clever doctor and so we took a vial of Sarī’s urine to him. The doctor looked at it again and again for a long time, and then he said, ‘I see that this is the urine of a man in love.’ Junayd went on, ‘I was stunned. I fell into a faint and the vial dropped from my hand. I went back to Sarī and told him what had happened. He smiled and said (of the doctor), ‘What a sharp-​eyed son-​of-​a-​bitch!’ 14 I said, ‘O Master does love show even in the urine?’ He replied, ‘Yes.’ (al-​Ghazālī cited in Ormsby, 2015: 138) This anecdote, though funny, is used by Sufis to illustrate the true love of God and the pain associated with this love. This pain of the heart of Sufis is different from all ailments and permeates everything, even their urine. In his discussion of the faults or vices of the tongue, al-​Ghazālī lists the criteria for al-​ muzāḥ mashrūʿ (permissible jocularity). First, the joke must not be a lie and far from falsehood; when the Prophet said to Anas, ‘O you with the two ears!’ (yā dhā l-​udhunayn!) (al-​Tirmidhī, n.d. #3828), it was both gently amusing and incontrovertibly true. Second, a joke should neither be exaggerated nor long-​drawn-​out, a stricture already enunciated by al-​Jāḥiẓ. Third, a joke must not cause bad feeling or enmity; elsewhere, in his Mīzān al-​ʿamal (Criterion of Action), al-​Ghazālī lists unkind jokes as one of the main causes of anger. Fourth, a joke must neither intimidate nor frighten. Fifth, all bawdiness must be avoided. Finally, sixth, a joke should be expressed in fine words; or, as al-​Ghazālī, puts it, in friendly words and well-​meaning expressions (al-​Ghazālī cited in Ormsby, 2015: 127). According to al-​Ghazālī’s Sufi perspective on joking and banter (muṭāyaba), When gaiety [inbisāṭ] and goodness of heart are present, joking and bantering is not forbidden. But know that what is forbidden is excessiveness [ifrāṭ] or persistence [mudāwama] [in jocularity]. Persistence involves a preoccupation with playfulness and jest, and though playfulness is licit, persistence is reprehensible. Excess, on the other hand, produces too much laughter. Too much laughter kills the heart [wa-​kathrat aḍ-​ḍaḥk tumīt al-​qalb] and incites resentment under certain circumstances. (al-​Ghazālī cited in Ormsby, 2015: 125) Focusing on excess and persistence, however, does not mean that it is fully prohibited, but it invites a balanced and moderate attitude towards humour and laughter in order to avoid its ill effects on the spiritual state of the heart. 79

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Al-​Ghazālī, the jurist, tends to condemn humour and joking in several passages of Iḥyā’. For example, when asked, ‘Why is joking called muzāḥ?’, al-​Ghazālī interpreted the meaning of joking as follows, connecting it to the verb azāḥa –​which means both ‘to jest’ (yamzaḥ) and ‘to drive away’ (yubid): ‘because it pulls the man who laughs away from the truth’15 (al-​ Ghazālī, 3:137). In the same context, he notes that ‘nobody laughs on his death-​bed’ for ‘laughter is a sign of heedlessness [ghafla] of the Hereafter’ (al-​Ghazālī, 3:137). Furthermore, in his answer to why laughter may be reprehensible, since we know that the Prophet and his companions laughed and joked, al-​Ghazālī replies: If you can do what the Prophet and his Companions did –​namely, to only utter the truth, not to wound the heart nor to be excessive in joking, and to limit it to infrequent occasions, then nothing prevents you from doing so. But it is a great mistake for a man to set about joking as a way of life or to go on and on with it, overdo it, and then excuse himself by clinging to the Prophet’s behaviour. (al-​Ghazālī, 2004, 3:138) Al-​Ghazālī’s reflections merge his two sides, the legal as well as the Sufi perspective. Both perspectives place a strong emphasis on ethics. The notion that joking should only be done using the truth is paramount for al-​Ghazālī and his use of humour. Ormsby argues that al-​Ghazālī may have taken this precept in its particular formulation from Miskawayh’s Tahdhīb al-​akhlāq (Refinement of Character) (Ormsby, 2015: 127, n.24).16 It is worth noting that al-​Dawsarī devotes the second chapter of his book al-​Maʾākhidh al-​ʿaqdiyya ʿalā kitāb iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-​dīn li-​l-​Ghazālī (2015) to objections to al-​Ghazālī’s chapter in his Iḥyāʾ titled ‘The Vices of the Tongue’. Al-​Dawsarī (2015) mentions several objections, including censoring both laughter and humour, and aims to rectify the dogmatic faults and doctrinal shortcomings that he perceives in al-​Ghazālī’s Iḥyāʾ, accusing al-​Ghazālī of considering laughter as disobedience of God and an imperfection of character, despite the Qur’anic verse (53:43). He further argues that this comes from the renunciant tradition and from asceticism, as the nussāk (devouts) and zuhhād (ascetics) refrained from laughter and indulged in weeping. In his opinion, this type of prohibition would alienate non-​Muslims, by giving them the impression that Islam is a religion that prohibits laughter (Al-​ Dawsarī, 2015: 255–​258).

The regulation of humour In his lengthy study on muzāḥ, Abū Ghudda (2006) traced the different legal opinions of various jurists, concluding that there are two types of humour: permitted (mashrū’) and forbidden (mamnū’). Mashrū’ humour is 80

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divided into two types: allowed (mubāh) and recommended (mandūb), on the conditions that the humour is not excessive, does not lead to any hurtful results, and does not prevent a person from performing their rituals. Abū Ghudda (d.1997) starts with legal opinions by al-​Nawawī (d.676/​1277) and al-​Ghazzī, (d.984/1577) who were both Shāfiʿī jurists and defended this position on humour (Abū Ghudda, 2006: 25). For the two types of permitted humour, Abū Ghudda (2006) provides evidence from the Qur’an and Sunna (Prophet Muḥammad’s way of life and legal precedent), with several anecdotes and poetry verses to support this position. The conditions that govern and regulate the allowed humour include that jokes must be truthful, must not be excessive, must avoid incitement, must not scare the listener, and must not lead to something unlawful. According to this legal reasoning, ideally, joking and humour should strengthen social bonds, invigorate the listeners by providing a welcome break, lift barriers between people by breaking the ice, alleviate boredom, spread smiles, and tickle the intellect through engaging in witticisms and wordplays that stimulate thinking (Abū Ghudda, 2006: 25–​27). This control over humour and all the regulations may seem strange, especially as Western humour studies generally posits that humour is very difficult, if not even impossible, to control (Andersen, 1978: 197). However, laughter as such can be controlled (Attardo, 2014: 100). In the Sufi tradition, and according to Sufi teachings, self-​control is a desirable attribute that distinguishes humankind from the animals. Both possess appetites and passions, but only humans are able to control them. It is therefore not surprising that Sufis are sometimes seen to be submitting themselves to uncomfortable and painful practices. While this might seem bizarre and almost like self-​torture to some, Sufis practise such activities to gain self-​control, including walking on hot coals, piercing their own flesh, swallowing broken glass, and picking up hot iron pieces (Rouget, 1985: 263). However, most mainstream Sufis frown upon such extreme practices. In his al-M ​ urā ḥ fi al-​Mizā ḥ (The Jauntiness of Jocularity) (1986), al-​Ghazzī, a Shafi’ī jurist, writes, ‘I was previously asked about humour, and I answered that it is allowed between brothers, friends and companions in order to strengthen their social bond, ease their hearts and spread smiles’ (al-​Ghazzī, 1986: 7). Thus, according to al-​Ghazzī (1986), humour is mandūb because it achieves two public interests (ma ṣlaḥa): to reduce stress in the face of life’s hardships or mental health issues; and to strengthen the social bond between friends and social groups (Abū Ghudda, 2006: 27). Al-​Nawawī argues that humour should not only be allowed, but that it is meritorious and recommended (Al-​Nawawī, 2004: 521). Yet, he cautions that, although it is undoubtedly acceptable, joking must not become a habit. Al-​Nawawī (2004) provides evidence from the Qur’an (53:44) and from the hadith tradition, quoting many prophetic reports from a chapter 81

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about smiles and laughter in al-​Bukhārī’s famous hadith collection al-​Jāmiʻ al-​musnad al-​saḥīḥ al-​mukhtaṣar min umūr Rasul Allāh wa-​sunanihi wa-​ayyāmih (The Authentic, Abridged, Chain-​Supported Collection Regarding Matters Pertaining to the Messenger of Allah, His Traditions, and His Times), commonly known as Ṣaḥīḥ al-​Bukhārī.17 By contrast, Abū Ghudda (2006) uses numerous prophetic reports to show the different views on the permissibility of humour, confirming that humour is certainly allowed but not necessarily recommended. Moreover, the Islamic ruling on humour becomes a duty in cases where a trusted and skilful doctor or psychiatrist believes that if a patient fails to recover from depression or a psychological or neurological condition, then joking or laughter can be used as a form of relief or therapy. This conclusion is based on the concept of Maqāṣid al-​Shari’a (aims of Islamic law), especially the law related to preserving souls and minds (ḥifẓ al-​nafs wa-​al-​‘aql). To that end, humour as a virtue was supported in the writings of those jurists who expounded upon ethics and spirituality. For instance, al-Ghazzī’s six violations that must not be committed and Abū Ghudda’s comprehensive list of limitations in the regulation of humour are connected to offence or harm directed at someone else. This clearly falls within the Muslim understanding that the Maqāṣid al-​Shari’a prescribes prohibitions as a means to alleviate some sort of harm, whether in this world or the next. It is hard to tell exactly when humour began to be considered as largely a vice, but it is essential to explain how it turned into a vice, which can inform our knowledge of the development of the legal opinions towards taḥrīm (prohibition). It is also worth mentioning that Islamic law does not operate in a binary fashion, and that, next to ḥalāl (permissible) and ḥarām (prohibited), there are also other classifications, such as wājib (obligatory), mandūb, mubāḥ (indifferent leaning towards sanctioned), and makrūh (reprehensible or disapproved of). Since this section is about regulation, it might help to define what ḥarām means in the legal manuals. Ḥarām is banned and prohibited; jurists add that ḥarām actions are those that any Muslim must refrain from as a matter of obligation, and punishment will be the consequence for those who do not abide (Ksikas and al-​Mahjubi, 2012: 52). By tracking the evidence and the writings of jurists, Abū Ghudda (2006) was able to divide mamnū’ (banned) humour into two types: ḥarām (prohibited) and makrūh (detestable). The former is more prohibitive, citing the negative effects and consequences of laughter and joking in matters such as divorce, marriage contracts, commercial contracts, financial transactions, judicial proceedings, and apostasy as offensive humour (Amin, 2021: 69). The latter is evidenced in jokes that scare people, prevent them from performing their ritual prayers, are hurtful, are xenophobic, make fun of other ethnic 82

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groups or deformities, or cause humiliation, as well as those that promote unlawful interactions between males and females, such as lingering in public spaces to listen to jokes. Various examples from the Qur’an and hadith were provided in different legal sources to support the rules of prohibition, all of which focus on the harm that this type of humour might cause an individual or society. For example, Qur’anic verses 49:11–​12 prohibit humour that is associated with mockery and backbiting. These two verses are connected to the previous verse (49:10), wherein the Qur’an clearly states that all ‘[t]‌he believers are but brothers, so make settlement between your brothers. And fear Allah that you may receive mercy’. Therefore, humour that could threaten this societal cohesiveness and brotherhood is forbidden. Amin (2021) concludes in her study that the Qur’an neither restricts nor qualifies laughter, but permits it as a gift from God. Additionally, the Prophet’s Sunna18 also permits laughter, provided it is in moderation and in keeping with the truth, and avoids insults and mockery. The jurists’ restrictions and myriad rules regulating laughter are, in Amin’s (2021) view, based on a selective qiyās (deductive analogy), and express a disregard of the Qur’anic universal permissibility and the Prophet’s sunnah (example). She calls for revisiting the permissibility and prohibition of humour and laughter in fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), and for the lifting of restrictions on topics or declarations of humour deemed as ḥarām or makrūh, while keeping the elements of moderation and truth (Amin, 2021: 311). Before concluding this chapter, one might enquire about the importance of early jurists’ decisions regarding laughter and humour, and why such opinions had and still have a significant impact on the lived reality and practices of Muslims, both historically speaking or in the contemporary world. This is not due to the jurists having an ‘authoritative’ voice or serving the authorities and powers that be of the day, but it relates to the approach used in defining Islam and the study of Islam. This is discussed at length by Ahmed in his work What Is Islam? (2015), in which he criticizes the two most common approaches. The first is that Islamic law constitutes either the essence of Islam or the central normative manifestation of Islam. The second approach was developed in answer to the first, critically challenging it as an ahistorical essentialization of Islam, while arguing that Islam is a religion that cannot be universally identified by one label and that scholars must accommodate Islam’s historical reality, which includes a vast number of ‘Islams’ depending on the geographical location, historical development, ethnic make-​up, and local traditions. For this reason, Ahmed (2015: 113–​175) calls for extending the study of Islam to include the Balkans, China, Bengal, and other areas to shift the focus away from the Arab and Middle East-​centric practice of Islam. Yet, throughout history, and until today, pious and practising Muslims have always accepted the universality and centrality of Islam. They view it 83

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as providing a comprehensive and highly integrated set of values, as well as instructions for daily living. In this sense, Islam is not only a religion but a way of life (Tamadonfar, 2015: 3). One might challenge juristic opinions, but essentially Islamic law is usually equated to the Islamic way of life (Ali, 2004: 266). The problem is still very much that of taqlīd (following tradition) versus ijtihād (reinterpretation). However, resurrecting the ʿtaqlīd versus ijtihād’ discussion that raged in Islamic thought for centuries is not the purpose of this study.

Conclusion: Vice or virtue? This chapter showed that there is no overall Islamic consensus on the regulation of humour in terms of whether it is generally forbidden, prohibited, or permissible. Muslims believe that the Qur’an is the best possible form of speech, and that strategies employed by the Qur’an become models for emulation. The Qur’an mentions several verses about laughter, including that laughter is a God-​g iven quality (53:43). In addition, the Qur’an is one of the main sources of Sharīʿa and one of the four sources of fiqh. The hadith tradition is also full of reports confirming that the Prophet laughed, joked, and encouraged humour. According to one hadith report, the Prophet ‘used to laugh until his back teeth were visible’ (al-​Tirmidhī, n.d. #3651). Having engaged in humour himself through joking and laughter, Prophet Muḥammad set the standard for Muslim engagement in humour. His emulation being a virtue repeatedly encouraged, whether, in the Qur’an or the Sunna, his engagement in laughter and jest becomes an example to follow. In addition, the Prophet counsels his community to assume his traits as a way to emulate God (Chittick, 1989: 21), a matter that is understood as a condition for achieving spiritual realization. The evolution of humour from being permissible and God’s gift to being restricted or not recommended was developed in connection to two movements. The first is zuhd, which developed into mysticism. The second is the development of Islamic law and the establishment of the schools of Islamic law. Some scholars, such as al-​Ghazālī who belonged to the two worlds of Sufism and jurisprudence, influenced Muslim perspectives on humour. Although al-​Ghazālī used humour and jokes in his teachings, he ultimately condemned them by qualifying their use with six violations, as previously mentioned, that must not be committed. I concur with Amin’s (2021) conclusion that the greatest influence on the approaches towards humour came from Ibn Ḥanbal and later Ḥanbalīs, as well as al-​Ghazālī, who stopped just short of declaring laughter as ḥarām. Amin (2021) further argues that the Prophet’s biographies, the political context, and ascetic Sufism all combined to affect the depiction of laughter in the hadith 84

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collections to varying degrees, before and during the period between 251/​ 865 and 651/​1253. By turning the Prophet into a superhuman or a demigod in the Prophet’s biographies, he was stripped of his human emotions. Furthermore, the renunciant tradition ascribed more weeping to him than laughter, fashioning the Prophet in their image. These two views, combined with the political strife during the disintegration and fragmentation of the Abbasid Empire (where jurists were restricting the populace to control them and suppress any rebellions), affected Prophet Muḥammad’s image in the hadith by censoring his laughter (Amin, 2021: 236). In conclusion, the Qur’an and Prophet Muḥammad’s life, and their interpretation by mainstream theologians, affirm the thesis that humour is essentially a virtue, as this chapter illustrated, while maintaining that it could easily turn into a vice for the reasons outlined in this chapter. It suffices to say, however, that regulating humour and placing so many restrictions on joking and jesting did not kill humour altogether, as evidenced by the fact that in practice, Muslims continue to create, engage in, collect, and appreciate anecdotes and jokes. Notes 1

2 3

4

5 6 7

8 9 10 11 12

13

In this chapter, the focus is on the legal definitions of humour that are related to the legalization questions. For a detailed account of Western and non-​Western defintions and theories of humour, see Yasmin Amin’s PhD thesis on ‘Humour in the hadith’, University of Exeter, 2021. See Qur’an 9:82, 11:71, 23:110, 27:19, 43.47, 53:43, 53:60, 80:39, 83:29, and 83:34. ‘Solomon smiled broadly at her words and said, “Lord, inspire me to be thankful for the blessings You have granted me and my parents, and to do good deeds that please You; admit me by Your grace into the ranks of Your righteous servants” ’ (Qur’an 27:19). ‘Let them laugh a little; they will weep a lot in return for what they have done’ (Qur’an 80:39) and ‘laughing, and rejoicing’ (Qur’an 9:82). See Qur’an 37:91–​92; 37:95; and 21:62–​63. See Mostafa Abedinifard’s contribution in the current volume. But you kept on laughing at them: so intent were you on laughing at them that it made you forget My warning. [B]‌ut when he presented Our signs to them, they laughed. The wicked used to laugh at the believers. [L]‌aughing, and rejoicing. [S]‌o today the believers are laughing at the disbelievers. Mullah Nasruddin is a wise man famous throughout the Muslim world since the sixteenth century. It is believed that he lived in the thirteenth century in Anatolia (today Turkey). He was a scholar or at least an educated man. His jokes were narrated for centuries between people for different purposes, some for humour and some to tell as stories full of meaning and wisdom. See Marzolph, Ulrich. (2006). 666 wahre Geschichten (Nasreddin Hodscha). 4th. Munich: C.H.Beck Verlag. (1990). ‘Arabische Witze als Quelle für die materielle Kultur der frühen Abbasidenzeit?’ In XXIV. deutscher Orientalistentag vom 26. bis 30. September 1988 in Köln: Ausgewählte Vorträge, edited by Werner Diem und Abdoldjavad Falaturi, 283–​298. Stuttgart: Steiner. (2011) ‘The Muslim Sense of Humour.’ In: Humour 85

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14 15 16

17

18

and Religion: Challenges and Ambiguities, edited by Hans Geybels and Walter Van Herck, 169–​187. London: Continuum International Publishing Group. 2000. ‘The Qur’an and Jocular Literature.’ Arabica 47: 478–​87. Qātalahu Allāhu mā abṣarahu! Li-​‘annahu azāḥa ṣāḥibahu ‘an al-​ḥaqq. Miskawayh’s Tahdhīb al-a​ khlāq ed. C. Zurayq, Beirut: American University of Beirut Press, 1966, p 195 and especially, p 198 where we read that ‘the Emissary of God joked but he spoke only the truth’ (Ibn Miskawayh, 1966: 195). In the same passage, Miskawayh lists joking (together with istihzāʾ) as one of the provocations to anger and sees it as an occasional casus belli. See Fatḥ al-​Bārī 10/​526, Umdat al-​Qārī 22/​98, 169, al-​Adab fī al-​Akhlāq lil-​Bayhaqi, p.175, al-​Mawāhib al-​Ladunnīya 2/​352, al-​Adhkār, p.290, al-​Minhāj 5/​162, al-​Adāb al-​Sharīya 2/​ 212–​216, Adab al-​Dunyā wa-​al-​Dīn, p.299, and Iḥyā’ ̔Ulūm al-​Dīn, 3/​129. Approved standard or practise introduced by the Prophet as well as pious Muslims of olden days.

References Abdel Haleem, M. A. (2010) The Qur’an: English Translation and Parallel Arabic Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Abū Ghudda, H. ‘. a.-​G. (2006) Al-​Muzāḥ fi al-​Islām, Saudi Arabia: Idarat al-​Da’wah wa-​al-​Ta’lim. Al-​Dawsarī, F. b. M. b. K. (2015) al-​Maʾākhidh al-​ʿaqdiyya ʿalā kitāb iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-​dīn li-​l-​Ghazālī –​rubʿ al-​muhlikāt, Cairo: Dār al-​Hady al-​Nabawī. Al-​Ghazālī, ʻA. (2004) Iḥyāʼ ʻUlūm al-​Dīn, Bayrūt: Dār al-​Maʻrifah. Al-​Ghazzī, B. a.-​D.M. (1986) Murāḥ fī al-​Mizāḥ, Cairo: Maktabat al-​Thaqafa al-​Dīnīyya. Ali, S. (2004) Islam and the Challenges of Modernity: An Agenda for the Twenty First Century, Islamabad: National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research, Centre of Excellence, Quaid-​i-​Azam University. Al-​Jāhiẓ, ‘A. (1998) Kitāb al-​Bukhalāʾ, Beirut: Dār wa-​Maktabat al-​Hilāl. Al-​Nawawī (2004) Kitāb al-​Adhkār (1st ed), Riyadh: Dār ibn Ḥazm. Al-T ​ haʻālibī, A. M. (1885) Fiqh al-l​ ugha, Beirut: Maṭbaʻat al-​Abāʼ al-​Yasūʻiyīn. Al-​Tirmidhī, M. i. I. (nd) Kitāb al-​Shama’il al-​Muhammadiya: Bāb Fī Bashashat al-​Nabi (3651), Beruit: Dār Iḥyā’ al-​Turāth. Amin, Y. (2021) ‘Humour in the hadith’, PhD thesis, Exeter: Univeristy of Exeter. Andersen, K. E. (1978) Persuasion: Theory and Practice, Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Attardo, S. (2014) Encyclopedia of Humor Studies, Los Angeles: SAGE References. Berger, P. (1997) Redeeming Laughter: The Comic Dimension of Human, New York: Walter de Gruyter. Chittick, W. (1989) ‘Weeping in classical Sufism’, in K. C. P. a. J. S. Hawley (ed) Holy Tears: Weeping in the Religious Imagination, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp 132–​144. 86

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Corbin, H. (1971) ‘Mystique et humour chez Sohravardi’, in M. M. a. H. Landolt (ed) Collected Papers on Islamic Philosophy and Mysticism, Tehran and Montreal: Institute of Islamic Studies and McGill University, pp 16–​38. Frager, J. F. and Fadiman, R. (ed) (1998) Essential Sufism, Edison: Castle Books. Ibn Ḥajar, A. b. ʿA. al-​ʿA. (1959) Fatḥ al-​bārī sharḥ ṣaḥīḥ al-​Bukhārī, ed by ʿAbd al-​Azīz b. Bāz, Beirut: Dār al-​Maʿrifa. Ibn Miskawyah, A. I. M., and Zurayq, Q. (1966) Tahdhīb al-​̓akhlāq, Beruit: American Univeristy of Beruit. Ibn Uthaymīn, M. H. (1995) Sharḥ Riyāḍ al-​Ṣāliḥīn, Riyadh: Dār al-​Waṭan. Jónsson, J. (1985) Humour and Irony in the New Testament: Illuminated by Parallels in Talmud and Midrash, Leiden: E. J. Brill. Juynboll, G. H. A. and Brown, D. W. (2012) ‘Sunna’, in P. Bearman, T. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds) Encyclopedia of Islam (2nd edn), [online]. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15733912_islam_COM_1123 [Accessed 22 November 2021]. Knysh, A. (2017) Sufism –​ A New History of Islamic Mysticism, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ksikas, F. A. and Maḥjūbī, A. A. (2012). Al-Muyassar fī sIlm Uṣūl al-Fiqh, Marrākush: Dār Walīlī lil-Ṭibāʻah wa-al-Nashr. Marzolph, U. (1987) ‘Der Weise Narr Buhlül in den modernen Volksliteraturen der islamischen Länder’, Fabula 28: 72–​89. Marzolph, U. (1990) ‘Arabische Witze als Quelle fürdie materielle Kultur der frühen Abbasidenzeit?’, in W. Diem and A. Falaturi (eds) Ausgewählte Vorträge, Stuttgart: Steiner, pp 283–298. Marzolph, U. (2000) ‘The Qoran and Jocular Literature’, Arabica 47: 478–487. Marzolph, U. (2009) ‘Provokative Grenzbereiche im klassischen arabischen Witz’, in G. Tamer (ed) Humor in der arabischen Kultur, Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, pp 154–166. Marzolph, U. (2011) ‘The Muslim Sense of Humour’, in H. Geybels and W. Van Herck (eds) Humour and Religion: Challenges and Ambiguities, London: Continuum International Publishing Group, pp 169–187. Meisami, J. S. and Starkey, P. (eds) (1998) Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, London: Routledge. Mir, M. (1991) ‘Humor in the Qurʾan’, The Muslim World 81(3–​4): 179–​193. Ormsby, E. (2015) ‘The Comedy of Reason: Strategies of Humour in al-Ghazālī’, in G. Tamer (ed) Islam and Rationality: The Impact of al-Ghazālī– Papers Collected on His 900th Anniversary, Leiden: Brill, pp 121–138. Pormann, P. E. and Savage-​Smith, E. (2007) Medieval Islamic Medicine, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Radtke, B. (2009) ‘Qabd (Beklommenheit) und bast (Gelöstheit) als Grundeinstellungen islamischer Mystik’, in G. Tamer (ed) Humor in der arabischen Kultur, Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, pp 49–​55. 87

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Rahman, J. (2014) Sacred Laughter of the Sufis: Awakening the Soul with the Mulla’s Comic Teaching Stories & Other Islamic Wisdom, Woodstock: SkyLight Paths Publishing. Rosenthal, F. (1956) Humor in Early Islam, Leiden: E.J. Brill. Rouget, G. (1985) Music and Trance: A Theory of the Relations Between Music and Possession, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Schimmel, A. (1978) Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Sprachman, P. (2012) Licensed Fool : The Damnable, Foul-​mouthed Obeyd-​e Zakani. Costa Mesa: Mazda. Sviri, S. (2020) Perspectives on Early Islamic Mysticism: The World of al-​Ḥakīm al-​Tirmidhī and His Contemporaries, Oxford and New York: Routledge. Tamadonfar, M. (2015) Islamic Law and Governance in Contemporary Iran: Transcending Islam for Social, Economic, and Political Order, Lanham: Lexington Books. Tamer, G. (2009) Humor in der arabischen Kultur/​Humor in Arabic culture, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter. Van Gelder, G. (1989) ‘The Bad and the Ugly: Attitudes towards Invective Poetry (Hijā’)’ in Classical Arabic Literature, Leiden, Brill. Zaydan, I. (2020) Nawādir al-​Udabāʾ, Beirut: Dār al-​Qalam.

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PART II

Muslim Humour Practices in Islamicate Societies: Textual Media

4

Using/​Abusing the Qur’an in Jocular Literature: Blasphemy, Qur’anophilia, or Familiarity? Yasmin Amin

Muslims are nowadays being viewed or stereotyped as humourless. Muslim men with grim faces, bushy eyebrows, and wild, unkempt beards, and women covered from head to toe in black garb, have also become part of the collective media picture. Images of burning flags and besieged embassies in the aftermath of the Danish cartoons published in 2005 were printed over and over again to emphasize the ugly, humourless aspect of Muslims. The shooting in January 2015 of several staff members of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo, presumably for its controversial cartoons about Prophet Muḥammad, as well as Islamic leaders, also served to highlight this stereotype. Consequently, an entire civilization and culture is being regarded as devoid of humour and the light touch of laughter, and has been simply encapsulated by those blazing eyes of the fundamentalists and their merciless harshness. However, it is an unreal image completely at odds with the humanity of the Muslim people and the abundant evidence of humour in Arab and Islamic countries for many centuries –​evidence which proves not only that Muslims have a sense of humour, but also that many medieval authors were not afraid to use their religious scriptures to create laughs, and these jokes lived on. Humour is an intelligent way of looking at life. It is also often used to address taboo topics, but it is most certainly not limited to these. Its goal is to expose the paradoxical aspects of life, such as hypocrisy, lies, contradictions, and bad habits. Humour enables people to see a fault and learn to avoid it; to notice virtue and emphasize it. Since medieval times, like any other

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community, Arabs and Muslims have laughed –​and laughed very hard –​at their conditions, their rulers, and their religious clerics and their rulings. Some of the jokes incorporating the Qur’an are borderline irreverent or blasphemous, yet they are found in numerous classical texts, literary works, and anecdotal collections. These jokes provide confirmation that the Muslim community did not shy away from using the Qur’an in numerous ways in their daily lives. This research aims at analyzing the motives for the use or sometimes even abuse of the Qur’an in jocular literature. Why did the authors use the sacred scripture in their jokes? Why was the Qur’an incorporated into their jokes rather than proverbs or poetry? What are the motives behind mixing the sacred with the profane or ‘frivolous’? Only a few scholars have addressed humour in the Qur’an,1 as well as the playful use of the Qur’an in humorous writings.2 Among the reasons they suggest for the use of the Qur’an in anecdotes is that it is didactic and entertaining; the Qur’an is used in education to teach Arabic language, syntax, and grammar; it is familiar due to the closeness of Muslims to the Qur’an in their daily rituals; and it has a shock element that would surprise the audience. However, these reasons do not fully explain the numerous jokes and anecdotes that use Qur’anic fragments and verses found in the nawādir (anecdotes) collections, stretching across the ages and found in different geographical locations and in different languages. The decision to include the Qur’an in various forms in jokes seems to have been deliberate. Most Muslims would recognize a Qur’anic quotation or verse fragment as being a part of the sacred text; therefore, the punchline would be easily understood. The jokes and anecdotes would be effortlessly translatable into the many languages used all over the Muslim world. The authors of these jokes could boast of their knowledge of the Qur’an while entertaining their audience. However, it will also be demonstrated that it was always very important and clear to the compilers and readers of these anecdotes that the Qur’an had not been ridiculed or degraded in any way in these jokes. The main argument of the research presented here is that the juxtaposition between the sacred and laughter allows a certain essential separation between the two, providing balance and perspective to stop piety from becoming fanaticism, and to prevent the sacred from becoming constricting. The anecdotes demonstrate learned playfulness with a deliberate choice to entertain while educating, rather than frivolity, sacrilege, or irreverence on the part of their authors. First, this chapter will look at the definition and development of iqtibās (direct quotation from the Qur’an), which will be followed by an examination of a number of anecdotes from the medieval sources, focusing on what has 92

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been termed as frivolous iqtibās. The reasons for the use of the Qur’an in literature will then be analyzed, with a specific focus on the motives for frivolous iqtibās, giving a brief scholarly history of modern secondary works to demonstrate that this particular usage of the Qur’an was deliberate, albeit very carefully done.

Iqtibās: definition and development According to MacDonald and Bonebakker (2015), iqtibās means to take a qabas, a live coal or a light, from another’s fire; (see for example Qur’anic verses [20:10];3 [27:7] and [57:13]).4 Hence, it means to seek ʿilm (knowledge) and, as a technical term in rhetoric, to quote specific words from the Qur’an or from ḥadīth (prophetic traditions), but without indicating these as quotations. Al-​Thaʿālibī (d.429/​1038)5 is perhaps the first to devote a book, Kitāb al-​Iqtibās min al-​Qurʾān al-​Karīm (The Book of Quotations from the Noble Qur’an), entirely to this subject, which also established the term. A strong supporter of iqtibās, he dedicated a few pages in his book to condemning one type as iqtibās makrūh (reprehensible). He defines it as excessive iqtibās or mentioning qualities reserved for God and attributing them to humankind (al-​Thaʻālibī, 1992: 2:57–​58). Prior to that, scholars used different terms such as sariqa (theft), ikhtilās (misappropriation), intizāʿ (extraction), taḍmīn (insertion), istishhād (citation), talwīḥ or talmīḥ (allusion), ishāra (reference), istiʿāra (borrowing), and istinbāṭ or istikhrāj (extraction) to refer to the practice. Many scholarly works were devoted to the incorporation of Qur’anic quotations in both poetry and prose.6 This practice can be traced back to the lifetime of the Prophet, as shown by some of the surviving poetry attributed to his companions (Kadi and Mir, 2003). Though some scholars disapproved of this practice, quoting the Qur’an in literature was generally regarded as permissible by the majority of fuqahāʾ (jurists) prior to al-​Thaʿālibī.7 Later critics, such as Ibn Ḥijja al-​Ḥamawī (d.838/​1434), divided iqtibās into three categories: acceptable or recommended (maqbūl), as used in sermons; permissible (mubāḥ), as used in ghazal (song, elegy of love or amatory poem), letters, and stories; and objectionable (mardūd) for quotations of the Qur’an done in a frivolous manner (al-​Ḥillī, 1982: 326), (al-​Suyūṭī n.d.: 721), (al-​ Ḥamawī, 1886: 539). Theologians and moralists spent copious amounts of time on the subject of the image of God in man, as well as trying to restrict certain types of humour. Yet for all these laborious and occasionally heated deliberations, little has ever been said about humour as an aspect of the imago dei (image of God). Livnat Holtzman looked at appropriate and inappropriate descriptions of God in Islamic traditionalist theology by analyzing Ḥādī al-​arwāḥ ilā bilād al-​afrāḥ (The Leader of the Souls to the Land of Joy) by the Ḥanbalī theologian and jurist 93

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Ibn Qayyim al-​Jawziyya (d.751/​1350). She extracted traditions describing the variety of God’s laughter –​a laughter of mockery, triumph, as a reward to the believers, good-​natured, loving, and as a blessing (Holtzman, 2010). After all, the Qur’an says about God: ‘And that He it is Who makes (men) laugh and makes (them) weep’ (53:43). If God laughs, and also makes his creations laugh, then is laughing really frivolous? The term ‘frivolous manner’, used by the jurists and theologians, is a rather ‘vague’ description and depends on various interpretations or degrees of strict readings. However, using the Qur’an in humorous anecdotes (nawādir) is more likely to be considered frivolous than not. According to Pellat, nawādir (sing. nādira) literally means ‘rare things or rarities; the term denotes pleasing anecdotes containing wit, humour, jocularity, and lively repartee (nukta, pl. nukat; mulḥa, pl. mulaḥ; fukāha, etc.) of the type which has never ceased to be an integral feature of all social gatherings, whether intimate or official’ (Pellat, 2015). He further opines that the appreciation and collection of this oral, as well as literary, genre started in the first/​seventh century, especially in Medina, and seems to have developed further under the Abbasids, especially in Baṣra. Adab (literature) and nawādir collections are either general or specialized, depending on the nature of both the audience for whose edification and entertainment they were intended and the sources from which they were compiled (Gutas, 1981: 59). The nawādir collections are replete with anecdotes using and sometimes abusing the Qur’an by misquoting some verses or verse fragments or mixing different verses together, as will be demonstrated. The jokes range from the innocent to the elaborate all the way to the borderline risqué, and mostly employ iqtibās rather than allusion. Humour was not frowned upon in the early Muslim community. There are many anecdotes and aḥādīth (prophetic traditions) depicting the Prophet laughing and joking with the companions, his wives, and the nascent Muslim community (Maghen, 2008). ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib is quoted as giving the following advice: ‘gladden the hearts by seeking wise anecdotes (or humorous wisdom), as hearts tend to get bored and tire as the body does’ (Kassāb, 2009: 77).

Examples of frivolous Iqtibās in anecdotes8 Jocular literature using the Qur’an is particular to the Muslim world and can truly be called Islamic humour. These anecdotes do not include any blasphemy against the Qur’an, its divine origin, or the Prophet. Qur’anic verses were used for humorous purposes; they were altered or parodied, used separately or mixed up and combined. Some of the anecdotes are quite sophisticated; some include many fragments from numerous chapters, 94

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while others only feature one verse or a fragment of a verse. Many jokes present the quotations as they appeared in the Qur’anic verses, while others elicit humour by distorting or inverting the original text. Most were used to be instructive or educational to serve a didactic function alongside that of entertainment. However, all of them assimilate the Qur’anic portions seamlessly into the anecdote or joke.

Examples of quotations of a verse fragment or a single verse Single verses or fragments of a verse incorporated into the jokes focus on the humorous, mainly to mock a certain group of people, such as misers, Bedouins, ṭufaylīs (party-​crashers, social parasites) or other minorities. Al-​Ibshīhī, the Egyptian writer (died after 850/​1446) collected the following anecdotes: A Bedouin woman entered a mosque while people were praying; the Imam recited, ‘Then marry (inkaḥū) such women as seem good to you’ [Q 4:3], and kept repeating it several times. The woman ran out of the mosque and kept running until she reached her sister and told her breathlessly: ‘The Imam was ordering the men to marry us, so that I feared they would ravish me then and there’. (al-​Ibshīhī, 1992: 511) The word ‘nikāḥ’ can mean marriage, but can also mean sexual intercourse. The Qur’an uses the word to mean marriage as well as sexual intercourse exclusively within the contract of marriage. The Bedouin woman allegedly feared for her honour and therefore escaped from the mosque before its perceived imminent violation. The incongruous juxtaposition of sexual intercourse and congregational prayer in the mosque creates the humour in this anecdote. A Bedouin was praying in a mosque. The imam was reciting: ‘Surely We sent Noah to his people’ [Q 71:1] and seemed to have not been able to remember the rest of the verse. He kept repeating the verse over and over again. Finally the Bedouin interrupted him and said: ‘Send someone else, may God have mercy on you, so you can relieve yourself and us’. (al-​Ibshīhī, 1992: 512) During sermons, the congregation should be quiet and listen attentively to the imam. Talking invalidates prayer. The Bedouin is depicted as impatient. He also fails to recognize that the imam is either repeating the verse for tajwīd (embellishment or beautification of the recitation) or to allow himself some time to remember the following verse. A similar concept is used in the following jokes: 95

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While a Bedouin was praying, the imam recited: ‘Say: Have you considered if God should destroy me and those with me?’ [Q 67:28]. The Bedouin exclaimed: ‘What’s the matter with you? May God destroy you alone, what have the people with you done to be destroyed?’ The congregation burst out laughing and invalidated their prayer from the intensity of their laughter. (al-​Ibshīhī, 1992: 511, emphasis added) All the above jokes focus on Bedouins, highlighting certain perceived cultural specificities and criticizing particular forms of behaviour. Bedouins and nomads are a favourite group for people to ridicule in anecdotes, because they are portrayed mainly as simple-​minded people who lack sophistication. Their mental rigidity and lack of familiarity with urban institutions are invoked to create humorous situations. The following anecdotes feature ṭufaylīs (singular ṭufaylī, party-​crashers) and were collected by al-​Khaṭīb al-​Baghdādī (d.463/​1071): Bunān, a famous ṭufaylī, tried to gate-​crash a banquet and was prevented from entering. He looked for a ladder, climbed up to look in and saw the host’s children. The host became angry and reprimanded him: ‘Hey you! Don’t you fear God, you have seen my daughters!’ Bunān recited: ‘They said: Certainly you know that we have no claim on your daughters, and most surely you know what we desire’ [Q 11:79]. The man laughed and said: ‘Descend from up there and come eat’. (al-​ Baghdādī, 1983: 116–​117, emphasis added) The original Qur’anic quotation used refers to the men of Sodom, who wanted to rape Lot’s male guests. In Bunān’s case, the threat is vastly diminished, because he only wanted free food. Here, the exaggeration elicits the humour. A ṭufaylī was once asked about his knowledge of the Qur’an. He replied: ‘I am one of the most knowledgeable people about it.’ He was asked to interpret verse [Q 12:82] ‘And inquire in the town in which we were and the caravan with which we proceeded, and most surely we are truthful.’ The ṭufaylī said: ‘It means ask the people of that village’. He was asked if he had any proof of that interpretation being correct. He replied: ‘Yes, when we say “I ate at so-​and-​so’s table,” it means the food served there’. (al-​Baghdādī, 1983: 109, emphasis added) The literal translation of fa-​sʾal al-​qaryata is ‘And ask the town’; or else the point of what follows about the rhetorical use of ḥadhf (omission) is lost. This particular Qur’anic verse is much discussed in classical exegetical literature because it presents a case in which the literal meaning cannot be 96

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true. One cannot exactly ask an inanimate village or town. Rhetoricians use it to show that knowledge of rhetoric –​and not just grammar and lexicon –​is essential for a correct understanding of the Qur’an. Bunān understands this point perfectly. However, by relocating the Qur’anic synecdoche –​the village standing for the people who live there –​into his chosen area of expertise, namely food –​especially the free variety –​ humour is created. The following anecdote is yet another indication of Bunān’s obsession with his favourite topic: Bunān said: ‘I used to know the entire Qur’an by heart then I forgot it all except one verse, “Bring to us our morning meal, certainly we have met with fatigue from this our journey” ’ [Q 18:62]. (al-​Baghdādī, 1983: 139–​140, emphasis added) The previous group of jokes collectively focuses on ṭufaylīs. Most of them are short witty anecdotes reflecting the brevity of the Qur’anic style. Most of them use short quotations from the Qur’an to convey the abstract concept inherent in the reason for producing the joke collections in the first place, namely educating while entertaining. Instead of outright condemning avarice and greed, the jokes implicitly warn against indulging in greed, caution against parsimony, and subtly call for generosity and giving. The depiction of the ṭufaylīs entertains the readers with their arguments to obtain more food without spending any money. The following anecdotes have different protagonists, who also represent minorities and were collected by Ibn al-​Jawzī (d.597/​1200): Abū Bakr b. Muḥammad b. al-​Ḥasan al-​Ḥājjī reported that Abū-​l-​ Fawāris Ṭarrād b. Muḥammad told him that a Jew and a Muslim were debating –​he believed it was at the majlis (council) of al-​Murtaḍā (d.436/​1044). The Jew asked: ‘What do you say about folks whom God has identified as turning their backs on others?’ He meant the Prophet and his companions at the battle of Ḥunayn. The Muslim replied: ‘Moses was even worse than they.’ The Jew asked him: ‘How so?’ He replied: ‘he turned back retreating and did not return’ [Q 27: 10]. (Ibn al-​Jawzī, 2003: 185) The following joke ridicules the unbelieving arrogant Pharaoh: It was reported that two of Pharaoh’s men dragged a believer in front of Pharaoh, who asked them: ‘Who is your God?’ They both replied: ‘You!’ He asked the third man, the prisoner, who replied: ‘My God is their God.’ Pharaoh exclaimed: ‘You brought a believer to me 97

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to kill?’ Instead, he ordered them both executed. They said: ‘This is what God said: “So Allah protected him from the evil consequences of what they planned, and the most evil punishment overtook Pharaoh’s people”’ [Q 40:45]. (Ibn al-​Jawzī, 2003: 173, emphasis added) In the above anecdote, the accused believer is performing taqiyya (dissimulation), which denotes concealment or a form of a religiously sanctioned lie, whereby a believer can deny his faith or commit an illegal or blasphemous act, when in great fear or at risk of persecution or death. When he says, ‘My god is their god’, he does not mean Pharaoh, but he means God, who is the god of all people. Pharaoh misunderstands that he is agreeing with them in worshipping their god, who is Pharaoh himself. The amplification of a prejudice that Jews are argumentative or that unbelievers are careless with the life of believers has been used over and over again as a motif in jokes. Using Qur’anic verses or fragments is comparatively milder or less abrasive than using an openly negative unsympathetic description. It substitutes unpleasant words to mask the harshness, and the quotes are inserted to lend a trace of exaggeration or irony to produce the humorous effect. Al-​Thaʿālibī collected the following anecdote: A man was offered a beautiful black slave girl on the market.9 As he found her very appealing, he asked her about her name. She replied: ‘My name is Mecca.’ The man shouted: ‘Allāhu akbar’ [God is great] and asked her if she would permit him to kiss the ‘Black Stone’.10 She told him that every pilgrimage starts with seven circumambulations, includes ‘distress of the souls’ [Q 16:7] and much effort. (al-​Thaʻālibī, 1999: 129, emphasis added) The use of the Qur’anic fragment here results in mixing the sacred with the profane. The implied erotic innuendo shocks the audience, which then, relieves itself through laughter and according to Rosenthal, releases the restrictive rules (Rosenthal, 1956: 1).

Examples of quotations of a number of verses from a single chapter Numerous verses or fragments from a single chapter of the Qur’an were also incorporated into jokes to show off the author’s knowledge of the Qur’an. They also focus on the humorous or highlight an educational message about certain behaviour. Al-​Ibshīhī writes: A Bedouin prayed behind an imam who recited ‘Did We not destroy the former?’ [Q 77:16], and as the Bedouin was standing in the first row 98

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he moved to the second row. The imam continued to recite: ‘Then did We follow them up with subsequent ones?’ [Q 77.17] So, again the Bedouin moved to the third row. The imam continued with: ‘Even thus shall We deal with the Criminals’ [mujrimūn, singular mujrim] [Q 77:18]. As the Bedouin was named Mujrim, he left the prayer running and screaming: ‘I am the one God meant.’ Some Bedouins found him later in this sorry state and asked him what the matter was? He replied: ‘The imam called for the destruction of the first two and the others and then wanted me to perish. By God I will never go see him again after today’. (al-​Ibshīhī, 1992: 511–​512, emphasis added) The use of several verses in the same joke exaggerates and overemphasizes the basic idea. Here the simple-mindedness of the Bedouin and his impressionability are highlighted. The overstatement produces a more noticeable effect. Ibn al-​Jawzī includes the following anecdote in his collection: Ismāʿīl b. Aḥmad al-​Samarqandī told us that he heard from a man from al-​Raqqah that ʿAbd al-​Malik b. ʿUmayr said: ‘Ziyād captured a man from the Khawārij who managed to escape’.11 He then went and arrested his brother, telling him, ‘Bring me your brother or I will behead you’. The brother asked him, ‘If I get you a letter from Amīr al-​Muʾminīn (the Commander of the Believers) would you set me free?’ Ziyād affirmed that. The man recited: ‘Or, has he not been informed of what is in the scriptures of Moses? * And (of) Abraham who fulfilled (the commandments) * That no bearer of burden shall bear the burden of another’ [Q 53:36–​38].12 Ziyād said, ‘Let him go, he made his argument’. (Ibn al-​Jawzī, 2003: 189, emphasis added) Here again the joke exaggerates the victory of justice over unfairness and the use of several verses produces an emphasis; in addition, it allows the author to demonstrate his knowledge of the Qur’an and his ability to incorporate the verses seamlessly into his anecdote.

Examples of quotations from numerous chapters Quotations from numerous chapters demonstrate the author’s knowledge of the Qur’an and his expertise in weaving together seemingly unrelated verses or verse fragments from the entire Qur’an. They show how he can skilfully and flawlessly connect many fragments to enhance the plot rather than confuse the listener or reader. The more verses the author uses, the better he can highlight his skills, show how knowledgeable and learned he is and emphasize that he is a well-​versed scholar. 99

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Al-​Baghdādī collected an anecdote involving Abū Ḥanīfa (d.150/​ 767), the famous theologian from whom the school of the Ḥanaf īs take their name: A man went out to visit a sick man at the outskirts of Kūfa. On his way he met with Abū Hanīfa and Abū Bakr al-​Hudhalī [d.159/​775] who joined him. Abū Hanīfa told Abū Bakr that if they visit, they might be offered food. They entered and talked for a while and were offered nothing. Abū Bakr recited from Qur’an saying: ‘And We will most certainly try you with somewhat of fear and hunger’ [Q 2:155]. The sick man understood and recited: ‘It shall be no crime in the weak, nor in the sick’ [Q 9:91]. Abū Hanīfa then said, ‘Let us go, your friend here is not hospitable’. (al-​Baghdādī, 1983: 38, emphasis added) In this anecdote, Abū Bakr recites the verse mentioning hunger, implicitly asking that they be offered food. The host recited the verse absolving the weak and the sick, subtly echoing another verse: ‘Allah does not impose upon any soul a duty but to the extent of its ability’ [Q 2:286]. This translates to an announcement that no food or other forms of hospitality were going to be offered. This anecdote serves to show that even theologians could be thought of as engaging in a form of taṭfīl (party crashing or sponging) by taking hospitality for granted and assuming that food or drink were necessarily forthcoming. In the following group of jokes, the Qur’anic quotations from different chapters are used to create a situation of poetic justice in which the positive characters are rewarded and the negative characters are penalized for their behaviour: A woman hires a professional Qur’an reciter earning his living by reciting in the cemetery, and she gives him a loaf of bread as payment for reciting over her son’s grave. The man recites: ‘The day when they will be pulled, faces downward, towards hellfire. Taste the touch of Hell’ [Q 54:48]. Utterly outraged, the woman reproaches him: ‘This is perhaps not the appropriate verse to be recited over a grave.’ He answers: ‘Why, what do you expect for a loaf of bread? “Reclining on cushions with brocaded trimming?” [Q 55:54] That costs a dirham!’. (Ibn al-​Jawzī, 1926: 140, emphasis added) The reciter subtly accuses the woman of being parsimonious and implies that she got what she paid for. The author has the reciter use the Qur’an, instead of lecturing the woman about avarice and thereby boring his readers by sounding too self-​r ighteous. Instead, he uses the Qur’an to engage his reader to arrive at the desired conclusion. 100

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A rather unattractive woman stood in front of a spice shop. The owner was known to be frivolous and obscene. When he saw her he recited: ‘And when the beasts are made to go forth’ [Q 81:5]. She recited: ‘And he strikes out a likeness for Us and forgets his own creation’ [Q 36:78]. (Ibn al-​Jawzī, 1926: 140, emphasis added) The woman reminds the shop-​keeper that both of them are God’s creation, urging him indirectly not to mock other people. This invokes another verse, namely, ‘O you who believe! Let not (one) people laugh at (another) people, perchance they may be better than they’ (49:11). A certain scholar related: ‘We had a friend in Baṣra who was good natured and ẓarīf [witty, of great wit]. He promised to invite us to his home one day. Every time we met him we asked: “When will this threat come to pass” [Q 36:48] and he would remain silent. Then one day he was ready for us, so when we met him and asked him the same, he replied: “Walk on to that which you called a lie”’ [Q 77:29]. (Ibn al-​Jawzī, 2003: 198, emphasis added) The above jokes demonstrate one of the objectives of the anecdote collections, which is to edify while entertaining. All these jokes depict protagonists who display an undesirable habit or behaviour, be it avarice, haughtiness, or an attitude of ‘know-​it-​all’. Rather than condemning these bad traits outright, the Qur’anic quotations do that in a witty manner, and at the same time amuse the reader. Ibn Ḥibbān (d.354/​965), a well-​known muḥaddith (traditionist), also collected some anecdotes in his book Rawḍat al-​ʿuqalāʾ wa-​nuzhat al-​fuḍalāʾ (The Flower-Stroll of the Wise and the Promenade of the Virtuous). The following anecdote is also highly sophisticated and again uses many verses from different chapters: Al-​Aṣmāʾī told us: ‘Whilst I was in the desert, I came upon a Bedouin woman travelling alone on a camel. I asked her: “Oh slave of the Almighty, who are you seeking?” She replied: “Whomsoever Allah guides, he is the one who follows the right way; and whomsoever He causes to err, these are the losers” [Q 7:178]. I understood that she was lost, so I asked her if she was indeed lost? She replied: “So We made Solomon to understand it; and to each one We gave wisdom and knowledge” [Q 21:79]. I then asked her where she was from and she replied: “Glory be to Him Who made His servant to go on a night from the Sacred Mosque to the remote mosque of which We have blessed the precincts” [Q 17:1]. I knew then that she was from Jerusalem and asked her why she did not talk? She replied: “He utters not a word but 101

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there is by him a watcher at hand” [Q 50:18] One of my companions said, “She must be from the Khawārij”. She replied: “And We have placed coverings on their hearts and a heaviness in their ears lest they understand it” [Q 17:46]. As we were on our way we saw a dome and some tents when she said: “And landmarks; and by the stars they find the right way” [Q 16:16]. I did not understand what she meant and asked her: “What are you saying?” She replied: “And there came travellers and they sent their water-​drawer and he let down his bucket. He said: O good news! This is a youth” [Q 12:19]. I asked her whom to call for? She replied: “O Yaḥyā! take hold of the Book with strength” [Q 19:12], then added: “O Zakariyyā! surely We give you good news” [Q 19:7] and finally said: “O, Dāwūd! Surely We have made you a ruler in the land” [Q 38:26]. He said: “So we have three brothers who are like gems.” They said: “Praise be to God, our mother, we have lost her three days ago.” She said: “And they shall say: [All] praise is due to God, Who has made grief to depart from us” [Q 35:34]. She then nodded to one of the young men and said: “Now send one of you with this silver (coin) of yours to the city, then let him see which of them has purest food, so let him bring you provision from it” [Q 18:19]. I said: “She asked them to bring us food”, and sure enough they came with bread and cakes. I said: “We have no need for that.” I asked the three about the woman and their relationship to her and they told me that she was their mother and has not spoken a single word for forty years except reciting from the Qur’an, because she was afraid to lie. I approached the woman and said: “Oh slave of God, give me some advice.” She said: “I do not ask of you any reward for it but love for my near relatives” [Q 42:23]. I realized then she was a Shīʿite and then left.’ (Ibn Ḥibbān, 2008: 1:117, emphasis added) This anecdote is a fascinating example of Qur’anic knowledge and erudition on the part of the author. The woman replaces her own speech entirely with that of the Qur’an, speaking almost in the form of a code. The decoding of many of these quotations in the anecdote itself by al-​Aṣmāʾī offers some explanation to the reader, which are in the form of insertions such as, ‘I understood that she was lost’ or ‘I knew then that she was from Jerusalem’, so the reader can follow the complicated, elaborate story. In this anecdote, a form taqiyya can be sensed, which is why al-​Aṣmāʾī and his group assumed that she was a Khārijī. It is only after the woman quotes the last verse mentioning ‘near relatives’, that al-​Aṣmāʾī realizes she was Shiʿite. The term ‘near relatives’ invokes the term ahl al-​bayt, literally ‘the people of the House’, meaning the family of the Prophet. The above anecdote departs from the short style, as it is much longer and mixes fragments from numerous chapters. It not only shows off the 102

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Qur’anic knowledge and skill of the author, but the quotations are a strong literary device. They enhance the imagery for the reader to visualize the story. The overuse of Qur’anic quotations can be seen as stifling, but can also be understood as tickling and awakening the reader or listener to maintain his concentration.

Examples of misquoting the Qur’an Misquoting the Qur’an or changing words or a sequence of words has also been employed as a device in jokes: Someone passed by a man who was reciting: ‘The Turks are vanquished in a near land’ [Q 30:2–​3] so the man corrected him saying ‘the Romans’. The reciter replied: ‘All of them are our enemies, may God vanquish them all’. (al-​Ibshīhī, 1992: 514, emphasis added) The humorous point here is the man’s brazen disregard for the actual literal sense, favouring his own assessment of who Islam’s enemies are. A Bedouin was visiting a miser who quickly covered a plate of figs in front of him with his clothing. The Bedouin noticed this silently, and then engaged the miser in a conversation. The miser asked him to recite what he knew from the Qur’an upon which the Bedouin recited [I swear by the olive and Mount Sinai]. The miser asked where the figs were and received the answer that they were hidden under his clothing. (al-​Baghdādī, 1964: 75–​76; Ibn al-​Jawzī, 2003: 128) The correct verses should read: ‘I swear by the fig and the olive * And Mount Sinai’ (Q 95:1–​2). By omitting to mention the figs, hiding them from the recitation so to speak, the protagonist is highlighting the figs hidden by the miser, thereby creating a direct and humorous relationship between the figs and their absence. Ibn ‘Āṣim (d.892/​1426) collected the following anecdote: I passed a tutor teaching a boy the Qur’an. He had written on the board: ‘He said: O my son! Do not relate your vision to your brothers, lest they devise a plan against you’ [Q 12:5] –​‘And I (too) will make a scheme. So grant the unbelievers a respite: let them alone for a while’ [Q 86:16–​17]. I said to him: ‘Woe be unto you, are you mixing verses from different chapters?’ The teacher replied: ‘Yes, may God grant you good health. His father postpones my wages month after month, mixing the months together, so I also mix the verses of the Chapters. That way neither 103

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do I receive anything, nor does the boy receive an education’. (Ibn ʻĀṣim, 1987: 258, emphasis added) Humour is created by the mixing of levels, the levels of the different Qur’anic chapters and the situation in real life of the missing wages. The author thereby draws an analogy between the sacred (the text) and the profane (payment). This may be an implicit comment on the issue of receiving payment for teaching the Qur’an, which was a topic of legal debate. The debate involved the same comparison: how can one treat the Qur’an in the same way as one would treat carpentry work, or tailoring, and so on?13 Misquoting some verses or verse fragments, mixing different verse portions together, inserting different words or eliminating them from the original verse would most likely be considered an abuse of the Qur’an. However, it is clear that both the compilers and readers of these anecdotes clearly understood that the Qur’an had not been derided or dishonoured in any way, but rather that the mix-up was used to ridicule certain behaviour, ignorance, greed, or bad characteristics.

General motives for iqtibās of the Qur’an in literary works There have been many attempts to explain the reasons why authors used and alluded to the Qur’an in their literary works. These studies focused mainly on serious works, such as official letters, public speeches, ḥamāsa (verses on bravery and valour in war), maqāma (Arabic literary genre of rhymed and rhythmic prose), and poetry in general, such as the bilingual Mulammaʿ (Persian poetry) and ghazal (often called the erotico-​elegiac genre). The Qur’anic usage has been identified, studied, and attributed to various reasons summarized below.

Study, education, and daily interaction One of the main reasons for the iqtibās of the Qur’an in literary works was attributed to studying and memorizing the Qur’an from early childhood. In addition, the daily interaction with the Qur’an in prayers, rituals, or recitations, as well as the advice to orators, authors, secretaries, and public servants to memorize the Qur’an to improve their language skills were also cited. By the fourth/​tenth century, the practice of incorporating verses from poetry, the Qur’an, and amthāl (proverbs) into chancery epistles and various genres of belles lettres, the standard publications of prose stylists, developed into an artistic technique, by which to evaluate the competence of a kātib (author). Even non-​Muslims, such as Abū Isḥāq al-​Ṣābī (d.384/​ 994), memorized the Qur’an and used to quote its verses in his letters (al-​ Thaʻālibī, 1956: 2:242–​243). 104

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Qur’anization of memory Ibn al-​Athīr (d.637/​1239) in his al-​Mathal al-​sāʾir advised the aspiring poet or author to memorize the Qur’an, ḥadīth, and thousands of lines of poetry, and then to internalize them –​as if to forget them –​suggesting that the process will result in the ability to write great pieces that are inspired by these texts without slavishly imitating them. Paul Nwyia has aptly termed this phenomenon, particularly among mystics, ‘qoranisation de la memoire’ (Qur’anization of memory). Nwiya thereby opposed it to the ordinary, rote memorization of the Qur’an within the Muslim milieu, which emphasizes the ability to reproduce the text verbatim rather than internalizing its stylistic patterns (Nwyia, 1970a: 1–​17). Nwyia further comments that the Qur’anic verses are recited, used, and, in the case of the mystics, meditated upon, eventually becoming part of the very fabric of the person’s memory, permeating the language through which he expresses his thought (Nwyia, 1970a: 46). He concludes that eventually there comes a time when the person’s own thinking is moulded out of similar thoughts, phrases, and expressions which then spontaneously spring forth.

Arabic language and Arabization Another motive for the frequent use of iqtibās in literary works is the pre-​ eminence of Arabic as the language of the state, society, and religion (Alshaar, 2017). This encouraged the widespread knowledge of the Qur’anic text as the best way to learn Arabic (Kadi and Mir, 2003: 215). The continued spread of Islam beyond the Arabian Peninsula also set an ‘Arabization’ process in motion, which was based on the fact that Arabic was the language of the Qur’an that enjoyed the utmost prestige (see Q 42:7). Manfred Fleischhammer argues that these two factors have given the Arab world a distinctively independent linguistic, intellectual, and cultural character (Fleischhammer, 1988). However, the existence of nawādir collections in other languages of the Islamic world, such as Persian and Turkish, weakens this argument (Kurz, 2009).

Virtue of the Qur’an In the early part of the third/​ninth century, separate works on faḍāʾil (virtues or excellences) of the Qur’an began to emerge, such as the work of al-​Muḥāsibī (d.243/​857). These works praised the merits of reciting the Qur’an, merits of individual sūras (chapters), the descent of sakīna (indwelling the immanence or presence of God) and angels on those who recite or read the Qur’an. It also commended the superiority and/​ or the superordinate status of the Qur’an over the rest of speech, and the 105

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desirability of reciting the Qur’an in a melodious voice. The excellence of those who learn and teach the Qur’an, memorize it, and are faithful to its injunctions is commended (Afsaruddin, 2002: 5). The third/​ninth and fourth/​tenth centuries were the heyday of this genre, which also exposes the central role of the Qur’an, both as an oral and written text in Muslims’ daily life (Afsaruddin, 2002: 2). Hence, to quote the Qur’an was also to gain linguistic and religious legitimacy, as well as baraka (blessing) (Virani, 2008: 301). Ibn Khalaf al-​Kātib (d.437/​1045) states that the main motivation for Qur’anic borrowing and quotation is to seek divine approval (Ibn Khalaf al-​Kātib, 2003: 44–​45). In addition, al-​Qalqashandī (d.821/​1418) observed that the Qur’an is often used to provide evidence for arguments, thereby helping the author in establishing conclusive authoritative proofs for his claims in a brief and forceful manner and language (al-​Qalqashandī, 1922: 1:191–​1 93). However, in jokes, there is no argument to be bolstered by inserting Qur’anic quotations, nor do jokes and anecdotes lend themselves to gaining any religious legitimacy. Perhaps the authors were simply seeking baraka.

Motives for the use of iqtibās in ‘frivolous’ works As demonstrated above, iqtibās in literary works was used as an act of piety or a means of demonstrating irrefutable proof for winning an argument. In some cases, iqtibās from the Qur’an served as a satire or parody of the sacred text or even to ridicule some of the particular Qur’anic concepts and themes, as in the mujūn14 poetry of Bashshār b. Burd (d.168/​784), Abu ’l-​ʿAtāhiya (d.210–​211/​825–​826), and Abū Nuwās (d.198–​200 AH/​ 813–​815 AD). Several poems by Abū Nuwās use ‘divine’ attributes, which are closely linked to the divine epithets applied to God in the Qur’an and extend them to wine. In other examples, the same attributes are applied to both wine and God, creating a sort of equality, stressing that wine, like God, is eternal and immaterial. These poems have been translated and analyzed in an article by Audebert (2000), who cites the corresponding verses from which the Qur’anic quotation was taken, as well as many other anecdotes culled from Ṭabaqāt al-​shuʿarāʾ al-​muḥdathīn by Ibn al-​Muʿtazz (d.296/​908). One verse with iqtibās from the Qur’an that is quoted extensively on the web, reads as follows: Let the mosques be populated by worshippers ~ let us circumambulate for a bartender to irrigate us Your God has not said woe to the drunkards ~ but he said woe to the praying ones.15 106

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Daʿ il-​masājida li-​l-​ʿibādi taskunuha –​wa ṭuf binā ḥawla khammārin yasqīnā mā qāla rabbuka waylun li-​lladhīna sakar ū –​ wa lākin qāla waylun li-​l-​muṣallīnā.16 The original verses from the Qur’an read as follows: ‘So woe to the praying ones, * Who are unmindful of their prayers’ (Q 107:4–5). Hence, the poet omitted the actual reason for the woe, namely being unmindful in prayer. As demonstrated, iqtibās was a favourite literary device in anecdotes about ṭufaylīs and bukhalāʾ (misers), in which knowledge of the Qur’an serves to solicit food or protect it from others and to keep one’s money, depending on the protagonist of the anecdote. Another favourite group are the nomads and Bedouins; the Qur’an is also often quoted to satirize or mock their ignorance, their provincial manners and temperament. Such narratives have been studied for their content, and they show how the sacred text moved from being a sacred authority to becoming part of a play or parody.17 Rosenthal’s definition of humour in the pioneering work Humour in Early Islam, namely that it was a release from restrictive rules (Rosenthal, 1956: 1), works well with Qur’anic quotations in jokes. It is the juxtaposition of the sacred and humour that allows a certain necessary separation and distance between the two, to allow for balance and perspective. Fanatic or fundamentalist interpretations could result in the sacred becoming restrictive and repressing. The anecdotes demonstrate learned playfulness and a conscious intention and deliberate choice to entertain while educating, rather than frivolity, sacrilege, or irreverence on the part of their authors. If the initial, expected, and primary response to the sacred is intensely serious, this intensity cannot be sustained indefinitely. Hyers argues: ‘In laughter seriousness is made human and tolerable at the same time that it is preserved from stuffiness and prudishness. Humour apart from holiness may be irresponsible, but holiness apart from humour is inhuman’ (Hyers, 1969: 212). Hyers, though arguing from a different discipline, seems to explain Rosenthal’s definition and clarifies why the restrictive rules of ‘over-​p iety’ are unsustainable. Hyers also notes that ‘laughter often arises out of the tensions generated by insecurity; in its most mature form laughter arises within the freedom of security’ (Hyers, 1969: 238). It seems that out of that security, a type of ‘Qur’anophilia’, was born from the intimacy of the daily interactions with the Qur’an. This ‘Qur’anophilia’ reflects a new, urban type of creative and tolerant culture, resulting from the enormous territorial expansions and social changes taking place in the Umayyad and Abbasid periods. This culture seemed determined to manifest itself with no inhibitions in literature as well as in other spheres of cultural life (Szombathy, 2004: 105). Though imitation and parody of 107

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the Qur’an were almost universally condemned, tolerance was displayed in the use of Qur’anic quotations in anecdotes and jokes. Challenging the literary superiority of the Qur’an by attempting to prove aptitude and talent by imitating the Qur’an was tried repeatedly in Islamic history; however, no complete text is extant (Boullata, 2015). Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ (d.139/​756), al-​Nāshiʾ al-​Akbar (d.293/​906), al-​Mutanabbī (d.354/​955), and finally Abū l-​ʿAlāʾ al-​Maʿarrī (d.449/​1057) are all reputed to have penned various types of imitations of Islam’s sacred text. Hence, humour appears as a sign of dynamism and vitality, while the lack of humour becomes a sign of stagnation. Ibn Khaldūn (d.784/​1382) had aptly written that civilizations have lifespans like individuals, and that every dynasty will eventually fall, after suffering times of economic, social, and political decline or depression. He also noted that during those times of decline, the ʿulamāʾ (scholars) would lose touch with the realities of a rapidly changing environment and fiqh (jurisprudence) would stagnate and, accordingly, cease to develop with the needs of the times. He also identified that this deprived Islam of the dynamism which it reflected in the earlier centuries, leading to restrictions and ultimately fanaticism and intolerance. Why then did the authors of the jokes use the sacred scripture in their jokes? Why did they incorporate the Qur’an into their anecdotes rather than proverbs or poetry? Why did they mix the sacred with the profane or ‘frivolous’? Quoting the Qur’an is necessarily a deliberate act on the part of the author. Annemarie Schimmel’s assumption that every well-​educated Muslim would generally recognize such insertions is well founded for the medieval and even for the premodern periods (Schimmel, 1992: 42). Therefore, the practice of quoting the Qur’an in jokes must exceed the concept of a ‘Qur’anization of memory’ and has to be a conscious, deliberate decision of the writer to ensure that his audience or readers understand the punchline. Furthermore, allusions to the Qur’an, ḥadīth, and proverbs are excellent rhetorical devices that lend themselves to multilingual compositions and translations. The nawādir genre was part of the genre known as adab (literature). The same anecdotes and amusing stories were reused in different parts of the Muslim world, even with different protagonists. This can be seen when comparing the nawādir of the popular figures Juḥā and Naṣr al-​ Dīn Khoja or Mulla Naṣr al-​Dīn. Ulrich Marzolph devoted a comparative study to this theme (Marzolph, 1991: 275–​285). This also supports that Qur’anic iqtibās must be a conscious and deliberate decision of the writer because in different parts of the Muslim World, the Qur’anic verses that make up the quotations would still be recognized, even when translated into other languages, making the punchline of the joke understandable to the audience. 108

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Another function of iqtibās is to shock the listeners or readers. Van Gelder writes that when poets, and by extension the litterateurs or udabāʾ (authors), are being frivolous, they intend to shock their audience. This effect is easily achieved by using Qur’anic references because they are ‘readily recognised, blatant, and unsubtle’ (van Gelder, 2002–​2003: 4). Without engaging with the legal or theological questions or problems raised, answered, and circumvented by medieval Muslim scholars, reference to or quotations from the Qur’an, the memorized text par excellence, then had the advantage of being recognizable to others. The result was that the joke was appreciated by a wide audience. The shock would also have the added benefit of the jokes being remembered and widely quoted.

Modern times The modern Western reader might perhaps judge the jokes culled from medieval Arabic sources as mild and understated, so much so that these jokes might barely register as jokes on the Western humour scale. However, for Muslims, there is nothing mild about using the Qur’an in jokes, which, as demonstrated above, are deemed frivolous. The medieval authors used the Qur’an in their jokes, for the reasons explained above, yet they also wanted to avoid charges of blasphemy, irreverence, or abuse of the Qur’an. Moreover, jokes lose something when they are translated, transplanted, or explained. Some jokes can be shared across centuries, or even across cultures, but others are dependent on the company, time, and place in which they are heard (Beard, 2015: 27). People laugh at different things, or at the same things for different reasons and some do not laugh at all. Though humour is a universal phenomenon, it is also culturally specific, as culture impacts humour perception and people from different cultural backgrounds may see humour in different ways (Jiang et al, 2019). Jokes are a common and regular part of social interaction in Muslim countries, especially in the Middle East. What is more interesting though is what this historical material can tell us about the present and the current humour sensitivities in the Muslim world and the reactions to, for example, the Danish cartoons, which resulted in the accusation of Muslims lacking a sense of humour. Jokes are an essential and ubiquitous part of popular culture in the Arab world (Stewart, 2015: 224). Religious jokes are also part of modern popular culture. For example: • Abū Hurayra (one of the Prophet’s companions) died and stood before the angel responsible for the consequences of his earthly deeds. The angel looked at the computer and told him, ‘Hell.’ Abū Hurayra protested and 109

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demanded that the Prophet come. The Prophet came and looked at the computer and told him, ‘I can’t do anything about it. For you, it’s Hell.’ Abū Hurayra began to scream and cry. Angel Jibrīl (Gabriel) came next and Abū Hurayra started complaining to him. Suddenly they patted him on the shoulders and told him, ‘Look over here! You’re on Candid Camera!’. (Stewart, 2015: 238) • A teenager asks, ‘Who was the prophet who spoke to the animals?’ The second one answers, ‘Prophet Mowgli, peace be upon him’. (Stewart, 2015: 238) In the Qur’an, Sulaymān (Solomon) is the prophet endowed with the ability to understand the speech of animals, so that would be the expected answer. The joke pokes fun at the lack of religious knowledge on the part of the youth and its replacement by knowledge of Disney cartoon characters. These types of jokes have become a rarity, and popular culture has changed mainly due to a fundamentalist intolerant version of Islam and a more strict understanding of religion being imposed on Muslims. This was primarily due to Wahhabism18 disseminated all over the Muslim world with the help of the so-​called petro-​dollars in the early 1970s and the subsequent 1979 Iranian Revolution. Since then, irreverent humour has frequently got people into trouble. For example, a weekly Moroccan magazine, Nichane, published an article titled ‘Jokes: How Moroccans Laugh about Religion, Sex, and Politics’, that included ten jokes collected from oral sources circulating at the time as representing irreverent humour regarding three topics: Islam in general, Islamists, and the rule of the former king, Hasan II (1961–​1999). The article provoked a strong and immediate conservative backlash, and all involved in the publication of the article were accused of blasphemy (Stewart, 2015: 238).

Conclusion There is much to be said for joking and jesting and the power of laughter. As has been demonstrated, despite the extensive use of Qur’anic quotations, neither the central characters in the anecdotes nor their compilers felt any constraints using the Qur’an. Clearly, though, making fun of God, Muḥammad, and the other prophets remained taboo topics for humourists, and this certainly holds more so in today’s context. Hence, ‘the Qur’ān can shape humour, but it is not allowed to be made an object of humour’ (Tamer, 2009: 28). ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib said: ‘The Qur’an is a book, covered, between two flaps, and it does not speak. It should therefore necessarily have an interpreter. Men alone can be such interpreters’ (Raza, 1980: 474). 110

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It is when the ʿulamāʾ opt for more literal or restrictive interpretations and speak in the name of God or the Qur’an, that humour becomes almost a sin. Geert Jan van Gelder ended his article by saying: The Qur’an, as God’s words, has a unique status, but it is composed of words that are part of the Arabic language. When those words are quoted neither as a piece of Qur’anic recitation nor with their Qur’anic meaning, they cease to be Qur’an. God’s word is intrinsically inalienable and it were almost blasphemous to believe that humans could debase it. (2002–​2003: 13–​14) The metaphor of the qabas (firebrand), mentioned above, defining iqtibās evokes receiving the benefits of warmth and light. Yet, fire can also be destructive and harmful and is very apt when discussing such a controversial topic as the ‘frivolous’ use of the Qur’an or iqtibās from the Qur’an in jocular literature. As demonstrated, some of the jokes incorporating the Qur’an are borderline irreverent or blasphemous by the standards of their time, but they are found in the Islamic heritage, written when religion was solid, and people were familiar and ‘at ease’ with the scriptures and strong in their beliefs. The medieval authors used the Qur’an to shock their audience awake, demonstrate their skill and talent, and to ensure that the audience understood the punchline, even when the jokes were translated. They also showed an enormous measure of tolerance that is sorely needed in the Muslim world again. Notes 1 2 3

4

5

6

7

See for example Mir (1988); Mir (1991) and Tamer (2009). See for example: Malti-​Douglas (1997); Marzolph (2000); van Gelder (2002–​2003). The Qur’anic verses are quoted in the format of (chapter number: verse number), from The Holy Qur’an, translated by M.H. Shakir and published by Tahrike Tarsile Qur’an, Inc., in 1983. MacDonald, D.B.; Bonebakker, S.A.. ‘Iḳtibās.’ Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs. Brill Online, 2015. Reference. American University in Cairo. 10 March 2013. All dates are given in AH (after Hijra [migration to Medina] which is the Islamic dating)/​ AD. The same applies to centuries, which are given as Hijri/​AD. See for example the works of Dähne (2005); al-Q ​ āḍī (2005); Audebert (2000); van Gelder (2002–​2003); Gilliot (2000); Pomerantz and Orfali (2017); Malti-​Douglas (1997); Sanni (1994); Stetkevych (2007); Virani (2008) and Zakharia (1987). For more details see Pomerantz and Orfali (2017) & Afsaruddin (2002); al-​Ibshīhī (1992); al-​Ābī (1980); al-​Baghdādī (1964) and (1983); al-​Qāḍī (2005); al-​Qayrawānī (1953); Alshaar (2017); al-​Thaʻālibī (1992) and (1999); Audebert (2000); Brookshaw (2012); Buckley (2005); Dähne (2001) and (2005); Denny (1992); Fleischhammer (1988); Gilliot (2000); Gutas (1981); Hartmann (2004); Heck (2002); Holtzman (2010); Hyers (1969); Ibn al-​Athīr (n.d.); Ibn al-​Jawzī (1926), (1958) and (2003); Ibn ʻĀṣim (1987); Ibn Ḥibbān 111

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8

9

10

11

12 13 14

15

16

17 18

(2008); Ibn Khalaf al-​Kātib (2003), Ibn Qutayba (1996); Jackson (2004); Kassāb (2009); Kurz (2009); MacDonald & Bonebakker (2015); Maghen (2008); Malti-​Douglas (1980) (1985) and (1997); Marzolph (1991), (2000) and (2011); Mir (1988) and (1991); Nagel (2000); Nwyia (1970a) and (1970b); Pomerantz and Orfali (2017); Raza (1980); Rosenthal (1956); Sadān (2007); Sanni (1994); Schimmel (1992); Stetkevych (2007); Stewart (2015); Szombathy (2004); Tamer (2009); Toelle (2000); van Gelder (2002–​2003); Virani (2008); Zakharia (1987). All anecdotes were translated from Arabic by the author of this chapter unless stated otherwise. This joke might go against modern sensibilities regarding slavery and people of colour, but medieval authors did not share such sensibilities and hence, the joke was translated as found in the original source. The Black Stone is set into the eastern corner of the Ka’ba and is venerated, and many Muslim pilgrims kiss it, as recorded in a tradition narrating that the Prophet did the same. The Khawārij or Kharijites are a sect in the first/​seventh century who revolted against Caliph ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib after the Battle of Ṣiffīn in 37/​657. The * (asterisk) denotes the beginning of the following verse. For more on that discussion see Jackson (2004). According to Pellat mujūn corresponds to frivolity, but can also be extended to mean the most shameless debauchery, vulgarity, coarseness, impudence, libertinage, obscenity, and everything that may provoke coarse laughter, such as scatological humour. These verses have been attributed to Abū Nuwās, Bashshār b. Burd, Yazīd b. b. Muʿāwiya and anonymously to ‘a poet’ online. Thanks are due to Dr Geert Jan van Gelder for pointing out that these lines are clearly spurious, for they cannot be found in the sources, neither in Abū Nuwās’s Dīwān nor in Bashshār’s Dīwān. Dr van Gelder also pointed out that the metre of both lines is corrupt. See van Gelder (2002–​2003); Marzolph (2000); Malti-​Douglas (1997). Wahhabism is a term used to refer to the Saudi Arabian puritan, ultra-​conservative and fundamentalist movement associated with the Sunni Ḥanbalī doctrine of Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-​Wahhāb (1703-​1792).

Acknowledgements Thanks and gratitude are due to Dr Marlé Hammond and Dr Geert Jan van Gelder for their help in shedding light on the mystery surrounding the Khamriyyāt verses attributed to a number of different poets: Abu Nuwās, Bashshār b. Burd, Yazīd b. Muʿāwiya and others. Heartfelt thanks also go to Dr Geert Jan van Gelder for reading and correcting an earlier draft of this work.

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al-​Ḥamawī, I. (1886) Khizānat al-​adab wa ghāyat al-​arab (1st edn), Cairo: ʼal-​ Maṭbaʻah al-​Khayrīyah. al-​Ḥillī, Ṣ. (1982) Sharḥ al-​Kāfiya al-​badīʿiyya, Damascus: Maṭbūʿāt majmaʻ al-​luġa al-​ʿarabīya. al-​Ibshīhī, B. (1992) al-​Mustaṭraf fī kull fann mustaẓraf, Beirut: Dār Maktabit al-​Ḥayāt. al-​Qalqashandī, S. (1922) Ṣubḥ al-​aʿshā, Cairo: Dār al-​Kutub al-​Miṣriyya. al-​Qayrawānī, A. (1953) Jamʿ al-​jawāhir fī-​l milaḥ wa-​l nawādir, Cairo: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-​kutub al-​ʿarabiya. al-​Suyūṭī, J. (n.d.) al-​Itqān fī ʻulūm al-​Qurʼān, Medina: Majmaʻ al-​Malik Fahd li-​Ṭibāʻat al-​Muṣḥaf al-​Sharīf. al-​Thaʻālibī, A. (1956) Yatīmat al-​dahr fī maḥāsin ahl al-​ʿaṣr, Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-​Saʿāda. al-​Thaʻālibī, A. (1992) al-​Iqtibās min al-​Qurʼān al-​karīm; tahqị̄ q Ibtisām Marhūn al-​Sạffār, al-​Mansụ̄rah: Dār al-​Wafāʼ lil-​Tịbāʻah wa-​al-​Nashr wa-​al-​Tawzīʻ. al-​Thaʻālibī, A. (1999) Laṭāʾif al Zurafāʾ min Ṭabaqāt al-​Fuḍalāʾ, Beirut: al Dār al-​ʻArabiyya li-​l-​mawsūʿāt. Ibn al-​Athīr, Ḍ. (n.d.) al-​Mathal al-​sāʾir, Cairo: Dār Nahḍat Masr l-​il ṭabʿ wa-​l nashr. Ibn al-​Jawzī, A. (1926) Akhbār al-z​ ịrāf wa-a​ l-m ​ utamājinīn, Damascus: Matḅaʻat al-​Tawfīq. Ibn al-​Jawzī, A. (1958) Akhbār al-​hạmqá wa-​al-​mughaffalīn min al-​fuqahāʼ wa-​al-​mufassirīn, Beirut: al-​Maktab al-​Tijārī lil-​Tịbāʻah wa-​al-​Nashr wa-​al-​ Tawzīʻ. Ibn al-​Jawzī, A. (2003) Akhbār al-​Adhkiyāʾ, Beirut: Dār Ibn Hazm. Ibn ʻĀṣim, M. (1987) Hạdāʼiq al-​azāhir, tahqị̄ q ʻAfīf ʻAbd al-​Rahṃān, Beirut: Dār al-​Masīrah. Ibn Ḥibbān, A. (2008) Rawḍat al-​ʿuqalāʾ wa-​nuzhat al-​fuḍalāʾ, Damascus: al Hayʾa al-​ʿāmma al-​sūriyya li-​l-​kitāb. Ibn Khalaf al-​Kātib, ʿA. (2003) Mawād al-​bayān, ed. Ḥātim Ṣāliḥ al-​Ḍāmin, Damascus: Dār al-​Bashāʾir. Ibn Qutayba, A. (1996) Uy ū n al- ​ a khbār, Cairo: Dar al-​K uttub al-​Masriyya. Secondary sources Afsaruddin, A. (2002) ‘The excellences of the Qurʾān: textual sacrality and the organization of early Islamic society’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 122(1): 1–​24. al-​Qāḍī, W. (2005) ‘The impact of the Qur’an on the epistolography of ‘Abd al-​Hamid’, in G.R. Hawting (ed) Approaches to the Qur’an, London, New York: Routledge, pp 285–​313.

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Alshaar, N. (ed) (2017) The Qur’an and Adab: The Shaping of Literary Traditions in Classical Islam, London: Oxford University Press, in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies. Audebert, C. F. (2000) ‘Emprunts faits au Coran par quelques poètes du IIe/​VIIIe siècle’, Arabica 47(3): 457–​470. Beard, M. (2015) Laughter in Ancient Rome: on Joking, Tickling, and Cracking Up, Berkeley: University of California Press. Boullata, Issa J. (2015) ‘Parody of the Qurʾān’, in J. D. McAuliffe (ed) Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, Leiden: Brill Online. Available from: http:// referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-the-quran/ parody-of-the-qur-a-n-EQSIM_00315 Brookshaw, D. P. (ed) (2012) Ruse and Wit, The Humorous in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish Narrative, Boston, MA: Ilex Foundation. Buckley, F. (2005) The Morality of Laughter, Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Dähne, S. (2001) ‘Qur’anic wording in political speeches in classical Arabic literature’, Journal of Qur’anic Studies 3(2): 1–​13. Dähne, S. (2005) ‘Context equivalence: a hitherto insufficiently studied use of the Quran in political speeches from the early period of Islam’, in S. Günther (ed) Ideas, Images, and Methods of Portrayal –​Insights into Classical Arabic Literature and Islam, Leiden: Brill, pp 1–​16. Denny, F. M. (1992) ‘Components of religion: the case of Islam’, OAH Magazine of History 6 (No. 3, Teaching and Learning about Religion): 23–​28. Fleischhammer, M. (1988) Altarabische Prosa, Leipzig: Reclam. Gilliot, C. (2000) ‘Un florilège coranique: le iqtibās min al-​Qurʾān de Abū Manṣūr al-​Thaʿālibī’, Arabica 47(3): 488–​500. Gutas, D. (1981) ‘Classical Arabic wisdom literature: nature and scope’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 101(1): 49–​86. Hartmann, A. (ed) (2004) Geschichte und Erinnerungen im Islam, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Heck, P. L. (2002) ‘The hierarchy of knowledge in Islamic civilization’, Arabica 49(1): 27–​54. Holtzman, L. (2010) ‘Does God really laugh? Appropriate and inappropriate descriptions of God in Islamic traditionalist theology’, in A. Classen (ed) Laughter in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: Epistemology of a Fundamental Human Behavior, Its Meaning, and Consequences, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co., pp 165–​200. Hyers, M. C. (1969) ‘The dialectic of the sacred and the comic’, in M.C. Hyers (ed) Essays on Religion in the Comic Perspective, New York: The Seabury Press, pp 208–​240.

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Jackson, S. (2004) ‘Discipline and Duty in a Medieval Muslim Elementary School: Ibn Hajar al-​Haytami’s Taqrir al-​Maqal’, in D. J. Stewart, S. M. Toorawa and J. E. Lowry (eds) Law and Education in Medieval Islam: Studies in Memory of Professor George Makdisi, London: E.J.W. Gibb Memorial Trust, pp 18-​32. Jiang, T., Li, H. and Hou, Y. (2019) ‘Cultural differences in humor perception, usage, and implications’, Frontiers in Psychology, 10(123). doi: 10.3389/ fpsyg.2019.00123. Kadi (al-​Qāḍī), W. and Mir, M. (2003) ‘Literature and the Qurʾān’, in J. D. McAuliffe (ed) Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, Leiden: Brill Online. Available from: http://referenceworks.br illonline.com/entr ies/ encyclopaedia-of-the-quran/parody-of-the-qur-a-n-EQSIM_00315 Kassāb, A. (2009) Maʻa al-​musṭafā fī daḥikihi, Cairo: Maktabat Wahbah. Kurz, S. (2009) Verachtet das Scherzen nicht!’: Die kulturhistorische Aussagekraft von persischenSammlungen humoristischer Kurzprosa, Dortmund: Verlag für Orientkunde. MacDonald, D. B. and Bonebakker, S. A. (2015) ‘Iḳtibās’, in P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds) Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd edn), Leiden: Brill Online. Available from: http://​referenceworks.brillonline.com/​entries/​encyclopaedia-​of-​ islam-​2/​ik-​tiba-​s-​SIM_​3523 Maghen, Z. (2008) The merry men of Medina: comedy and humanity in the early days of Islam’, Der Islam 83: 277–​340. Malti-​D ouglas, F. (1980) ‘Humor and structure in two “Bukhalāʾ” anecdotes: al-​Jāḥiz and al-​Khaṭīb al-​Baghdādī’, Arabica 27(3): 300–​323. Malti-​Douglas, F. (1985) Structures of Avarice: The Bukhalāʾ in Medieval Arabic Literature, Leiden: Brill. Malti-​Douglas, F. (1997) ‘Playing with the sacred: religious intertext in Adab discourse’, in A. Afsaruddin and A.H.M. Zahniser (eds) Humanism, Culture and Language in the Near East, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, pp 51–​59. Marzolph, U. (1991) ‘Zur Überlieferung der Nasreddin Hoca-​Schwänke auβerhalb des türkischen Sprachraumes’, in K. Kreiser, S. Tezcan and Ingeborg Baldauf (eds) Türkische Sprachen und Literaturen: Materialien der ersten deutschen Turkologen-​Konferenz, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, pp 275–​285. Marzolph, U. (2000) ‘The Qoran and jocular literature’, Arabica 47(3 –​Les usages du Coran): 478–​487. Marzolph, U. (2011) ‘The Muslim sense of humour’, in W. van Herck and H. Geybels (eds) Humor and Religion: Challenges and Ambiguities, London: Continuum Publishing Corporation, pp 169–​190. Mir, M. (1988) ‘The Qur’ān as literature’, Religion & Literature 20(1 –​The Literature of Islam): 49–​64.

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Mir, M. (1991) ‘Humor in the Qurʾān’, The Muslim World 81(3–​4): 179–​193. Nagel, T. (2000) ‘Die Inschriften im Felsendom und das islamische Glaubensbekenntnis: Der Koran und die Anfänge des Hadīth’, Arabica 47(3): 329–​365. Nwyia, P. (1970a) Exégèse coranique et langage mystique: nouvel essai sur le lexique technique des mystiques musulmanes, Beirut: Dār al-​Mashriq. Nwyia, P. (1970b) Ibn ʿAṭâʹallâh dʹAlexandrie et la naissance de la confrérie Šâḏilite, Paris: Université de Paris-​Sorbonne. Pellat, Ch. (2015) ‘Nādira’, in P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs (eds) Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd edn), Leiden: Brill Online. Available from: https://referenceworks.brillonline. com/browse/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2 Pomerantz, M. and Orfali, B. (2017) ‘ “I See a Distant Fire”: Al-​Thaʿālibī’s Kitāb al-​Iqtibās min al-​Qurʾān al-​Karīm’, in N. Alshaar (ed) The Qur’an and Adab: The Shaping of Literary Traditions in Classical Islam, London; New York: Oxford University Press, in Association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies, pp 191–​215. Raza, M. (1980) Nahj al-​balāghah: Selections from Sermons, Letters, and Sayings of Amir Al-​Muʾminin, ʻAli ibn Abi Talib, Qum: Ansariyan Publications. Rosenthal, F. (1956) Humor in Early Islam, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Sadān, Y. (2007) Al-​Adab al-​ʿarabī al-​hāzil wa nawādir al-​thuqalāʾ, Cologne, Germany: Al-​Kamel Verlag. Sanni, A. (1994) ‘Filiation: the Arabic theorist’s prescription for artistic excellence’, Quaderni di Studi Arabi 12: 3–​14. Schimmel, A. (1992) A Two-​Colored Brocade: The Imagery of Persian Poetry, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Stetkevych, S. P. (2007) ‘From Sīrah to Qaṣīdah: poetics and polemics in al-​Būṣīrī’s “Qaṣīdat al-​Burdah” (“Mantle Ode”)’, Journal of Arabic Literature 38(1): 1–​52. Stewart, D. (2015) ‘Humor’, in D.F. Reynolds (ed) The Cambridge Companion to Modern Arab Culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 224–​248. Szombathy, Z. (2004) ‘Ridiculing the learned: jokes about the scholarly class in mediaeval Arabic literature’, Al-​Qanṭara 25(1): 93–​117. Tamer, G. (2009) ‘The Qurʾān and humor’, in G. Tamer (ed) Humor in Der Arabischen Kultur/​Humor in Arabic Culture, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp 3–​28. Toelle, H. (2000) ‘Quel usage le Coran fait-​il de la flore d’Arabie?’, Arabica 47(3): 409–​419.

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van Gelder, G. J. (2002–​2003) ‘Forbidden firebrands: frivolous Iqtibās (quotation from the Qurʾān) according to medieval Arab critics’, in Quaderni Di Studi Arabi, Venice: Herder Editrice, pp 3–​16. Virani, N. (2008) ‘Mulammaʿ in Islamic literatures’, in B. Gruendler (ed) Classical Arabic Humanities in Their Own Terms: Festschrift for Wolfhart Heinrichs on His 65th Birthday, Leiden: Brill, pp 291–​323. Zakharia, K. (1987) ‘Les références coraniques dans les Maqāmāt d’Al-​ Ḥarīrī: éléments d’une lecture sémiologique’, Arabica 34(3): 275–​286.

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A ‘Stupid Lur’ Mocks Allah and Mullah: Sociocultural Implications of the Luri Jokes Cycle Fatemeh Nasr Esfahani

Introduction A Shi‘a clergyman is getting in a taxi driven by a Lur. He is seeing that the tape recorder is on and says: ‘Turn it off! There was no music in Muḥammad’s era. It is forbidden in Islam’. The Lur stops the car suddenly and replies: ‘Get out! There was no taxi in Muḥammad’s era. Just wait for a camel in the sun!’1 An educated Lur begins his essay with this sentence: ‘In the name of Allah who is to blame for all the difficulties in our lives’!2 Although it may seem hard to believe for a non-​Muslim observer, such jokes have attracted strong public attention in contemporary Iranian society, especially in the past decade. Indeed, humour plays a significant role and holds a long-​standing tradition in Iranian culture. Previous studies have explored different manifestations of joking or witticism both in Persian literature and in Iranian folklore (Javadi, 1988; Halabi, 1998; Behzadi Anduhjerdi, 1999; Salahi, 2003; Zarooee Nasrabad, 2010). Iranians are very fond of laughter and humour, tending to enjoy their time laughing and telling jokes in many aspects of their lives, whether at the workplace or in family gatherings. In Iranian culture, laughter and humour are highly praised as positive entertaining features. As a very famous Persian poem says: ‘I asked God how I could serve the people. My heart told me secretively: What is better than making people laugh?’ (Mohammad Khoramshahi, 1911–​2017). 118

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On the one hand, humorous or comic characters have always been very popular in Iran: Bohlul and Nasreddin Hodja are well-​known examples of Iranian comical characters,3 featured in countless funny stories or anecdotes in Iranian folklore. Also, jesters and fools were present in the courts of several Iranian royals to entertain the king, including in the court of Mahmud of Ghazni (c. 971–​1030), Abbas the Great (c. 1571–​1629) and Naser al-​Din Shah Qajar (c. 1831–​1896). Such figures usually had implicit permission to criticize the king and other officials through humorous speeches and comic performances (see Javadi, 1988; Nourbakhsh, 1992). Moreover, humorous folkloric songs, nonsense poems, and comic plays have always been an integral part of Iranian culture. On the other hand, Persian-​speaking poets and writers have used humour in their art. For example, Rumi (c. 1207–​1273), in his great work Masnavi, used humorous writing for the purposes of the moral education of his readers. Omar Khayyam (c. 1048–​1131) and Ḥafeẓ (c. 1315–​ 1390) used to employ sarcasm and irony polemically in their works (Javadi, 1988; Halabi, 1998; Behzadi Anduhjerdi, 1999; Zarooee Nasrabad, 2010). Similarly, ethnic humour is considered to be an appealing subject for laughs by Iranian people. Because of the country’s cultural diversity, a wide range of ethnic jokes with different target groups have been popular in Iran over different historical periods, including the past century, and almost all Iranians have been familiar with some such jokes since their childhood. These jokes play a central role in Iranians’ social lives as people tend to make jokes about different ethnic groups in their workplace as well as in social or family gatherings. As I have shown elsewhere (Nasr et al, 2019), there has been a wide range of ethnic humour genres in Iranian culture throughout the Medieval period, from the conquest of Iran by Arab Muslims in 651 until the end of the nineteenth century, when the modern era of Iran’s history began. In addition, certain Iranian comedy genres, including ruhowzi, Kaboli Box,4 and marionette theatre, have obvious ethnic undertones, where ethnic minorities, especially Arabs and Blacks, are ridiculed as laughable, hilarious characters and serve as the targets of many jokes (Nasr Esfahani et al, 2019). This chapter investigates literary forms such as mixed satire,5 parodies, and satirical poems about the citizens of some Iranian cities as common examples of ethnic humour in Persian literature. Table 5.1 presents a list including the most prominent types of contemporary Persian ethnic jokes.6 The main focus of this chapter is on the Luri joke cycle, a unique, unstudied version of Persian ethnic jokes about the so-​called character of ‘the stupid Lur’.7 This joke cycle flourished for about ten years from the mid-​2000s until the mid-​2010s although it was a common type of ethnic humour before that. The most prominent characteristic of Luri jokes is their dualistic nature: on the one hand, Lurs are labelled and ridiculed on the basis of attributed features such as stupidity or irreligiosity, and, on the other hand, Lurs also mock 119

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Table 5.1: The contemporary Persian ethnic joke cycles, their targets and themes Joke cycle

Target of jokes

Main theme

Turkish jokes

Azerbaijanis

Stupidity

Luri jokes

Lurs

Stupidity, coarseness, irreligiosity

Qazvini jokes

Qazvini men

Predatory homosexuality

Rashti jokes8

Men and women from the city of Rasht

Men: cuckoldry Women: promiscuity

Esfahani jokes

Esfahani people

Cunningness and stinginess

Abadani jokes

Abadani people

Exaggeration

Shirazi jokes

Shirazi people

Laziness

Allah and Islamic authority figures. The jokes portray the Lurs as an ungodly group of people who do not treat God and holy figures in a respectful way. For instance, once a Lur wanted to speak to God, but instead of praising, he spoke to Him rudely: A Lur’s prayer to God: ‘Oh, My God, you do yours, I’ll do mine!’ A Lur talks to God: ‘God, look at Satan, such interesting suggestions he offers. Be a little creative, like him!’ In other instances, jokes are more caustic, such as when a Lur ridicules religious figures and authorities by playing the role of a foolish person: A Lur asks a mullah: ‘Who is the first and the last person in our lives?’ The mullah answers, ‘That’s gonna be me, because I blessed you when you were born and I will pray for you when you die. Do you have a problem with that?’ The Lur answers: ‘No, Sir. Someone said to me: “May I shit on the first and the last person in your life”.9 So, I decided to ask you about that’! Even Iran’s Supreme Leader becomes a proper target of the Lur character’s sarcasm: A Lur goes to visit the Supreme Leader. He kisses his hand and his face and says to him while crying: ‘Sir! You are an innocent and sacred man. Your heart is pure [meaning your prayers will therefore be answered by God] […] Please pray and ask God to return the late king. We have a miserable life, now’!

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Concentrating on macro-​level phenomena such as social structures, inequalities, industrialization, political movements, and so on, Iranian academia has largely ignored humour, especially jokes, thus not considering them relevant topics for scholarly research. In fact, humour is trivialized as an insignificant issue by the mainstream academic community in Iran. Yet, there is another reason for the dearth of research on Persian ethnic jokes: as Mostafa Abedinifard (2016) has pointed out, in a multicultural and multi-​ethnic country such as Iran, ethnic humour is considered a sensitive and risky topic for academic investigation, so that most scholars are not willing to conduct any research on the topic. Therefore, academic scholarship on humour, including Persian ethnic jokes, is unprecedented in Iran’s scholarly sphere with only a few isolated examples of research on this theme (see, for example, Naghdipour, 2014; Abedinifard, 2016, 2018b). This chapter focuses on the ‘Luri joke cycle’ primarily because of its diversity. These jokes vary both in terms of content and genre, and they have been the most popular type of ethnic jokes in Iran in the last two decades. In addition, unlike other ethnic jokes that target the alleged stupidity of a population, the Luri joke cycle also makes reference to religion. A common theme in Luri jokes features the relations of a stupid Lur with God and with powerful religious institutions. Therefore, Luri jokes are a good case study through which to explore the complex relationship between humour and religion in Shi‘a Muslim society, bearing in mind that Shi‘a Islam is the dominant religion in Iran. This research uses a qualitative approach. The primary research data consist of a loose collection of jokes that have been told by Iranians at the expense of the Lur people over the past century, that is, from the early 1900s to the present. The corpus consists of about 550 jokes and anecdotes targeting Lurs, most of which have been disseminated through websites and social networks in recent decades. The remaining jokes were published in Persian joke books and magazines in the period between 1900 and 1979. Additional resources include historical primary sources, such as books about the history of the Lur tribes, travelogues of Western tourists to Iran, and literary books and autobiographies of Iranian scholars as part of the archival material of this study. Additionally, between March and July 2018, the author conducted six semi-​structured interviews with humour studies scholars and scholars of Luri history. The data were analyzed thematically while also relying on historical accounts of the development of the Luri joke cycle.

Who are the Lurs? The Lurs are an Iranian people living mainly in western and south-​western Iran. Ethnically speaking, the Lurs are a mixture of aboriginal Iranian

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tribes originating from Central Asia and pre-​Iranian tribes of western Iran. They were a group of pastoral nomads who travelled seasonally between pastures in the summer and winter to find grass for their animals. For many centuries, the Lur tribes were the main suppliers of meat, dairy products, and coal (because of a large amount of oaks in their region which they converted to charcoal) to the central regions of Iran (Amanolahi-B ​ aharvand, 1991). As a minority ethnic population, the Lurs are distinguished from other Iranian groups by their powerful, well-​built bodies and physical strength (Gault et al, 2008). Lurs are Shi‘a Muslims and therefore belong to Iran’s Shi‘a Muslim majority. Their exact population size is not known, but Lurs are estimated to number around five million people. In the nineteenth century, Lurs played a significant role in the Iranian political structure. The Lur tribes had a key role in Iran’s army, fighting foreign invaders and crushing local uprisings against the Qajar dynasty. The Lurs also collaborated with other Iranian groups to successfully capture Tehran as part of the revolutionary campaign and to force the central government to establish democratic reforms in Iran during the Persian Constitutional Revolution (1905–​1911). During this time, certain notable Lurs, such as Ali-​Qoli Khan Bakhtiari, gained leading positions in the newly established government and parliament (Gault et al, 2008). The situation changed once Reza Shah Pahlavi came to power (1925). Under his rule, the Iranian government carried out violent policies of ‘forced sedentarization’ and ‘demilitarization’ of the Lur tribes as part of an effort to create a modern and united nation. As a result, the Lurs’ year-​round nomadic movements were forbidden for ten years and many rich Lur herdsmen had to settle in cities and villages, losing their fertile pastures and livestock. Subsequent historical events, including the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Iran–​Iraq war (1980–​1988), as well as recent economic problems have accelerated the sociocultural transformation of the Lurs’ nomadic lifestyle. Presently, Lurs live in both rural and urban areas, working as unskilled manual workers on building sites in cities such as Shiraz, Ahvaz, and Esfahan.

The main themes of the Luri joke cycle As previous studies have asserted, ethnic humour often reinforces certain stereotypes toward specific ethnic or racial minorities (Shifman and Katz, 2005; Weaver, 2011, 2014). According to Weaver (2013: 2), ethnic jokes ‘both rely on and create stereotypes’. He suggests that ethnic jokes only work if a stereotype of a group exists in society (Weaver, 2013). Typically, the usual target of ethnic humour contains negative and spiteful attributes. Likewise, a thematic content analysis of Luri jokes reveals that the stereotyped character of ‘the Lur’ is portrayed based on three key characteristics (see Table 5.2). 122

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Table 5.2: The main themes of the Luri joke cycle The main codes

Sub-​themes

Stupidity

Being silly Foolish behaviour Absurd astuteness Lack of knowledge about practical aspects of modern urban life Linguistic ineptitude

Coarseness

Physical coarseness Psychological coarseness

Irreligiosity

Lack of knowledge about Islamic beliefs Lack of knowledge about Islamic rituals and practices Little adherence to religious rites

Stupidity The Luri joke cycle originally consisted of jokes about stupidity. Hence, the largest group of jokes in our collection deals with idiocy. In these jokes, Lurs are labelled as foolish and unable to use their brains. In some jokes, the stereotyped Lur is just a naive person, considering the world in very simplistic terms and thus having a very basic and unsophisticated approach to life. A robber goes to a bank […] he enters the bank and shouts: ‘Everyone lie down [literally ‘sleep on the ground’]’! A Lur among the hostages says: ‘Please just wake me up at three o’clock to take my pills’! As this example illustrates, the inevitable result of being a stupid person is to do foolish things: The Lurs shot their children in sympathy with the people of Gaza. Absurd astuteness is another characteristic and sub-​g roup of stupidity jokes. These jokes demonstrate an imaginary situation in which a Lur tries to react quickly to a problem or challenge so that he can get ahead, thinking only of himself. Yet, everything gets worse because of his intrinsic stupidity: A Lur’s girlfriend breaks up with him. Trying not to be outdone by her, he says: ‘Don’t flatter yourself thinking you are so great. There were many better girls who broke up with me. In comparison with them, you are nothing’! Moreover, the target of a great many jokes under this sub-​category has to do with the Lurs’ lack of knowledge of the modern everyday aspects of urban 123

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life, such as technology. For example, a Lur is mocked for not knowing how to use basic equipment: Four Lurs get on the elevator, but they cannot operate it. After a while, a man wearing a suit and holding a Samsonite bag enters. He presses the elevator button and the elevator moves and the Lur says: ‘Hooray! He is the elevator driver!’ This sub-​theme includes not only the Lurs’ unfamiliarity with the key aspects of modernity, such as technology and electronic devices, but also the Lurs’ lack of any knowledge of modern social concepts, institutions, and organizations. For example, in the following joke, the target is the Lur’s unawareness about the concept of a ‘12-​month calendar’: They ask a Lur: ‘How many months is your province’s weather cold’? He replies: ‘14 months’! They say: ‘A year is not more than 12 months!’ He says: ‘Oh, the weather is cold here until two months after Nowruz [The Iranian New Year]’. A small number of the jokes in this group touch directly on the issue of the Lurs’ linguistic ineptitude. Such jokes consist of occasions in which the butt of the joke is a Lur’s failed attempts to speak a language correctly (Persian or English), thus leading to the audience’s laughter. Funny accents, misunderstandings of phrases and idioms, grammatical errors, and embarrassing linguistic mistakes all fall into this category. Here is an example: The police arrest and take a Lur to the police station. The Lur asks: ‘Why did you bring me here?’ The police officer says: ‘Because of drinking wine.’ The Lur answers: ‘OK! Let’s drink soon because I have to go. There are loads of things that I need to do!’10

Coarseness The second theme in Luri jokes is coarseness. This theme portrays the Lurs as rough people in every sense of the word. A great number of jokes mock the Lurs’ physical and psychological barbarism. These coarseness jokes can be divided into two sub-​g roups: physical and psychological uncouthness. The first sub-​g roup includes jokes that feature a Lur as having a massive, powerful, and rough body which enables him to undertake arduous manual tasks that require great stamina. According to Luri jokes, this bodily strength enables the Lurs to do some impossible tasks which no other human being can do, thus in a sense dehumanizing the Lurs: 124

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Four Lurs went to hell and returned after six months. Someone asked them: ‘How was it?’ They replied: ‘It was a really hard task but we extinguished the fire.’ Yet, this physical power is usually mocked as going hand in hand with a brutal and barbaric behaviour: Question: Answer:

‘What is Luri tickling?’ ‘It is a brutal act, leading to the death of a person who is being tickled.’

In terms of physical needs, a Lur is depicted as an unusual, distinct person compared to an average Iranian. The main difference between Lurs and other Iranians is attributed to their need to fulfil very basic physical wants. The jokes suggest that even though Lurs are known for their very elementary needs, such as food, water, sleep, and sexual desires, their behaviours are excessive because they supposedly eat and drink too much, while their sexual behaviour is usually violent and brutish: A few Lurs are eating food and one of them suddenly explodes. The other ones say: ‘Good for him! He got full.’ On his wedding night, a Lur exits the bridal chamber, saying: ‘This was not a hymen; it was a piece of canvas.’ Then, the bride comes out and says: ‘Damn him! Didn’t even let me take off my panties!’ In psychological terms, the character of the stupid Lur is marked by a complete set of negative, unlikable behavioural and mental traits, such as being rude, impolite, obstinate, and disobedient to all forms of authority, and thus having a lawbreaking personality. In the private sphere, they supposedly have only a passing acquaintance with romantic feelings or acts. By contrast, their behaviour toward the family and children is violent and devoid of any affection or positive emotions: The difference between the way a Lur and a Fars (often used to refer to a person with a Tehrani accent of Persian) start to tell a children’s story: The Fars: ‘Once upon a time …’ The Lur: ‘At night, a bogey man comes out of the cemetery and says: “which child did not sleep? I want to take it away!”’ The jokes also suggest that the stupid Lur does not pay much attention to social rules or norms. For example, a Lur is portrayed as frequently breaking 125

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wind in social situations, for example, in classrooms, meetings, or even in religious places. A Lur farts on the bus. The girl sitting next to him says: ‘What did you do, you fatuous man!’ The Lur replies: ‘I was just going to start a conversation with you!’ In general, the Lur character can be defined as an incompatible, anti-​social person who violates social expectations or norms across a range of personal or social situations.

Irreligiosity The third stereotyped trait of the Lur people is their irreligiosity. This generally means that Lurs not only fail to adhere to Islamic rituals and practices, but also that they have no knowledge of Shi‘a beliefs or Islamic theology: They ask a Lur: ‘Do you fast in Ramadan?’ He says: ‘I didn’t fast for the first two days, then after realizing that nothing bad happened, I decided not to fast anymore.’ In other words, this group of jokes mocks Lurs for knowing nothing about Islamic religious concepts, such as the qiblah, Islamic history, or the five pillars of Islam.11 In addition, the Lurs are depicted as unable to understand the nature or philosophy of Islamic rituals. This particular feature of Lurs has been particularly mocked in jokes about rituals such as prayer and pilgrimage. For instance, the Hajj, the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims, is considered to be one of the most complex religious rites in Islam. However, the jokes depict Lurs as neither performing the rite correctly, nor comprehending the significance of the Islamic pilgrimage. In fact, they are portrayed as lacking any understanding of how to perform the Hajj: They ask a Lur: ‘How was the Hajj?’ He replies: ‘It was good. The cars were beautiful, the buildings were fantastic. But there was a crowded place that I did not visit.’ A striking point is that the concept of religious illiteracy is closely intertwined with the concept of stupidity. Indeed, a Lur who does not follow religious practices is portrayed in these jokes as a stupid person who is unable to understand the complexity of Islam’s religious concepts. 126

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Therefore, the jokes carry an implicit, didactic message, namely that in order to avoid being considered stupid, one should follow Shi‘a Islamic rules and practices carefully.

The emergence of Luri jokes: three historical phases Part of this study is dedicated to a historical account and analysis of Luri jokes, following consultation of a broad range of resources, such as books on the history of Lur tribes, literary texts, old joke books (containing Luri jokes), autobiographies of Iranian scholars and authors, travelogues of Western tourists who visited the Lorestan and Bakhtiari tribes in the past centuries, and so on. The analysis revealed that Luri jokes have a long-​lasting history and presence in Iranian culture; this history can be structured in three phases.

The first phase The roots of the Luri jokes go back to the Safavid era (1501–​1736). At this early stage, which I label as ‘the germinal/​earliest stage in the development of Luri jokes’, the first anecdotes and funny stories about the Luri stock character appeared in Persian literature. In fact, the original forms of Luri jokes appeared during this time.12 Yet, the stories are not jokes in the modern sense; they are just funny stories about fools. It is important to bear in mind that there is a subtle nuance between folk anecdotes and jokes. The most prominent distinction between the two genres is related to the way they are narrated: a joke is defined as ‘a short humorous piece of oral literature in which the funniness culminates in the final sentence, called the punchline. In fact, the main condition is that the tension should reach its highest level at the very end’ (Hetzron, 1991). By contrast, funny stories or anecdotes are prolonged, amplified stories that have an entertaining theme. As a set of raw materials, these funny stories became jokes through the passage of time, leading to the birth of Luri jokes at the next phase. There are three humorous anecdotes in a literary book called Mush-​ o-​Gorbih (Mouse and Cat) by Bahāʾ al-​Dīn Muḥammad al-​ʿĀmilī, better known as Sheikh Baha’i (c. 1547–​1621), an Arab-​Iranian philosopher and poet who lived in Safavid Iran. Written in an allegorical way, the book includes many fables and tries to teach moral lessons. In three stories from this collection, a Lur is introduced as a foolish and ridiculous figure who does odd, hilarious things. In the second story, the author narrates that a Lur has no knowledge of basic everyday aspects of urban life, such as bathrooms, faloodeh (a Persian dessert consisting of vermicelli shaped noodles in a semi-​ frozen syrup), and depilatories. The third story is focused on superstition and irrational beliefs that arise from ignorance and stupidity. At the end of the story, a Lur is mentioned as a typical example of an unwise person who 127

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blindly subscribes to religious beliefs or miracles without enough knowledge (Sheikh Baha’i, 1957). About 200 years later, the stupid Lur appears again in another literary work. ‘The story of a Lur who was tricked by a group of rogues’ is an anecdote written by Mullah Aḥmad Nirāqī, in his book The Taqdis Masnavi (1954). This is a story about a giant but foolish Luri man who went from the Lorestan province to Esfahan to sell livestock and dairy products. After selling his products, he earned a pouch of gold coins. However, he was cheated through flattering words by people who ended up stealing all his money. A new feature, that of ‘being gullible’, is added to the stereotypes of stupid Lurs, and it will be repeated in subsequent anecdotes.

The second phase The nineteenth century was a crucial moment both in Iranian history and in the development of Luri jokes. From the first years of the nineteenth century, when the Russo-​Persian Wars took place, Iranians became more familiar with Western culture and civilization, and the first Persian reformers and modernizers tried to introduce Western civilization to Iran. The printing press was introduced in Iran and this prompted the translation of a significant number of books from European languages into Persian. Modern literary forms and works, such as novels, plays, short stories, newspapers, and so on, were published for the first time. This also coincided with the first release of joke books. Not surprisingly, the first documented Luri jokes appeared in a collection of jokes which was published in the nineteenth century. The book Riyaz Al-​Hekayat (Orchard of Stories) (n.d.) by Mullah Sharif Kashani includes some Luri jokes. As the author states in the introduction, this book is a collection of jokes, funny stories, and fables which the author had gathered from earlier collections and books. His aim was to provide a joyful resource for readers to enjoy during their leisure (Kashani, 1933). The exact time of writing and date of the first publication of the book are not known. However, according to a date contained in the manuscript, it seems that it was compiled and released during the reign of Mozaffar ad-​Din Shah Qajar (1 May 1896–​3 January 1907). Since only some funny anecdotes about the character of the stupid Lur have been found in the first phase​, but not jokes, this book can be considered as marking the beginning of the Luri jokes cycle in contemporary Iran. The book includes seven jokes about a Lur person. The targets of the jokes feature Luri attributes including stupidity, physical coarseness, and irreligiosity, as analyzed above. In the next decades, the funny character of the stupid Lur was more or less present both in Persian joke books, as well as in literary and drama 128

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works, TV shows, and even stand-​up comedy shows (Saqafi, 1929; Etesamzadeh, 1930; Mirzadeh Eshqi, 1945; Shayan, 1952; Soroush, 1955; Soheili, 1962; Behruzi, 1963; Rouhani, 1964; Fardad, 1972; Halat, 1983). This trend continued for at least 100 years, until the third phase of the Luri joke tradition.

The third phase In the last years of the twentieth century, a great flowering of Luri jokes took place in Iranian society. According to Davies, a joke cycle is a ‘sudden outburst of a very large number of jokes on a particular theme that spread rapidly’ (2010: 38). So, it can be said that as a joke cycle, Luri jokes emerged only in the third phase of their development. At that time, the spread of modern information technologies, such as mobile phones and the internet, helped the dissemination of Luri jokes throughout the country. Therefore, this third stage is characterized by an unprecedented increase in the number of Luri jokes as well as a multiplicity of joke forms and genres. Similar to the previous phases, themes related to stupidity, coarseness, and irreligiosity were the central themes of Luri jokes of this third phase. Meanwhile, a new, strong wave of democracy movement took place in Iran. This movement, known as ‘The 2nd-​of-​Khordad Movement’ (1997), led to some sociopolitical reforms as well as major debates about the secularization of the country. Mohammad Khatami’s government advocated the freedom of expression and freedom of the press, which in turn accelerated modern, secularistic tendencies in the country. As a result, the position of the Shi‘a clergy and religious leaders was challenged by both ordinary people and intellectuals. For the first time after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iranians were able to express their protests and criticisms toward government officials and political figures. An inevitable consequence of such changes was that a new theme has been added to Luri jokes: the expression of strong criticism toward Iran’s religious institutions, religious leaders, mullahs, and even God. On the one hand, these jokes contain the same stereotyped characteristics about the Lurs, especially irreligiosity and psychological coarseness. As a rude, impolite, brazen, and anti-​social person, the character of the Lur challenges God and religious authorities freely and without any kind of fear or precaution. In such jokes, unlike the majority of Iranians who treat God, mullahs, and other holy figures respectfully, the Lurs tend to treat the holy subjects in an offensive manner. For example, the joke below shows an argument between a Lur and God, which is accompanied by the Lur’s comment that if God made him, then God was also responsible for his shortcomings: 129

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At The Last Judgement, God asks a Lur: ‘Why did you not pray? Why did you disbelieve in God? Why did you act cruelly?’ The Lur replies: ‘Pay the piper! Why did you create me?’ On the other hand, the Lur is unexpectedly portrayed as a clever and astute person who deceives the religious authorities and attacks them using impolite words or misbehaviour in a spate of recent examples of Luri jokes. In many Luri jokes of this kind, an imaginary situation is depicted in which a stereotyped Lur, as a non-​religious person who does not like the Shi‘ite clerics, decides to confront them. Such situations generally end in the mockery or humiliation of the religious officials. Here are some examples of such jokes: A Lur asks a mullah about the laws of music in Islam. The mullah replies: ‘Any kind of musical instrument, such as the tar, the guitar and the tombak [a Persian/Iranian percussion instrument], is forbidden in Islam’. The Lur says: ‘So, do they play the national anthem of the Islamic Republic of Iran using your fart sound?’ A mosque’s custodian says to a Lur: ‘Don’t let your cows come to the mosque’. The Lur replies: ‘They are just animals, they do not understand! Have you ever seen me entering the mosque?’ A Lur meets Khamenei and says to him: ‘Hello God!’ Khamenei says: ‘Do not say such a blasphemous thing. I am not God!’ The Lur says: ‘Well, we do not know who your father is; we do not know who your mother is; you do not get sick; nobody can control or limit your power; you do not retire; you do not even die […] so, what else is God?’ Among other jokes, there are also a few interesting examples of jokes depicting the Lurs confronting the Islamic fundamentalist, Salafi jihadist group, ISIS. The following joke shows the Lur character’s intelligence in an encounter with Islamic fundamentalist individuals and groups: The Lurs arrested an ISIS member at the borders of Iran […] the ISIS fighter said: ‘Please kill me before 11 a.m.; I am going to have my lunch with the Prophet Muḥammad and his companions’. But, perversely, the Lurs killed him at 2 p.m., saying: ‘Now you can wash up the Prophet Muḥammad and his companions’ dishes’.

The dual significance of Luri jokes The study of Luri jokes in Iranian society shows that these jokes have gone through a long history, from the initial funny stories in the first phase to an 130

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entire joke cycle in the third phase. In this historical account, structured in these three phases, each stage comprises jokes that have performed different functions corresponding to Iran’s sociocultural context. At first, the initial anecdotes about the character of the stupid Lur appeared in the Safavid era (1501–​1736), when the tribal nomadic Lurs went from the Lorestan province to Esfahan and other cities in central Iran in order to sell their livestock and dairy products. During these commercial activities, the main differences between average citizens and the Lurs’ nomadic lifestyle led to the first anecdotes about Lurs in Iranian folklore. In the same way, Luri jokes are rooted in a binary opposition between clever, intelligent, urbanized people, who live in cities such as Esfahan, and the Lurs, as a marginalized, nomadic group of people who hold inferior positions in the Iranian social hierarchy. This binary has been significantly represented in the anecdotes as well as in jokes about the stupid Lur. Here, the ‘centre-​versus-​periphery model’ proposed by Davies (2011: 67) explains the roots of Luri jokes.13 As humour scholars have pointed out, an essential function of ethnic humour is to confirm and reinforce the norms and values accepted by dominant groups (Davies, 1982, 1998; Shifman and Katz, 2005; Abedinifard, 2016, 2018b). Therefore, the socialization and assimilation of minority ethnic people could be the primary functions of ethnic jokes in society. Similarly, in the late nineteenth century, some jokes about the laughable character of the stupid Lur emerged in Iranian society. According to Abedinifard (2018a), from a sociological point of view, Luri jokes can be considered disciplinary tools teaching modern values and norms not only to the Lurs, but also to all Iranians. These jokes, through their mockery of the Lur, as a stupid person who is not familiar with the modern norms or values of acceptable behaviour, teach them about and also compel them to follow social rules and norms. At the same time, Abedinifard surmises, these jokes warn other social groups about the consequences of going against the norms and values accepted by the majority of society: ‘If anybody violates social norms or values, they will be punished by the others’ laughter.’ Eventually, by reinforcing the country’s cultural system, it is assumed that these jokes will lead to the assimilation of different ethnic or religious groups within Iranian society, thus helping to facilitate the creation of a modern, united nation (Abedinifard, 2018a). Yet, it is important to bear in mind that there have been serious debates and controversies about the process and aims of modernization in Iran as a country stuck in a process of transition from a traditional society to a modern one (Abedinifard, 2018a). Sociologically speaking, there has been a continuous societal ambivalence about desirable social values and norms at least for the last 100 years. It turns out that Iranians have both an empathetic view toward the traditional world as well as an enthusiastic attitude toward modernity. As a result, it is no surprise to see that the Luri joke cycle contains both themes related to backwardness and to irreligiosity. In fact, contemporary Persian 131

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ethnic jokes have tried to establish a new cultural structure based on both modern values and Shi‘a Islamic norms and rituals by teasing Lur people and other marginal ethnic groups. This is the point that has been showed by Abedinifard (2016, 2018b) in his research on Rashti and Qazvini jokes. As previously discussed, from the 2000s onwards –​and simultaneous with certain political and social changes in Iran –​the third phase in the development of the Luri joke cycle took place. This stage included a sudden proliferation of Luri jokes and the addition of a new theme based on sociopolitical protest against Iran’s religious Islamic regime. As a consequence, the disparagement of Allah and of the Shi‘a Muslim clergy has become a central sub-​theme in the Luri joke cycle. Since both Allah as well as mullahs and other religious leaders are mocked and disparaged by the character of the Lur in these jokes, the Luri jokes can be classified as anti-​clerical and even blasphemous humour. It seems that in this third phase, Luri jokes are largely similar to the ‘trickster jokes’ suggested by Weaver (2014). By focusing on the relationship between ethnicity and humour, Weaver shows that ethnic humour is sometimes used as a form of resistance by minority groups against the majority. In this case, humour develops from within a minority ethnic group targeting the majority and its sociocultural hegemony and domination. In addition, ‘the ethnic joker as trickster or agent of resistance’ deviates from dominant values and norms ‘through mockery, displacement, and counterexample’ (Weaver, 2014: 4). The thematic analysis of Luri jokes demonstrates that such satirizing and demeaning methods are used in the Luri jokes; therefore, the dominant Shi‘ite culture as well as Shi‘ite clergy are ridiculed by the character of Lur. The Luri joke cycle, which emerged in the third phase of the Luri jokes’ development, is a bizarre, paradoxical, and unique mixture of themes about stupidity, psychological coarseness, irreligiosity, and astuteness. Hence, the Lur personality that appears in these jokes, in some aspects, differs from the stock character of the stupid Lur who emerged in the earlier phases. In such jokes, the Lur is depicted as a mundane simpleton who is not familiar with Islamic rules or rituals; but at the same time, the Lur is a rudely astute person who is able to gauge situations or behaviours very well and very quickly and can thus benefit himself, especially in encounters with God or the Shi‘ite clergy. In other words, the Lur is a marginal and powerless individual who outsmarts the powerful Shi‘ite figures. This finding confirms the complicated and multi-​level nature of Luri jokes, especially in the context of a multicultural, Muslim country such as Iran.

The Islamic Republic of Iran and humour Although humour and comedy are generally accepted as permissible phenomena by Iran’s Islamic regime, known as The Government of the 132

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Islamic Republic of Iran, some forms of humour are considered to be forbidden or haram in Iran. Specifically, political, religious, and ethnic humour falls under the category of forbidden humour. Such jokes break those religious orders stated in the Qur’an (49:11).14 So, any kind of ethnic humour has been repeatedly announced as haram by the Grand Ayatullahs or marāji‘ and the current Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Hosseini Khamenei. Furthermore, articles 19 and 20 of ‘The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran’ state that the people of Iran are equal and enjoy equal human, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, regardless of their colour, race, language, ethnicity, and other such characteristics. Based on these articles, any humoristic or comic representation of ethnic minorities or personalities has been banned in Iran from the very beginning of the establishment of the Islamic government. For instance, there is no type of ethnic humour or joke in the joke books or comic magazines published after the 1979 Islamic Revolution of Iran. During these years, the production and dissemination of ethnic humour has also been banned in the mass media, such as newspapers, TV, theatre, and cinema. In that sense, the Islamic regime has tried to ensure equality between members of the Iranian population by restricting and censoring ethnic stereotypes and jokes. Further, political or religious humour has been prohibited by the Islamic regime because it could violate religious taboos, offend sacred or holy leaders, and insult political figures. In the judicial system in Iran, these types of humour are generally considered as a kind of insult and can be persecuted accordingly as a crime. Therefore, those who produce and disseminate such humour, especially journalists, satirists, and cartoonists, have been convicted in courts and faced heavy judicial sentences, such as prison and activity-​ban sentences (Farjami, 2014). In brief, the Iranian political system only tolerates very mild humour (such as sitcoms or other comedic forms about gender differences, disputes between spouses and family members, inefficient bureaucratic procedures, the generation gap, and other social issues). In contrast, ethnic, political, and religious humour is not tolerated, and the government has censored the production of ethnic, political, and religious humour in the mass media, including cinema, TV, and the printing press over the past decades. But such official limitations are quite ineffective against joking because ethnic or political jokes are mostly produced and released in the private sphere, including family or friendly gatherings, or through the internet and social networks, and the government cannot control and manage these two domains.15 In addition, the jokes are usually made by unknown authors and are told by ordinary people in their everyday lives. Therefore, in contrast to well-​known journalists, satirists, and cartoonists who have been harassed and arrested, the government has been incapable of prosecuting joke tellers. Hence, humoristic outputs with political, ethnic, and religious 133

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themes have continued to thrive in Iranian society, despite the fact that the Islamic regime has tried to restrain or curb them by labelling them as haram or forbidden humour.16

Conclusion Since jokes are generally considered as commonplace and insignificant phenomena, providing a sociological explanation and interpretation is a challenging task. This is also due to the complicated and multifaceted nature of jokes. Since jokes are contextual and relative in nature, they can be interpreted in different ways by different people, based on various perspectives or paradigms. The importance and attraction of jokes are twofold, related, on the one hand, to their hidden messages and delicate references to sociocultural facts and, on the other hand, to their visceral appeal by triggering laughter. At the same time, joking also represents protest and resistance: ordinary people challenge the authorities, politicians, and dominant groups and speak truth to power through jokes. Moreover, jokes also convey moral values and norms to the people. Therefore, a joke should not be studied and analyzed through a single or limited lens. Humour studies scholars study jokes using a broader perspective encompassing, as much as possible, diverse sociopolitical and historical explanations of the contexts where jokes take place. Moreover, an outside observer should not have an abstract idea about Muslim societies as ideal or conforming societies, where there is no prejudice or ethnic stereotype and where different ethnicities or groups are considered as equals. It is true that Islamic ethics emphasize unity and brotherhood (solidarity) within the Muslim community, the umma (but not outside the Muslim community); the Qur’an declares equality of mankind, regardless of their colour, race, or origin, but considers piety as the basic criterion defining social hierarchy (49:13), and forbids Muslims from mocking each other (49:11), which, as Abedinifard argues in Chapter 1 in this volume, might be due to the above-mentioned emphasis on unity among early Muslims. However, Muslim societies, like many other societies, have explicit class structures with socially superior and inferior groups, as well as clichés and prejudices against other groups, especially marginalized ethnic and religious groups. These stereotypes are generally represented in ethnic jokes. In fact, ethnic humour acts as a tool for disparagement, humiliation, and discrimination against religious and ethnic minorities. While disparagement humour directed at a national minority is known throughout the world, it is noteworthy that in an explicitly (and fundamentalist) Islamic society such as Iran, the same humour type is at work as in non-​Muslim societies. The Lur has been primarily branded as a stupid, hilarious character, just like other butts of stupidity jokes which have been popular throughout the 134

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world. Yet, this figure has recently become a tool to challenge the political and religious power and authority in Iran. This point leads us to another, final point: the representation of social and political changes through humour in general and jokes in particular. Over the past 100 years, Iranians have made great efforts to create a modern, developed country. But there have been battles between traditional and modern worldviews, and jokes have generally represented these societal tendencies and attitudes. On the one hand, from the last years of the Qajar dynasty (the 1900s onwards), the two trends of modernization and Islamism have spread in Iran simultaneously; therefore, contemporary Persian jokes have tried to convey both traditionalist and modern values to all Iranians. On the other hand, a cultural-​political turn toward secularization, liberalism, and democracy has taken place in Iranian society in more recent times, as jokes have also become tools for protesting and expressing new social demands. The stock character of the stupid Lur has become an effective means of expressing social protest and criticizing the country’s religious and political hierarchy. The foolish, irreligious, and rude Lur says things that other people cannot say freely in their everyday lives. In this case, Luri jokes contain a paradoxical logic: first, the Lur is ridiculed for negative characteristics such as stupidity and irreligiosity. Yet, at the same time, the Lur, through his ‘stupidity’, as represented in the jokes, speaks the unspeakable in Iranian society, mocking the religious authorities and ridiculing political leaders. And thus, in an ironic reversal, members of the non-​Lur majority population may appropriate the perspective of the disparaged Lur as a tactical shield from which salient criticism of the political and religious system can be voiced. But we have to bear in mind that given the importance and prevalence of Islam as the dominant religion in Iranian culture, religious values are still very important to the population. Consequently, the stereotyped Lur is still largely disparaged by joke tellers because of his lack of knowledge of Islamic beliefs and his inability to observe Islamic rituals and practices. Most Iranians consider religious values as an integral part of their worldview and culture, tending to admire adherence to Islamic rules or norms in the personal sphere. However, Iran’s Islamic religious authority –​namely, the dominance of Shi‘a Muslim clerics –​is no longer approved by the people to the same degree as it was in the years directly following the revolution of 1979. As a result, religious institutions and figures have become the humorous butts of contemporary Persian jokes. Besides, an increasing dissatisfaction with the dysfunctional structure of the Islamic regime has been a contributing factor in this process, an issue that can be analyzed in future studies. Acknowledgements I would like to express my deep gratitude to Lina Molokotos-​Liederman and Bernard Schweizer for their endless support and assistance, especially 135

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language edits as well as invaluable comments and feedbacks on earlier versions of this chapter. I am also grateful to Mostafa Abedinifard for providing in-​depth and fascinating insights into Persian ethnic jokes and some editorial points in the final version of this chapter. Notes 1

2

3

4

5

6

Luri jokes quoted here have been collected from Persian websites; and all of them were translated by me from Persian to English. I take responsibility for their accuracy. Muslims usually begin their everyday tasks, daily prayers, or writings after reciting the verse Bismillah (‘In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful’) in order to receive a blessing from God. However, in this joke, it is claimed that even an educated Lur, who is probably more familiar with Islamic values and theology than other members of his people, begins his piece of writing by complaining to God for all the difficulties or misfortunes in his life. Nasreddin Hodja is a celebrated, funny character in many countries in the Muslim world. While he was born and lived in present-​day Turkey, his well-​known humorous anecdotes and tales are not limited to Turkey. His comic character has been developed and adapted internationally based on the cultural context of each country. The Iranian version of the character, known as Mullah Nasreddin, is so embedded in Iranian culture that he can also be considered an Iranian figure. The funny stories of Mullah are a major part of Iran’s culture, quoted in different situations in everyday life and the public sphere. Ruhowzi and Kaboli Box are Iranian comic plays featuring dance, song, and music. In Kaboli Box, a group of actors move four boxes rhythmically to an open area. Once the happy music begins, four dancers who are previously dressed in yellow, red, blue, and purple costumes, come out of the boxes to dance and do a comic performance. In the most popular examples of this genre, the actors tend to wear the clothes of different Iranian ethnic groups, recite funny poems, and sing joyful lyrics in ethnic dialects. The play usually lasts until late at night, ending with the dancers going back into the boxes and being removed from the stage by the actors. Ruhowzi is another Iranian comic genre, very similar to Commedia dell’arte in European culture. In this comic performance, there are two characters: a master, who is called Hajji, and his black servant, known as Mobarak. The master and the Mobarak perform foolish and funny acts together, making the audiences laugh. While the comedy is always accompanied by dancing and singing, it has a happy ending and concludes with a morality message for the audience. Mixed satire is a literal form of humour which has a long history in Persian literature. In this special genre of ethnic humour, Persian words and phrases are combined with foreign language words (such as Arabic, Turkish, and French) or with words from local dialects and tongues. For example, Persian words are used like Arabic words or Arabic verbs are conjugated in a way that is more common in Persian grammar (Behzadi Anduhjerdi, 1999: 461–​460). The idea behind this type of satire is to engage in linguistic wordplays. Although the words ‘Iranian’ and ‘Persian’ usually refer to a single notion and can be used interchangeably, there is a subtle difference: ‘Iranian’ is a general word which usually refers to all cultural or ethnic groups living within the geographical borders of present-​ day Iran. However, ‘Persian’ refers to the dominant part of Iranian culture. Indeed, the Persians are an Iranian ethnic group that make up over half the population of Iran; they have played a major role in the formation and development of Iranian culture throughout history. The ancient Persians formed the Achaemenid Empire, one of the largest empires in history, in the sixth century BC. Moreover, the sociocultural system of the Persians

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7

8

9

10

11

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16

has been accepted as the dominant cultural system by the ethnic or religious minorities living in Iran. So, Persian culture plays a major part in Iran’s cultural and social system, although Iranian culture is not limited to it. Also, the Persian language presently is the official language of the country, which is used in all official correspondence, in education, and in the media. Not surprisingly, the majority of jokes about Iranian ethnic groups are told in Persian so that everyone in the country can understand them, regardless of their ethnic or linguistic background. From here on, the term ‘stupid Lur’ will be used without quotation marks but with the clear understanding that it is a derogatory stereotype. For studies of Qazvini and Rashti jokes, which also contain many samples of these jokes, see, respectively, Abedinifard, 2016 and Abedinifard, 2018b. The statement is not intended to be taken literally but as an insult in its totality. The Lur’s taking the statement apart into its literal components, and the projection of these onto the mullah, creates humour. Based on Islamic jurisprudence and the current judicial system of Iran, the consumption of wine or any type of alcoholic drink is forbidden and constitutes an illegal act. The Pillars of Islam consist of five mandatory acts that are considered as the foundation of Muslim life: Shahada (declaration of Faith), Salah (daily prayers), Zakat (charity), Ramadan (fasting) and the Hajj pilgrimage. Yet, even if it is likely that such funny tales had existed in the Iranian folk tradition before that, there is no authentic evidence or information in the existing literature and reference books of the pre-​Safavid era. Therefore, it seems that we have to accept the Safavid era as the beginning of the Luri funny stories and anecdotes. Surprisingly, Esfahani people have always been the butt of jokes about their canniness in Iranian society. Qur’anic verses are quoted in the format of (chapter number: verse number). Internet censorship is predominant in Iran and many worldwide popular websites, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, BBC, and so on –​are blocked by the government. Iranian leaders, who consider China a successful internet-​censoring model, aim to develop a wide-​ranging system for monitoring and blocking online content, similar to the one used by China. The government has plans to launch a countrywide ‘national internet network’ or ‘halal internet’ based on Islamic values. But, the Islamic regime has not yet been able to establish such a network due to the lack of appropriate infrastructure and the required software. At the moment, most Iranians have access to forbidden internet sites and online content through proxy servers. In May 2012, a song named ‘Ay Naqi!’ (‘Hey, Naghi!’), was released in Iran. The song was composed and sung by Shahin Najafi, an Iranian musician and singer who was living in Germany at that time. In this piece, Najafi asks for Imam Naqi, 10th Imam of Twelver Shi‘a Islam, to return instead of the 12th imam, the Shiite messiah. Laden with rough street language and slang words, the song satirically addresses the social and political problems of the country, asking Imam Naqi for help solving them. This song faced strong opposition from Shi‘a Muslim fundamentalist groups. Moreover, some Iranian religious leaders issued fatwas against Najafi, condemning him for insulting Imam Naqi.

References Abedinif ard, M. (2016) ‘Str uctural functions of the targeted joke: Iranian modernity and the Qazvini man as predatory homosexual’, HUMOUR: International Journal of Humour Research 29(3): 337–​357. Abedinifard, M. (2018a) Online interview with the author, 5 November. 137

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Abedinifard, M. (2018b) ‘Persian “Rashti jokes”: modern Iran’s palimpsests of gheyrat-​based masculinity’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 46(4): 564–​582. Amanolahi-​Baharvand, S. (1991) Pazhooheshi darbare-​ye peyvastegi-​ye ghoomi va parakandegi-​ye joghrafiyaii-​ye Lurha dar Iran, [A Study on the Lurs’ Ethnic Cohesion and Geographical Distribution in Iran], Tehran: Agah Publishers. Behruzi, A.N. (1963) Lataef va zaraef-​e adabi, Shiraz: Mohammadi Library. Behzadi Anduhjerdi, H. (1999) Tanz va tanz-​pardazi dar Iran, Tehran: Sadugh [in Persian]. Davies, C. (1982) ‘Ethnic jokes, moral values and social boundaries’, The British Journal of Sociology 33(3): 383–​403. Davies, C. (1998) Jokes and Their Relation to Society, Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Davies, C. (2010) ‘The Comparative Study of Jokes’, Soc 47: 38–​41. Davies, C. (2011) Jokes and Targets, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Etesamzadeh, A. (1930) Hezar va yek khandeh (vol 2), Tehran: Farhoomand. Fardad, M. (1972) Ganjine-​ye latayef, Tehran: Bonyad Publications. Farjami, M. (2014) ‘Political satire as an index of press freedom: a review of political satire in the Iranian press during the 2000s’, Iranian Studies: 47(2): 217–239. Gault, C.A. and The second Bureau of Imperial Iranian Army (2008) Iil-​e Bakhtiari, trans K. Bayat and M. Taher-​Ahmadi, Tehran: Shirazeh Publishing. Halabi, A. (1998) Tarikh-​e tanz va shookhtabii dar Iran ve jahan-​e Eslam ta roozegar-​e Obeid-​e Zakani, Tehran: Entesharat-​e Behbahani. Halat, A. (1983) Divan-​e khoroos-​e Lari, Tehran: Talar-​e Ketab. Hetzron, R. (1991) ‘On the structure of punchlines’, Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 4(1): 61–​108. Javadi, H. (1988) Satire in Persian Literature, Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. MirzadehEshqi, M.R. (1945) Koliyat-e​ mosavar-​e Eshqi, collected by A. Salimi, Tehran: Unknown. Naghdipour, B. (2014) ‘Jokes in Iran’, Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore 59: 105–​120. Nasr Esfahani, F., Ghasemi, V. and Javadi Yeganeh, M.R. (2019) ‘Shookhtabii-​ ye ghomiyati dar Iran’, Sociological Review 26(1): 169–​189. Nirāqī, Aḥmad -​Ibn Muḥammad (1954) Masnavi-​ye taqdis, A. Farhoomand, Tehran: Book Printing Company. Nourbakhsh, H. (1992) Dalqak-​haye mashhoor-​e darbari, Tehran: Sanai Publication. Rouhani, Gh. (1964) Koliyat-​e ashaar va fokahiyat-​e Rouhavi, Tehran: Sanai Library’s Press. 138

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Saqafi, Kh. [Aalam al-​Doleh] (1929) Hezar va yek hekayat, Tehran: Ferdowsi Library. Salahi, E. (2003) Khandeh-​sazan va khandeh-​pardazan, Tehran: Elm. Sharif Kashani, H. (1933) RiyazAl-​Hekayat, Tehran: Ketabchi Brothers. Shayan, H. (1952) Qahqahe-​ye Shayan, Tehran: Author. Sheikh Baha’i (1957) Koliyat-​ e ashaar-​ e Farsi va Mush- ​ o - ​ G orbih, Tehran: Mahmoudi Library’s Publication. Shifman, L. and Katz, E. (2005) ‘“Just call me Adonai”: a case study of ethnic humor and immigrant assimilation’, American Sociological Review 70: 843–​859. Soheili, M. (1962) Khoshmazegi-​ha (vol 1), Tehran: Amirkabir Publisher. Soroush, A. (1955) Majmooe-​ye latayef: Golchin-​e latife-​haye manzoom va mansoor az bozorg-​tarin shoara va nevisandegan va latife-​sorayan-​e Farsi zaban-​ baad az Eslam ta avakher-​e Ghajar, Tehran: Shargh Press Institute. Weaver, S. (2011) ‘Jokes, rhetoric and embodied racism: a rhetorical discourse analysis of the logics of racist jokes on the internet’, Ethnicities 11(4): 413–​435. Weaver, S. (2013) ‘A rhetorical discourse analysis of online anti-​Muslim and anti-​Semitic jokes’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 36(3): 483–​499. Weaver, S. (2014) ‘Ethnicity and humor’, in Salvatore Attardo (ed) SAGE Encyclopaedia of Humour Studies 1, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, pp 215–​219. Zarooee Nasrabad. A. (2010) Hadis-​e ghand, Tehran: Neyestan.

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PART III

Muslim Humour Practices in Islamicate Societies: Visual Media and Performance

6

Al-​Bernameg: How Bassem Youssef Ridiculed Religious Fundamentalists and Survived the ‘Defamation of Religion’ Charge Moutaz Alkheder

Introduction Bassem Youssef is an Egyptian surgeon-​turned-​satirist who rose to fame amid the 25 January 2011 revolution in Egypt, which toppled the Mubarak regime. As a medic, Youssef took part in this revolution and treated injured protesters in the iconic Tahrir Square in Cairo. Enraged by state media propaganda, which claimed the protests were orchestrated by foreign operatives and depicted protesters as thugs or morally corrupt, Youssef decided to refute and ridicule this narrative. He launched his YouTube Channel on 3 March 2011, and from his laundry room started producing a low-​budget video series called the ‘B+​Show’, named after his blood type. In its first three months alone, Youssef ’s show had more than five million views, a significant number in Egypt (Revkin and Samaan, 2011; Paget, 2018). Youssef ’s bravery in speaking out against authority, using contemporary social media outlets, and introducing a rather new style of comedy and satire were, arguably, the main factors behind his popularity. Youssef ’s fame and talent earned him an official TV programme on the ONTV channel, which he named Al-​Bernameg, meaning ‘The Show’ or ‘The Programme’. Youssef ’s show was considered comparable, in terms of the show’s format, to the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and thus Youssef was nicknamed ‘Egypt’s Jon Stewart’ (Paget, 2018). In the first season of 143

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Al-​Bernameg (2011), the Mubarak regime had fallen, and Youssef turned his satire toward the political forces active in the transitional period before elections (Morayef, 2012). This kind of critique was an unprecedented shift in Egypt and was in line with the newly found and celebrated democratic atmosphere of the ‘Arab Spring’. Youssef later moved to the well-​resourced CBC channel and his popularity reached new levels, with 30 million views on air for each episode (Kenner, 2013). In its second season (2012), the Islamic political movement, the Muslim Brotherhood (hereafter MB) had assumed power in Egypt and was the main target of Youssef ’s biting satire. This was the first time in Egyptian history that a standing head of state, Mohamed Morsi, was made fun of publicly (Paget, 2018). It was also the first time a political project, whose pioneers claimed it was ‘Islamic’, was systematically ridiculed in public. This ridicule earned Youssef the hostility of forerunners in this ‘Islamic’ project, that is, the MB, in addition to ultra-​conservative Salafist clerics, former allies of MB (Monticello, 2017). With the fall of the MB’s rule on 3 July 2013, after the military deposed and jailed President Morsi, Youssef turned to the military institution and lampooned the then head of the army, General Abdul-​Fattah al-​Sisi. This did not resonate well with the CBC channel which ended his show just after airing the first episode of his third season, claiming that Youssef had ‘violated editorial policy’ (BBC News, 2014). Later, the Saudi-​owned channel, MBC Masr, hosted Al-​Bernameg’s third season (2014) amid rising concerns about the lifespan and viability of democracy in Egypt after the military ‘coup’ (Ahram Online, 2013). After airing 11 episodes of the third season in MBC Masr, Youssef announced the end of his show at a press conference on 2 June 2014. He stated that he was ‘tired of struggling’, and it was clear that he was worried about the safety of his family, which led him to leave his country for the United States (BBC News, 2014). Despite the plethora of Arabic and English press articles on Al-​Bernameg, few academic studies have examined this show in depth. This chapter examines one specific aspect of Al-​Bernameg, namely how Youssef managed to ridicule political Islamists without running into the trouble of insulting religion. To answer this question, the chapter first explores Youssef ’s satire of the MB, as a political Islam movement, and other allied political Islamists, specifically Salafists. I examine the ‘politicization of religion’ which is the raison d’être of such movements and at the focus of the satire in Al-​Bernameg. Second, the chapter also shows how Youssef adopted a twofold approach that is both passive and proactive. In terms of the passive strategy, Youssef shied away from tackling issues related to core religious principles while offering a cautiously humorous treatment of politico-​religious matters. In terms of the proactive approach, he showed, through his humour, that conflating religion with politics, which is what political Islamists advocate, is fertile ground for insulting religion. Youssef also ‘scored’ against political Islamists 144

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by observing in his humour that they themselves made rather blasphemous statements when defending Morsi’s rule. The sample for this study is the second season of Al-​Bernameg which includes 29 episodes all of which coincided with the MB’s term in power. The episodes were fully transcribed in terms of verbal utterance, including making notes of Youssef ’s facial expressions and physical actions and registering the audience’s responses. To analyze this material, the chapter employs a thematic qualitative analysis. While the underlying study investigated several different thematic strands, in this chapter I highlight specifically how Youssef managed to avoid the charge of  ‘offending religion’. To do so, I have identified instances of humour in Youssef ’s programme that relate to core Islamic principles, and examined how Youssef handled those jokes. This treatment was placed in context and thus compared to other humorous material that is not explicitly religious.

Political humour and ‘speaking truth to power’ Youssef ’s satire falls arguably under the domain of ‘political humour’ because he used humour and satire specifically to criticize Egyptian politicians in the first season, he challenged the power of the ruling MB party in the second season, and he attacked the military establishment in the short-​ lived third season. By definition, political humour ‘is an umbrella term that encompasses any humorous text dealing with political issues, people, events, processes, or institutions’ (Young, 2017: 872). Scholars of political humour consider it to be a form of dissent and a ‘political weapon’ used to challenge the established order as envisaged by those in power (Nilsen, 1990; Berger, 1996; Tsakona and Popa, 2011). Villy Tsakona and Diana Popa argue that political humour is considered to be subversive and leading to political change: by offering a different perspective on political issues, it not only leads the audience to question the effectiveness of political decisions and practices, but also serves as a means of resistance to, or even rebellion against, political oppression and social injustice. (2011: 1) In this equation, humour is considered a ‘weapon of the weak’ and thus it punches up rather than down, unlike disparagement humour, such as racist humour (Hart, 2007: 8). The power dynamics of this type of political humour make it socially acceptable and even celebrated (Kuipers, 2011). Satirists are often viewed as ‘speaking truth to power’, an adage that implies that the humourist’s only weapon is telling the truth to those in power in a comic form (Sørensen, 2013). In this regard, the notion of the ‘wise fool’ is often invoked when speaking of comedians and satirists who 145

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usually take on foolish personae to conceal their witty and biting satire (Winterman, 2012). The idea of the ‘wise fool’ is not alien to classical Arabic literature and Arabic folk humour (Dols and Immisch, 1992). One example is Bahlūl Al-​Majnūn (Arabic for the Insane Bahlūl) who was a wise fool who had been a judge but rejected Caliph Harun al-​Rashid’s orders and fled to exile in the mountains. After staying there for a long time, he came back, pretending he was possessed by the jinn, a supernatural creature in Arab and Islamic mythology (Jafri, 2014: 3). He acted foolishly and made fun of people, including the Caliph. This persona gave him licence to criticize the Caliph with impunity. Bahlūl was one of the first Arab figures to use humour for rhetorical and political effects (Jafri, 2014: 3). Youssef himself was pejoratively nicknamed al-​Aragouz (puppeteer) by his opponents, who intended to undermine his message by dismissing him as a fool or buffoon who could not be taken seriously (Bazzi, 2013). However, Youssef accepted this label as a form of praise rather than derision because, as he said, al-​Aragouz ‘reflects people’s resistance to political oppression … entertains people and enlightens them on political issues’ (France 24 Arabic, 2013).

A brief typology of political Islam ‘Islamism’ or ‘political Islam’ is a modern-​day terminology that refers to political movements in the Islamic world that emerged in the late twentieth century. Their basic tenet is that Islam is not only a religion, but also a ‘comprehensive way of life’, and thus it serves as ‘a theory of politics and the State’ (Ayubi, 1991: i; Voll, 2013: 56). Tobias Ellwood explained that ‘the term “political Islam”, as generally understood, covers a broad spectrum of non-​violent movements and ideologies’ and thus, it is distinguished from militant Islam and jihadism (UK House of Commons, 2016: 8). Political Islam movements might belong to the Sunni sect of Islam, such as the MB in Egypt and other Arab countries, or the Shi‘a sect, such as Hizbullah in Lebanon. In Al-​Bernameg, Youssef criticized two main movements of political Islam, namely: the MB and Salafists. Youssef showed awareness of the distinction between them. At times, even though he joked about clerics without referring to their specific affiliation, all clerics featured in Al-​Bernameg were supportive of the MB’s rule. The MB (Al-​Ikhwān Al-​Muslimīn) is a transnational Sunni Islamist movement, and, unlike the rest of political Islam movements, was founded in Egypt in the early twentieth century (in 1928). It initially came as a response to the official abolishment of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924 and later sought to counter what it considered the ‘Westernization’ of Egypt and other Islamic countries (Al-A ​ nani, 2016: 50–​66). Originally, it advocated violent means to overthrow governments and to impose Islamic law on society, and because 146

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of that it was outlawed in 1954 and was subsequently repressed during the early era of the pan-​Arabist President Gamal Abdul Nasser, from 1956 to 1970 (Al-​Anani, 2016: 6). However, the MB has undergone a significant transformation throughout its history and it later denounced violence and gradually accepted what it once rejected, including the concept of nation state and democracy (Al-​Anani, 2016: 135–​155). The MB promotes itself as ‘waṣaṭi Islam’, that is, a moderate or middle ground form of Islam. This is a term popularized in the 1980s by the MB’s spiritual leader Yusuf al-​Qaradawi to situate MB between secular regimes, on the one hand, and ultra-​conservative Islamists, such as Salafists and jihadis, on the other (Nathan and Hamam, 2009: 2). The MB was legalized after the Egyptian revolution of 2011 and participated in the parliamentary elections, winning 47.19 per cent of parliamentary seats in 2012. Its candidate, Mohamed Morsi, became the first democratically elected president in Egypt’s modern history, winning 51.73 per cent of the votes (Létourneau, 2016: 301). The MB’s rule was troublesome, and it faced fierce opposition from factions consisting of Mubarak’s ancien régime, liberals, and seculars, as evidenced by protests and clashes in the streets. On 30 June 2013, massive anti-​government protests took to the streets in Tahrir Square demanding the resignation of Morsi. The army intervened and ousted Morsi on 3 July 2013 in what was considered a military coup (Létourneau, 2016: 304–​306). In the aftermath, the MB were banned as a ‘terrorist’ organization in Egypt and in several Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Syria (UK House of Commons, 2016). Another force of political Islam in Egypt are the Salafists. Salafism is a branch of Sunni Islam which advocates ‘a puritanical approach to the religion, intended to eschew religious innovation by strictly replicating the model of the Prophet Muḥammad’ (Wiktorowicz, 2006: 207). Wiktorowicz divided Salafists into three categories: purists, politicos, and jihadis. Purists avoid politics and prioritize peaceful means of propagation of their message. Politicos believe that religion should have a say in politics to establish the rule of God on earth, but they do not advocate violent methods in principle. Jihadis, advocate jihad, that is, holy war, to impose what they consider God’s rules on humans (Wiktorowicz, 2006: 208). In Egypt there are many Salafi movements but the most important is the ‘Salafi Call’ (Ad-Da’wa As-Salafiya), which is considered a quietist form of Salafism. Quietist Salafists in Egypt had a rather free hand in the social domain even before the revolution in 2011 and, unlike the MB, they were allowed to establish their own TV channels (Stratcomcoe, 2019: 99). It is widely claimed that the Mubarak regime propped up Salafists as a counterweight to the more politically active MB (Stratcomcoe, 2019: 99). However, after the Arab Spring revolution, Salafists turned to politics and the Salafi Call established the Nour Party, which won 24.3 per cent of parliamentary 147

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seats and came second after the MB (Stratcomcoe, 2019: 99). This party entered into a ‘marriage of convenience’ with the MB, but they later split, as evidenced when Morsi sacked his adviser and a member of the Nour Party, Khaled Alam Eddin (Egypt Independent, 2013). Although the Nour Party did not participate in the rebellion of 30 June 2013, they endorsed al-​Sisi’s coup, which affected their popularity among their traditional constituencies (Stratcomcoe, 2019: 100–​101).

Youssef ’s critique of the politicization of religion The Arab Spring brought to the forefront many movements of political Islam whose rise reinvigorated a long-​standing debate on the relation between religion and the state among Arab secularists and Islamists (El-​Sherif, 2014: 9). The Egyptian case was particularly important because the MB took the bold step of assuming power, unlike for example, its sister movement Ennahda in Tunisia, which was more reserved when it took power, despite winning a majority in the Tunisian parliament (Meddeb, 2019). Lacking expertise in governance, the MB ‘failed to lead an inclusive democratic transition, appreciate the full diversity of Egyptian society, and understand the need for a completely reinvented political culture’ (Sherif, 2014: 4). Ashraf El-​Sherif observed that the MB tried to monopolize power and impose their vision on other secular parties (El-​Sherif, 2014: 9). This was manifested in many ways, the most important of which was the drafting of the post-​revolutionary constitution. The MB and their allied Salafists dominated the constitution-​drafting committee, and later the constitution was passed through a public referendum by 63.83 per cent of the votes, with the secular opposition boycotting the vote (Sherif, 2014: 9). The opposition was concerned with the role of Sharia (Islamic law) in the constitution and jurisprudence. Moreover, the MB was accused by the opposition of employing religion in politics and imposing on Egyptian society their interpretation of religion that discriminates ‘against the religious, doctrinal, and sectarian other’ (El-​Sherif, 2014: 16). Ashraf El-​Sherif points out that the MB leaders ‘did not necessarily advocate violence or engage often in outright hate speech, but the discriminatory tone of their rhetoric was unmistakable’ (El-​Sherif, 2014: 16). The MB was accused by the opposition of favouritism and clientelism and of attempts to install their members in key political posts in the country in what was termed the ‘Brotherhoodization of the state’ (Housden, 2013: 73). The MB’s failures led to a stark polarization in Egyptian politics and clashes in the streets between the MB and Salafists on the one hand, and secular and liberal Muslims on the other (El-​Sherif, 2014: 11). In this context and through his satire, Youssef was critical of the conduct of both the MB and the Salafists. He opposed what he called the politicization of religion or ‘mixing religion with politics’ (Al-​Bernameg, episode 12). 148

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Middle East scholar Bassam Tibi defines the politicization of religion as ‘an effort to manipulate an understanding toward religion through propaganda, indoctrination, and campaign which are socialised to the public’ (cited in Syarif, 2017: 444). This definition informs the ideological outlook and legislative agenda of these movements. The politicization of religion lampooned in Al-​Bernameg covered three key aspects: (1) the claim that forces of political Islam represent true Islam and that Egypt is in need of re-​Islamization; (2) using religion to ostracize political opponents in the so-​called phenomenon of ‘excommunication’; and (3) deploying religion, paradoxically, to legitimize the MB’s democratically elected government. The first aspect of Youssef ’s critique is represented in ridiculing the MB and Salafists’ depiction of Egyptian society as un-​Islamic and their self-​ proclaimed mission of guiding people to the ‘true’ version of Islam. In episode 3, Youssef showed a video of cleric Muhammad Hassan leading a rally and saying that ‘the dawn of Islam has started to appear’, with his audience repeatedly chanting ‘Islam is coming’. Playing with words, Youssef joked, ‘Coming, coming? Did it go somewhere else?’ He then dismissed this question and decided to be joyful and celebrate that Islam is ‘coming’ to Egypt. To celebrate, he said, ‘I searched for cult images but could not find any. I only found Barbie dolls and I brought some so that we can smash them together’. Youssef threw a couple of them to the audience so they could smash these ‘idols’. He then stopped for a moment as he appeared to have an epiphany: ‘If “Islam is coming” this means my previous prayers do not count?’ Then, in a panic, he shouted: ‘Do we have to reset the counter to zero?’ Obviously, Youssef meant to highlight the absurdity of the self-​proclaimed mission by political Islamists of introducing the ‘pure’ version of Islam to Egypt. In this sense, the ‘rewards’ which a Muslim usually gains from praying have gone in vain. As for the dolls quip, Youssef meant to ridicule some Islamists’ stance on anthropomorphization, especially their rejection of sculptures as ‘cult images’ because they consider them as ‘god-​stones’ or ‘idols’ similar to the ones worshipped in pre-​Islamic Arabia (Glassé, 2008: 206). Youssef made his joke in a climate where several radical clerics called for the imposition of ‘Islamic’ values on all aspects of society; some even called for the destruction of the pyramids and the Great Sphinx of Giza, considering them as ‘god-​stones’ (Paraszczuk, 2012). Youssef, in a sense, prophesized what extremists might do if they took over and this was vindicated when the ‘Islamic State’ destroyed sculptures and artefacts in Iraq and Syria (Jones, 2018). The second aspect of Youssef ’s critique relates to the rhetoric of ‘excommunication’ (takfīr) by some clerics. Takfīr is the act of declaring a Muslim an ‘infidel’ based on the person’s practice or belief (Karawan, 2009: 311). Despite the lack of definitive criteria for the circumstances 149

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under which someone can be pronounced an infidel, the concept of takfīr is widely used by extremist groups or radical clerics to ostracize, and even legitimize violence against, dissenting Muslims (Hegghammer, 2009). In his show, Youssef observed several incidents of pro-​Morsi clerics calling opponents of Morsi infidels. Of particular importance was a statement by cleric Mohamed Abdel Maqsoud speaking at a large rally in Cairo Stadium in front of Morsi and addressing the planned opposition protests of 30 June 2013. The cleric made a supplication saying, ‘I pray for God, the Exalted, the Mighty, to make Islam victorious, strengthen Muslims, and turn the 30th of June into a day of glory for Islam and Muslims and a defeat of the infidels and the hypocrites’ (episode 28). In reply to this video clip, Youssef played innocent and wanted to respond to the cleric’s supplication by saying ‘Amen’, but halfway through the word he realized that he, and the oppositionists, are the accused in this supplication so he twisted ‘Amen’ to a long ‘mīn’ (Arabic for who). Youssef jokingly comforted himself and the audience that ‘President Morsi is there, and he will not allow such a thing, and he has a strong reaction’. Close-​up footage of Morsi, however, showed that he was dead silent, without any facial expression. In Youssef ’s show, a fly was digitally added, walking on Morsi’s suit and the sound of a cockroach chirp was played. Meanwhile, Youssef started waving to Morsi, flicking his fingers and saying, ‘Boss! Are you there? There is one [beside you] calling your people infidels. Boss! Are you OK with that?’ Youssef showed how religion is being weaponized in Egyptian politics, especially in the lead-up to the protests of 30 June 2013, by calling oppositionists infidels and hypocrites. Youssef also used this incident to suggest that, although both the MB and Morsi did not officially endorse the excommunicative rhetoric of certain firebrand Salafi clerics, the MB unofficially tolerated it (episode 28). The third aspect of Youssef ’s critique involves exposing the MB’s instrumentalization of religion in the democratic process in violation of the (ideal) democratic principles which postulate neutrality toward religion (Donati, 2002: 149). Abdel Latif El-​Menawy argues that Islamists in Egypt sought to thwart democracy and understood democracy only as ‘ballot box’, not as a comprehensive philosophy for a sustainable participatory political system (El-​Menawy, 2014). Youssef expressed the secularists’ doubts on the Islamists’ long-​term commitment to democracy and their fears that MB would turn Egypt into a religious dictatorship with the aid of ballot boxes. In episode 3, he covered the pro-​Morsi marches which were supposedly in support of Morsi’s ‘constitutional declaration’ that gave the president extensive executive powers. However, pro-​Morsi demonstrators had something else in mind, as Youssef discovered. He showed video clips of demonstrators chanting, ‘People want to implement the Sharia [law] of God’. Then he joked, ‘I did not see this [article] in the constitutional 150

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declaration’. Youssef implied that not only did clerics use religion to rally support for Morsi’s constitutional declaration but that they also deceived their constituency about the real goal of the demonstration which they were invited to participate in. To substantiate this claim further, Youssef referred to the MB’s campaign during the referendum for the post-​revolutionary Egyptian constitution. He showed a clip of Sheikh Muhammad Yacoub just after the MB’s constitution was approved, addressing his audience at a sermon, ‘And ballot boxes said to religion, what?’ His audience answered, ‘YES’. Youssef sarcastically continued, ‘and they will keep saying yes forever’. He then mimicked the sheikh, saying, ‘If you want people to vote for the constitution or the constitution declaration, without even reading them, disguise it in religion and people will say what?’ Youssef ’s audience replied, ‘YEEES’ (episode 3). Youssef ’s argument is that employing religion in politics, and especially in the then nascent democracy in Egypt, thwarts the democratic process in favour of the Islamists because they play on the religious sentiments of the common people.

Strategies for avoiding the charge of insulting Islam through satire Penal codes in most Arab countries, including Egypt, outlaw ‘defamation’ or ‘contempt’ of religions. The most relevant article in the Egyptian Penal Code (EPC) is Article 98(f) which criminalizes ‘make[ing] use of religion in propagating, either by words, in writing, or in any other means, extreme ideas for the purpose of inciting strife, ridiculing or insulting a heavenly religion or a sect following it, or damaging national unity’ (McCracken, 2012: 151–​152). A Freedom House report titled Policing Belief: The Impact of Blasphemy on Human Rights points out the ambiguity of relevant EPC articles and the clear lack of definition for the key terms. The report also highlighted how the issue of blasphemy law is being used to settle political scores and even personal or family vendettas (Freedom House, 2010: 25). Nevertheless, the most dangerous aspect of blasphemy or religious insult allegations is not so much the legal aspects but what can happen outside the mandate of law in the practice of ‘vigilantism’ (Saiya, 2017). In other words, self-​appointed guardians of religion, whether sanctioned clerics or even random individuals, can act of their own free will and claim that they implement the ‘law of God’ (Saiya, 2017). In Egypt, blasphemy prosecutions have increased ‘markedly and worryingly’ in the post-​revolution era as Ishaq Ibrahim of The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights observed in a special report (Ibrahim, 2014: 10). Ibrahim has demonstrated how lawyers, mainly with Islamist affiliations, have contributed to the increase of such lawsuits, targeting both public figures and ordinary 151

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citizens. Ibrahim also reported that ‘forces of political Islam’ used to ‘mobilize their supporters to lay siege to courts where defamation cases were being heard, with the goal of influencing the judges and their decision’ (Ibrahim, 2014: 6). One victim of these allegations was the popular comedian Adel Imam. The specific charges were ‘defamation and disparagement of the beard and Islamic dress’ (Ibrahim, 2014: 29). Youssef was repeatedly accused of ‘defaming religion’ by several Islamists and he was summoned for investigation by Egypt’s public prosecutor, but he was released on bail due to lack of evidence (BBC News, 2013). Despite such accusations, the public verdict was in his favour: Youssef ’s large following among ordinary Muslims indicated he did not insult their religious values. His colleague, Mahmoud Saad, an anchor in Al-​Nahar TV, pointed to this idea when he said, ‘If Youssef had insulted religion, the people would have been the first to stand against him’ (Tube Misr, 2013). Thus, it is not far-​ fetched to argue that his popularity indicates that he did not insult religion, at least in the eyes of the public. I argue that Youssef avoided the charge of defamation of religion by employing two strategies: a passive/​defensive and a proactive/​offensive strategy. His passive strategy involves two tactics. The first is the avoidance of addressing anything related to the core of the Islamic religion in the first place. The second is the special treatment of religious-​cum-​political matters when Youssef dealt with such matters given that political Islamists conflate religion with politics. Youssef ’s proactive, and more offensive, strategy also involves two tactics. The first tactic is making the case against the Islamists’ politicization of religion as fertile ground for the defamation of religion. The second tactic is represented in Youssef ’s attempt to beat Islamists at their own game when he tracked down some Islamists’ statements that could, arguably, amount to blasphemy. To address the first tactic of Youssef ’s passive strategy, it is worth mentioning some actual blasphemy convictions of public personalities in Egypt in order to understand Youssef ’s case in the context of its opposite. The researcher and reformer Islam al-​Behairy was imprisoned on charges of insulting religion on the grounds of doubting the authority of the Sahih Al-​Bukhari, one of the six major collections of ḥadīths. Al-​Azhar, Egypt’s oldest Islamic establishment, officially filed this charge to the Prosecutor General (Dawoud, 2015). Although not on the same level as the God-​ revealed Qur’an, the Sahih Al-B ​ ukhari is revered by most Muslims as the most authentic book after the Qur’an (Schimmel, 1992: 52). Another example of persecution for blasphemy is the secular writer and poet Fatima Naoot, who criticized the mass slaughter of animals, which is a ritual integral to the Muslim celebration of Eid al-​Adha. The charge was filed by the little-​ known lawyer Moḥammed Afifi (Nanns, 2015). These two cases show, to an extent, what might be perceived as violation of core Islamic values and 152

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principles, thus establishing a rather convincing legal ground for the charge of insulting religion. Unlike al-​Behairy or Naoot, Youssef did not present himself as a religious reformer and thus his critique was political rather than religious. In this respect, Youssef ’s satire aimed at clerics insofar as they intervened in politics, especially after the MB came to power, after which some clerics became more outspoken. In reply to his political Islamist critics, Youssef once said that he criticized them because they are in power, and that in his previous 100 episodes on YouTube and the ONTV channel, that is, before the MB’s ascent to power, he only dealt with them in five episodes (episode 5). Unsuccessful charges against Youssef regarding blasphemy were vague and phrased as ‘insulting Islam’, but no details were given on what specifically was offensive to religion (Paget, 2018). Youssef ’s satire came across as anti-​ clerical humour that targets members of the clergy on the basis of their involvement in politics, their controversial religious interpretations, and their moral corruption. It avoided tackling core religious beliefs and doctrines or established religious institutions. Thus, Youssef ’s satirical humour never went in the direction of overtly blasphemous, sacrilegious, or even anti-​theistic humour. What he did, instead, was to engage the lower-​level satirical targets of religious humour, notably ridiculing individual foolishness in religious matters as well as making jokes in the anti-​clerical style. This cautious approach made Youssef ’s satire less controversial and thus clerics who tried to mobilize people against him did not receive widespread support, let alone win a legal case. Their battle appeared personal or similar to ‘celebrity feuds’, as was the case with several secular celebrities, such as Emad El-​Din Adeeb, a TV presenter who raised a claim of ‘libel and slander’ against Youssef (Al-​Arabiya, 2012). The second tactic of his passive strategy is that when Youssef had to deal with religious-​cum-​political material, he would treat it differently. Normally, Youssef would often extract humour from anything that came out of the mouths of MB members and affiliates and would use a range of humorous techniques, including raillery, parody, exaggeration, and so on. For certain problematic occasions, however, he would use a special treatment such as relinquishing comic framing for serious commentary, being more reliant on enthymematic arguments,1 or diverting from the issue at hand to a different topic. A case in point is an example from episode 29. Youssef played a video clip of an unidentified cleric telling the following story about a random person’s dream: A person told me that he went to a gathering and saw the Prophet Muḥammad, peace and blessings be upon him, and President Mohamed Morsi. When the time of the prayer came, the audience made way 153

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for the Prophet to lead the prayer, however, the Prophet said, ‘No, President Mohamed Morsi will lead the prayer’. As usual, Youssef ’s audience expected him to comment, but he did not. In fact, his lack of verbal comment was the joke. Youssef initially appeared shocked into silence, then nervous, hitting the table lightly with one hand while the other hand rested on his chin, and of course the audience was laughing. He seemed barely able to restrain himself from the otherwise golden opportunity for ridicule. Then he bluntly explained his dilemma and said, ‘We have come up with [humorous] comments on this topic, but unfortunately, [if I say them] we would fall into charges of contempt for religions, insulting the president, slandering the man who appeared in this video clip.’ Youssef then turned the humour toward the rest of the cleric’s story which featured eight pigeons flying from Morsi’s shoulder. Youssef showed an image of Morsi with four pigeons on each of his shoulders and jibed, ‘Guess what his military rank is?’ He made up a military rank of pigeons, parallel to eagles and stars in the traditional Egyptian military ranks. To ridicule this dream further, he asked, ‘What does your [MB] Major General have? Two swords and a pigeon! And the reserve soldier? A feather and two eggs!’. The first made-​up rank is a jab at the MB’s emblem and the second is a double entendre with a sexual connotation, meaning a penis and testicles. In this respect, Youssef changed his original commentary from the dream-​miracle of the Prophet asking Morsi to lead the prayer to the reductio ad absurdum of pigeons and military ranks. Although there are several similar incidents, this is the first time he reveals that he would have commented differently were it not for the fear of being dragged to what he calls the ‘sensitive area’ of religion (episode 29). One can only speculate what he would have said otherwise in this instance. Now I address Youssef ’s proactive strategy, which could be considered offensive in the sense that he tried to beat political Islamists at their own game. It is ‘their’ game because religious insult allegations, in the Arab world, are a ‘weapon’ that is almost unique to political Islamists but with the noble purpose of ‘defending religion’ (Saiya, 2017). Youssef turned the political Islamists’ weapon against them in the following ways. First, he showed that conflating religion with politics violates the sanctity and reverent status of religion. Second, he showed that the MB and Salafists, while idolizing Morsi, themselves made remarks that could be deemed blasphemous and insulting to religion. To start with the first tactic of his proactive strategy, the main message of Youssef ’s critique of political Islamists was that bringing religion into politics in general, and using it against political adversaries specifically, does harm to religion. As mentioned in the section on the politicization of religion, Youssef endeavoured to show the dangers of conflating religion with politics. It is 154

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useful to provide specific examples where Youssef tried to beat Islamists at their own game, specifically discrediting the claim that they intend to protect the sanctity of religion. One of the telling examples is Youssef ’s treatment of the MB’s media campaign that associates their political programme with Islam. Youssef played a video clip of the cleric Safwat Hijazi speaking over the phone on Al-​Youm TV, where the presenter asked him, ‘Is Project Renaissance the project of the Muslim Brotherhood or is it the project of Islam?’ Hijazi replied, ‘It is the project of Islam.’ With the aid of visual effects, the video is paused abruptly and zooms in to a close-​up of the amazed TV presenter with dramatic music to sensationalize Hijazi’s statement. Youssef then, opening his hands, and mimicking zealous clerics, shouted ‘Takbīr’ (Arabic for ‘Say God is great’) and in a rhetorical fashion said, ‘It is the project of Islam, not the MB’s project.’ Thus, he reasoned, ‘It must succeed because it is the project of Islam. Because if it fails people will conclude that Islam [blank]’, but here he stopped, leaving this blank for the audience to complete. To add to the comic effect, he placed his hands on his face, as a sign of embarrassment, and then on his mouth, implying he was trying to prevent words coming out of his mouth (episode 1). Youssef ’s message from this quip is that stretching Islam beyond its spiritual scope would place it in a risky situation. In other words, Youssef wanted to say that if the MB’s project –​which they named ‘Project Renaissance’–​fails, people will conclude that Islam has ‘failed’, and they will lose confidence in it. Of course, he did not say that outright, but the message is clear. Although it could be a daring (un)statement, Youssef appeared to be defending Islam from corrupt politics and asking those who politicize Islam to distance religion from the contentious realm of politics. He explained his idea on this issue in a press article when he said that ‘mixing religion with politics spoils politics and alienates people from religion’ (Youssef, 2013). In this sense, Youssef wanted to preserve the perceived sanctity of religion, and this attitude arguably helped to boost his Islamic ethos and led the audience to accept his critique as making a case against the MB and Salafists specifically, not against Islam. In the second tactic of his proactive strategy, Youssef showed that the MB’s supporters, in the process of glorifying President Morsi, made statements that could amount to blasphemy or violate Islamic norms, at the least. For example, he showed several video clips of claims by the MB’s supporters that Morsi is aided by God, appears in people’s dreams as an angel, resembles the Prophet Joseph, and some people even made a rather subtle comparison to the Prophet Muḥammad (episode 6). After showing these segments, Youssef sorrowfully asked, ‘I wonder where you [MB] will find a president with such holy descriptions that does not exist in another president or elsewhere!’ He also pointed to the potential consequences of idolizing Morsi for his followers. Youssef wondered, ‘In the future, how are you going to overstate 155

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[Morsi’s holy descriptions] if another MB member runs for president?’ One can only imagine Morsi’s supporters would have to make the blasphemous claim of Morsi as the ‘divine being’ itself. Youssef then exploited this opportunity to ‘score’ against the MB when he asked, ‘To those who want to sue us for defamation of religions or insulting the president, have a look at these videos and see who defames religion and insults the president and [ironically] they are the president’s supporters.’ He concluded in a serious commentary, ‘Previously, Egyptian people were reputed to make a Pharaoh [of their rulers]; however, now we make a Prophet [of our rulers], and this is the only thing, in Egypt, that cannot be made in China.’ Although Youssef –​as argued above –​does not treat these politico-​religious statements by political Islamists in an overtly humorous way, it is clear that, by showing or even ‘reporting’ them to his audiences, he aims to expose the un-​Islamic and idolatrous nature of these statements. In theory, Islam condemns the idolization of humans; even the Prophet Muḥammad (PBUH) was depicted in the Qur’an as ‘human like yourself ’, who ‘eats food and walks in the markets’ (The Holy Qur’an, 25:7). Jacques Waardenburg noted that Islam condemns shirk, that is polytheism and idolatry, which reportedly was the practice of some past Arab tribes who believed in God but worshipped idols alongside, thinking the idols would connect them to God (Waardenburg, 1999: 4). For his part, the Saudi Islamic reformer Ahmed al-​Tuwaijri equated god-​stone worshipping in pre-​Islamic Arabia to modern-​day idolizing of the rulers in Islamic countries (Watan, 2017). In this sense, Youssef made the case against Islamists using the Islamic sources which they claim they adhere to.

Conclusion This chapter shows that Youssef ’s satire offered a fresh critique of the politicization of religion by the political Islamist movement of the MB and its Salafist allies. Youssef revealed the divisive role of religion when it is weaponized against co-​religionists and fellow citizens. He also exposed how political Islamists deploy religion to control people, silence political differences, and hinder the democratic process. Using a range of satirical techniques, he refuted the political Islamists’ claim of being the standard-​ bearer of Islam and showed that Islam cannot be monopolized by one group. Deploying the power of humour and the new media, he reinvigorated the Arab secularists’ long-​standing cry of separating religion from politics. He also made use of the opportunity to lambast the MB while they were in power, thus undermining their ability to use their usual victimhood rhetoric (Andersen, 2010: 8). Youssef then ‘punched up’ and came out as ‘speaking truth to power’. He used this principle regardless of the ideological nature of those in power, and arguably this is why he refrained from criticizing 156

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the MB after their fall from power, thus turning his satire against the new military rulers of Egypt. In retrospect, Youssef refuted their accusation of being biased against Islamists and undermining religion. Youssef had to be careful in his critique. He clearly refrained from criticizing core religious beliefs, such as the existence and oneness of God, or doubting the authenticity of the core religion texts, such as the Qur’an or the ḥadīth collections, or challenging the authority of religious establishments, such as his home country’s al-​Azhar institution. His satire was not anti-​religious but anti-​clerical since it was restricted to zealous clerics who try to impose their interpretation of the script on the rest of Egyptians. Despite this cautious approach, he did not shy away from criticizing the Islamists’ politico-​religious agenda and managed to separate the political from the religious. In doing so, he showed his audiences the ways in which political Islamists use religion as a shield to safeguard themselves from critique and to intimidate opponents. Youssef also took the initiative to beat political Islamists at their own game, using their own weapon of the charge of defamation of religion. In this regard, he showed that the very idea of conflating religion with politics places the religion in a vulnerable position. Youssef also ‘scored’ against political Islamists when he showed that they were themselves defaming religion in defending their positions and trying to score against their political opponents. Through his political satire, he exposed the accusation that political Islamists prioritized their political interests at the expense of religion. Note 1

The term ‘enthymeme’ refers to ‘an argument in which one or more statements that are part of the argument are not explicitly stated. Enthymemes are sometimes loosely referred to as arguments with “missing premises”, but sometimes the missing statement is the conclusion’ (Walton et al, 2008: 18).

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7

Arab Cartoonists and Religion: The Interdependence of Transgression and Taboo Chourouq Nasri

Introduction The Arab world is a vast region with different histories and political systems. The historical and political contexts are very complex, with highly dynamic developments characterizing the region and influencing media structures throughout the region. Clearly, the Arab world is not a homogenous entity and nor are its media. However, Arab countries do have a common language (in spite of the various dialects of each country), and a shared history characterized by the spread of Islam since the seventh century, the Ottoman conquest of the Arab countries, and European colonialism. It is difficult to grasp both the heterogeneity and the common features of the Arab world and determine how these factors influence the media in general and cartooning in particular. A comprehensive and detailed study of the historical, political, social, and economic peculiarities of the different countries making up the Arab region in a short chapter is impossible. Therefore, the aim of this chapter is to focus on the broader picture and to explore the relationship between cartooning and religion by giving examples from some Arab countries. The chapter presents some initial indicative findings using individual case studies from Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Syria. One of the defining characteristics of the media landscape and the political climate in many Arab nations is that the freedom of the press is not an absolute right that can be taken for granted. Rather, the press operates in a contested forcefield where the need for transparent information has to be 162

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balanced with matters of decorum, restraint, and circumspection. Although the agents of censorship in Arab countries strive to stifle and subdue political satire, many cartoonists with a highly developed sense of irony and a great degree of graphic skill have creatively interpreted the red lines and boldly spoken truth to power. However, attacking politicians is one thing and criticizing religion is another, even if religious and political authorities are often intertwined. Multiple forms of censorship shape the relationship of Arab cartoonists to religion. Blasphemy laws are common in the Arab world but cartoonists face limits other than the official censor. It is difficult to mock religion in countries where religious symbols are sacred. Most cartoonists suppress their desire to poke fun at religious beliefs and institutions so as not to offend their public. But most importantly, the cultural beliefs and values that motivate acts of censorship are shared by the artists themselves. Arab cartoonists operate in a very complicated climate and have to struggle against different forms of cultural and political control. Many impose limits on themselves, producing works that are gentle-​spirited and essentially in line with the dominant ideology, but several other cartoonists from Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, and Morocco make different choices that culminate in varying forms of transgression. Hani Abbas and Yazeed Alharthi, for example, create symbolic works that cross the red line without seeming to do so, occasionally presenting the reader with a considerable interpretative challenge. Verbal satire or animal characters offer cartoonists another tactic that helps them challenge the accepted social and religious norms. Khalid Cherradi refrains from visual assaults on religious symbols but he does not shy away from mocking religion in his satirical texts. The animal figures in the cartoons of Nadia Khiari enable the artist to dodge many conflicts. Khalid Gueddar and Dilem use provocation to confront censorship in spite of the risks this involves. Their cartoons shock their audiences and sometimes outrage their religious feelings, but they are liberatory and empowering. Although many artists invented creative tactics to challenge the existing limits, censorship –​in both its explicit and implicit1 forms –​is contributing to an environment that curtails expression in the Arab world and restricts the potential of artists. Selected cartoons will be analyzed to show that the relationship between Arab cartoonists and religion is complex and contradictory and to try to understand the parameters within which these cartoonists exist socially and institutionally (for example, the press, as well as legal and religious institutions), and strive for agency. This chapter is divided into three sections. The first section (Roots of terrorism) uses history to reflect on the violence triggered by the publication in Europe of cartoons depicting Prophet Muḥammad. The second section (Unfreedom of the press) shows how difficult it is for Arab cartoonists to depict or criticize Islam. In most Arab countries, any critique of religious authority is a critique of political authority and is against the law. Hence, 163

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the authorities often suspend publications, impose fines, confiscate issues, or order the detention and imprisonment of the cartoonist and the newspaper’s editor. The third section (Cartoonists under threat) gives examples of cartoons focused on religious symbols and institutions. It examines the artistic techniques and imagery used by Arab cartoonists to resist control, although very few readers among the intended audiences would delve into the hidden, latent meaning of these works.

Roots of terrorism In the autumn of 2005, the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muḥammad by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-​Posten triggered demonstrations all over the world. Hundreds of people took to the streets in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia to express their anger against cartoons that were deemed as insulting to Islam. The demonstrations turned violent, including in Afghanistan where several protesters died (Gall, 2006). Ten years later, in 2015, 12 people were killed in a terrorist attack at the office of Charlie Hebdo in Paris. The French satirical news magazine has a controversial history of publishing provocative cartoons about religion (Visier, 2015–​2016) including drawings of the Prophet Muḥammad, which had inflamed the attackers. In 2016, Nahed Hattar, a Jordanian writer, was killed after sharing on his Facebook page a cartoon depicting a bearded man lying in bed with two women and asking God to bring him a drink (Beaumont, 2016). Why did the Prophet Muḥammad cartoons trigger such appalling acts of violence? Why can’t cartoonists, including non-​Muslims, create cartoons of God or of his prophet(s) without endangering their lives? Why can’t Arab cartoonists mock religion, religious institutions, or religious figures and get away with it? Why are religious cartoons so rare in the Arab and Muslim world? How should the Muslim community react when terrorist acts are committed in their name? To answer these questions, we need to have a deep understanding of the history of Islam. The book Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World by Moroccan Islamic sociologist and feminist Fatima Mernissi (1992) offers some answers to the above questions. Mernissi wrote this book to ‘restore a more nuanced image of Islam, an image in which the small details count and help produce more precise contours’ (1992: 39). For Mernissi, most Islamic countries use religion to impose order and obedience and limit individual freedom. The author identifies the sociopolitical setting in which extremist Islamic movements were born and explains how the exercise of reason and free expression have been progressively suppressed. According to Mernissi, the history of Islam has been strongly shaped by two traditions: the rationalist tradition and the rebel tradition (1992: 39). The first trend comprises defenders, such as the Muutazila who are mainly 164

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composed of Sufis and philosophers and who were inspired by Indian and Persian culture. They believed in the supremacy of reason and personal opinion. The Muutazila were accused of using foreign ideas and were fiercely opposed by Muslim political leaders. The second trend consists of rebels or the Khawarij who relied on violence to protest against injustice. They did not believe in blind obedience to the khalifa, the successor of the Prophet and the head of state in early Islam and their leader, so they revolted and assassinated him. They began their dissident movement shortly after the death of the Prophet Muḥammad in 661 AD when they killed Ali Ibn Talib, the fourth khalifa. Both traditions entered the political arena and succeeded in influencing the course of events, raising the question of subservience to the imam (the prayer leader of a mosque) and rejecting the principle of blind obedience to authority. The Muutazila succeeded in promoting their support for the pre-​eminence of reason, freedom of opinion, and tolerance for many years. Islam experienced its golden age at the beginning of the Abbasid dynasty whose leaders mobilized the most brilliant minds among the Muutazila to strengthen their rule. However, this scientific and philosophical flowering soon came to an end and the Muutazila were hunted down after being accused of being atheists and infidels. Mernissi explains that Islamic history has been marked by the assassination of political leaders by rebel dissidents for whom violence is the only way to bring about change. But if intellectuals had not been censored and silenced for almost 15 centuries by Muslim leaders, Islamist terrorism would not have been successful (Mernissi, 1992: 46). Mernissi comes to the conclusion that Muslim political leaders have stripped Islam of its rationalist dimension and its humanistic ideas. Moreover, she believes that Muslim nationalists took shelter in the past in their fight against Western colonizers, and consequently missed the chance of opening up to the new advances of science, weakening their people even more and paving the way to a tradition of obedience and submissiveness. In most Arab and Muslim countries, the political and the religious are often confounded and brought together, imposing a monopoly over the media and public opinion. In Morocco, the monarch is the commander of the believers. He is also the head of the Supreme Council for Religious Knowledge and is thus viewed as the highest religious authority in the country (Sheline, 2019). In Saudi Arabia, the king is the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. State-​sponsored messaging is used to endow the head of state with a religious status. The Egyptian state apparatus comprises the government and the people’s council of numerous official religious establishments, such as Al-​Azhar, the Office of the State Mufti, the Supreme Islamic Council, the Body of Senior Scholars, the Islamic Research Academy, and the Fatwa Committee (Brown, 2017). All these religious bureaucracies 165

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provide the state with legitimacy and help reinstate the leader’s authority over the country and its people. In an article which explores the role of the media in shaping the impact of religion in politics, Vicky Randall identifies religion as a social institution which does not only entail religious personnel (priests, clergy, ulema), with their own agenda, resources, spaces; it has a meaning, as an institution, to the wider society. It officiates over and solemnizes key family events –​births, marriages, deaths. It may provide welfare, medical care, education. If we understand religion, or religions, as embodying notions of transcendence and sacredness, as providing meaning, consolation and moral guidance and as constituting a social institution that touches concretely on a great range of human needs and celebration, we have some sense of its potentially close relationship with politics. (1999: 47–​48) According to Randall, religion is a complex phenomenon that defies definition; it cannot be reduced to notions of transcendence and spirituality or merely used as a characteristic that defines a particular community. Religion is fused with people’s daily lives and is intimately related to their sense of identity. And since religion and politics are so often closely entwined in many countries, religion becomes a source of legitimacy for the governing elites who wield it as an instrument to interfere with every part of people’s lives.

Unfreedom of the press Arab media are deeply shaped by the nature of the encounter between religion and politics, and the widespread misconception that Islam is a religion which ‘encourages intellectual conformity and an uncritical acceptance of authority’ (Tessler, 2002: 340). The history of the press in Arab countries has been affected by state censorship since its early development in the 1850s in Egypt (Zdafee, 2019: 4). In Turkey, from the mid-​eighteenth century until the end of the First World War, the authorities dominated the press. During the colonial period, press restrictions in Arab countries were maintained (Kelidar, 1993: 5). Relationships of obedience, loyalty, and aborted struggles for freedom of expression characterized the media and the post-​independent political systems in most Arab countries. A long-​repressed critical urge against states was unleashed during the Gulf War in 1990–​1991 and again in the Arab Spring in 2011. During these upheavals, cartoons changed in scope and gained more prominence, but censorship was soon reinstated. Today, 11 years after the Arab uprisings, Arab journalists and cartoonists are still imprisoned or intimidated for doing their job. 166

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Governments use the law to issue fines, withdraw licences, and shut down newspapers. In an article published almost 20 years ago, whose ideas still apply today, journalism and mass communication professor Hussein Amin says, ‘most Arab governments, authoritarian and opposed to change, resist notions of freedom of the press and freedom of expression’ (2002: 125–​126). In another article, Amin explains that Arab media cannot promote change and influence public opinion in non-​democratic systems. [A]‌s nations around the world privatize media systems, restructure media industries, realign and merge their media enterprises, and revitalize freedom of expression to succeed in a shrinking world, Arab journalists remain handicapped by worn-​out political systems, unchanging economic models, inferior media structures and performance, and the absence of the freedoms needed to advance their media. (2002: 127) The history of contemporary cartoons in Arab countries is tied to the history of the Arab press. Arab cartoons trace their roots back to the nineteenth century, but the intermittence with which cartoons and humorous newspapers were published and the multiple forms of domination which prevailed in the Arab countries –​by the Ottoman Empire until the end of the First World War and by Western powers who took control of the Arab world after 1918 –​impeded Arab cartooning and prevented its development. In 1887, in Egypt, Yaqub Sannu published Altankit Wa Altabkit (Joking and Censure), a humorous newspaper criticizing the West; he also published the first cartoon in the Arab press. Other humorous journals soon appeared in different parts of the Arab world, although the Egyptian press remained the major source for printing cartoons in the Arab countries until 1925, when Michael Tays established the humorous magazine Kannas Al-​Shawari (The Road Sweeper) in Iraq. Other pioneering cartoonists include Khalid Kahhala who began publishing the satirical gazette Al Mudhik Al-​Mubki (The Weeping Joker) in Syria in 1929 and Bayram Al-​tunisi whose Al-​Shabab (Youth) emerged in Tunisia in 1932 (Gocek, 1998: 7). According to Larbi Sabane (Gharib, 2009: 24), who began his career as a cartoonist in 1966 in Morocco, cartooning dates back to the 1930s, in monthly magazines such as Majalat Almaghrib (Morocco’s Magazine), Majalat Alithnayn (Monday Magazine), and Almitraka (The Hammer). Other magazines entirely dedicated to cartooning were created in the 1960s, but they never lasted long enough to help cartoonists develop a style or a movement. These magazines were often suspended and their cartoonists threatened or arrested; this disrupted the development of caricature and halted the cartoonists’ potential to ignite change. The daily press in newly independent Morocco included cartoons in its columns, but lack of freedom 167

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of expression did not allow this emerging art form to flourish. Akhbar Souk (Market News) was the first satirical newspaper to be created in Morocco in 1978. It was founded by Hamid Bouhali. The newspaper was suspended because of a cartoon that displeased Driss Basri, the minister of the interior of the time. It was subsequently relaunched under a new title, Takchab (Joking), but it was soon banned because of its bold editorial line. In 1986, caricature was prohibited altogether in Morocco. Alalam (The Flag), the daily newspaper of the Istiqlal (independence) political party asked Larbi Sabane to replace his daring political satirical cartoons with lighter and less provocative ones in a column entitled ‘Fasahato Albayan’ (Eloquent Language). Larbi Sabane, Hamouda, Mohamed Filali, Ibrahim Lmhadi, and Mohamed Nadrani are cartoonists who were important voices of dissent in post-​independent Morocco, but the intermittence with which their cartoons and humorous newspapers were published disempowered them (Gharib, 2009: 24). Cartoons can be more powerful than articles and reports in newspapers in addressing social and political issues. They attract the attention of readers instantly because of the simplicity of the medium in expressing ideas. They also have a mass appeal due to their humorous nature and their lasting visual effect in memory. According to Joanne R. Gilbert, humour is ‘a cultural barometer, revelatory and liberating; it affords insights into power relations in … society’ (2004: xvii). However, state censorship has led to the prevalence of a censorial culture among Arab journalists and cartoonists. Like all others, cartoonists have been trained to defend Islamic traditions and values, having gone through educational systems that are not designed to empower students to speak up against authority; neither do educational institutions offer media studies programmes that meet international standards. Thus, most Arab cartoonists have not been encouraged to take full advantage of the subversive freedom of caricature, and they prefer to soften the tone of their images to avoid the risk of censorship. Their cartoons remain ‘safe’ and non-​threatening, unlikely to offend or make enemies since they mostly refrain from referring to religion and politics. Satire directed at individual Arab political or religious leaders is uncommon in Arab newspapers. Funny cartoons of kings, presidents, and ulema mostly ridicule the regime, the policies, and the methods; they rarely dare to target specific political or religious figures. According to James Scott, the political implications of satire are so strong that tyrannical and totalitarian regimes throughout history have censored, exiled and even executed satirists. Thus the Roman poet Juvenal, the French satirist Voltaire and the satiric playwrights of Czarist Russia have in common that they all went through a lot of trouble as a result of their satirical works. (2005: 9) 168

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Threats of defamation suits also hinder freedom of expression in general and cartooning in particular. In the Moroccan Penal Code, for example, defamation is considered a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment, and criticism of religion is prohibited by law. Morocco removed prison penalties from its Press Code in 2016. However, journalists continue to be prosecuted under the Penal Code. Acts perceived to offend Islam and the monarchy or ‘incitement against the Kingdom’s territorial integrity’ are punished with up to five years imprisonment, fines, and exclusion from public office or employment for up to ten years.2 Arab cartoonists are locked in a stagnant situation in which all they can do is pretend to struggle against a system of domination. The red line is clear: they must not offend God or the king. Yet, a few cartoonists have succeeded in resisting state control and subverting authority. They used different kinds of humour to mockingly represent reality and resist oppression.

Cartoonists under threat Khalid Gueddar is one of the few Arab cartoonists who are bold enough to mock religion in their cartoons. His humour is shocking and satirical. His cartoons have been published in El Mundo, Demain, Le Journal Hebdo, Bakchich, and several other Moroccan and international newspapers and magazines. In February 2010, he was condemned to a three-​year suspended prison sentence in Morocco for having portrayed a member of the royal family in the Moroccan newspaper Akhbar Alyawm (The Daily News) and in Bakchich. In 2012, he created Baboubi, a satirical website which was published as a weekly print magazine in Morocco four years later. In 2016, he was threatened with death after publishing a cartoon depicting God on his Facebook page. The same cartoon caused Jordanian writer Nahed Hattar, who was on trial for sharing this image deemed offensive to Islam, to be shot dead outside a court in Amman. Many of Gueddar’s cartoons feature a character inspired by former Moroccan prime minister and head of the moderate Islamic Justice and Development Party, Abdelilah Benkirane (2011–​2017). A funny character of a fat man wearing a short old jellaba (a woollen outfit) and a red tarbouche (a traditional hat) and bearing a striking resemblance to Benkirane is depicted in many of his cartoons. Gueddar uses this character, who is dressed like a prayer imam, to make fun of the right-​wing Islamic party (PJD) which won major seats in the parliamentary elections of 2011 and 2017 and to expose their leader to scorn and ridicule. He criticizes the conservative religious values preached by the party and its leader and the hypocritical pragmatism that made them win the elections twice. He also mocks the absolute loyalty of Benkirane and the PJD to the monarchy. Gueddar challenges the myths people sustain about the democratic electoral process in Morocco and how 169

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easy it supposedly is to criticize the leader of the party and the head of the government. In fact, these very cartoons are telling of the impossibility of drawing a caricature of the real religious and political leaders of the country. In a cartoon published in 2016 in Baboubi, Gueddar depicts a minaret in the middle of the drawing (Zayadin, 2016). On the left of the cartoon, a caption reads: Allaho Akbar (God is great). This suggests that the muezzin is calling the people to prayer. On the right of the minaret, a pair of jeans, a woman’s undergarments and a condom seem to be flying. The cartoon and its caption suggest that a man and a woman are having sex at the very moment that other people are preparing for prayer. Gueddar uses provocation to catch the viewer’s attention. The cartoon addresses civil liberties in Morocco. Although religion is at the centre of political, cultural, and urban life, a significant number of people are not religious and should be free to embrace a way of life that is not ruled by religious constraints. Gueddar’s message is that it is essential for people in Morocco to learn to be tolerant of diversity and open-​minded toward the lifestyles and beliefs of others. Osama Hajjaj is a Jordanian cartoonist who worked for various daily newspapers in Jordan and the Emirates. Currently, his cartoons are published in a newspaper called Al Arab Al Yawm (Arabs Today) and on several international websites. One of his cartoons (2017) depicts men in traditional Saudi abayas (long robes) hiding behind a huge Saudi flag.3 The flag is green and features in white an Arabic inscription and a sword. The inscription is the Islamic creed, or shahada: ‘There is no God but God; Muḥammad is the Messenger of God’. The cartoon is making a statement about similarities between Saudi rulers: they all use religion to curb dissent through laws that are supposedly inspired by the Islamic sharia (Islamic law). Hajjaj uses situational humour to cut the powerful rulers of the house of Saud down to size and strip away their opportunistic religiosity. Most of Saudi cartoonist Yazeed Alharthi’s cartoons are drawn in total conformity to the Saudi people’s customs and show absolute loyalty to the dominant ideology. Yet, a few of his drawings are surprisingly revolutionary and can be perceived as a critical response to religious authority; they do not merely provoke laughter but make an inherently transgressive and subversive gesture. In one cartoon, for example, a huge red high-​heeled shoe takes most of the space of the picture. A man dressed in the traditional Saudi abaya is shown in place of the heel.4 Alharthi uses subtle sarcastic humour to invite Saudi viewers to break away from a traditional system of beliefs and a culture that have locked women in a state of subordination for centuries. His cartoon suggests that women’s emancipation is the only way to create a balanced and empowered society. Nadia Khiari is a Tunisian cartoonist, a painter, a fine arts teacher, and the director of an art gallery in Tunis. Her cat, Willis from Tunis, came into existence on Thursday 13 January 2011, during the last speech of former 170

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Tunisian president, Zine El-​Abidine Ben Ali. This Facebook blog, created by Willis, the cat, was inspired by the Belgian cartoonist Philippe Geluck’s ‘Le Chat’.5 Khiari invented Willis to share her feelings about the historical situation in which Tunisians were living. In April 2012, she received the Award Honoré Daumier at the second international meeting of Cartooning for Peace in Caen.6 Khiari has created an endearing and popular hero with an incisive sense of humour and an interesting view of the world. Willis’s observations are unique and his reflections on complex issues in the daily life of Tunisians are funny and intelligent. Khiari’s visual style is inspired by European art but also infused with cultural and political issues pertaining to Tunisia and other Arab countries, and developed into something unique. Her cartoons avoid the clichés that readers are familiar with in Arab male cartoons, such as the globe symbolized as a man or the nation represented by a woman. They illustrate how female humour is used to create an interaction between artistic creativity and activist engagement. Khiari uses provocative imagery to protest against attempts to restrict women’s freedom on the basis of religion. One cartoon (2015),7 for example, depicts a bearded cat that is having a nightmare. In his dream, a group of female cats are attacking him using blades and shaving cream. They are threatening to shave his long beard off. In several of her cartoons, Khiari depicts bearded cats to criticize the rise of religious radicalism in Tunisia after the Arab Spring. Bearded cats refer to Salafists who tend to grow their beards long and thick to emulate the Prophet Muḥammad and his companions in every detail. Egyptian cartoonist Doae El Adl publishes her cartoons in Al-​Masry Al-​ Youm (Egypt Independent). She has become one of Egypt’s best-​known political cartoonists since the 2011 Egyptian uprising. El Adl supported the revolution by printing up some of her fiercest political cartoons and handing them out in Tahrir Square. She unmasks gender inequality in most of her cartoons by identifying the cultural attitudes contributing to the subordinate status of women, but she never challenges the normalization of the alliance between Al-​Azhar religious clerics and the repressive regime of President Sissi. Until 2013, El Adl published fascinating cartoons that acted as a magnifying lens for a critical examination of the political situation in Egypt. After Sissi became president, El Adl had to adapt to the new context and to the editorial line of the newspaper. In one of her cartoons (2012), an Egyptian man with angel wings talks to Adam and Eve. The three stand on a cloud beneath an apple tree. The man tells Adam and Eve that they were expelled from heaven because they did not vote for the draft constitution in the 2012 Egyptian referendum. The cartoon criticizes the politicization of religion. A lawsuit was subsequently filed against El Adl by Khaled El Masry, an Egyptian lawyer who argued that depicting a prophet figure is an insult to Islam (Ifex, 2013). 171

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Female circumcision, which is considered a religious practice in some Arab countries such as Somalia, Egypt, and Sudan, is the subject of another controversial cartoon by El Adl (2013).8 The drawing shows the long naked legs of a woman that seem like the hanging branches of a flowering tree and a red flower which hides the female genitalia. In contrast to the long legs, a ridiculously short man with a noticeable moustache, a symbol of manhood and honour in some Arab societies, is standing on a ladder and holding a pair of scissors. He is unsuccessfully trying to snip the flower. El Adl expresses her opinion about female sexuality in Arab countries in a unique and audacious way. She does not merely protest against female genital mutilation, but beyond this criticizes restrictive social and religious norms placed on the expression of female sexuality. A cartoon (2015)9 by Hani Abbas, a Syrian Palestinian cartoonist who took refuge in Switzerland after the Syrian revolution, invites Muslims to question their relation to religious dogma and rituals. The cartoon depicts a grey cube-​shaped building half covered with the flag of the European Union with a large mass of people circling around it. The drawing unmistakably evokes the Kaaba, one of the holiest Muslim sites. It alludes to the ritual gesture accomplished by the believers during the pilgrimage to Mecca, namely the circumambulation around the Kaaba. Using humour and irony, Hani Abbas compares the profession of faith by a mass of believers walking in circles around the Kaaba with the thousands of Arab and Muslim migrants seeking refuge in Europe for protection from conflict and violence. A simplistic interpretation of the image would explain the cartoon as merely an illustration of the connections between political and population movements in the Arab world and the European mass migration crisis after the uprisings in Arab countries. But Abbas, who is himself a refugee, tries to tackle an extremely complex phenomenon using the limited, but visually powerful, means of cartooning. Migrating to Europe is much more complicated than moving from one continent to another. Yemeni, Syrian, Palestinian, Sudanese, Iraqi, and Lebanese people are making very difficult choices by leaving their home countries and heading north toward Europe. They are embracing a new land, a new system of values and beliefs, a new identity, and they are worshipping a new God. The war, the massacres, the oppression have forced them to take a critical distance to the dogma of their religion and to consider in a rational way the object of worship and the ritual associated with it. By covering the cube-​shaped building with the flag of the European Union instead of the black brocade sewn with golden Qur’anic verses, Abbas radically changed its symbolic meaning and deprived it of its spiritual substance. Attention and prayer are no longer focused on God’s House and its sacredness but on something else. Europe has become the new pilgrimage, and the European dream a true idol. 172

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Conclusion Religion defines various parameters of social and political life in Arab countries but criticizing, undermining, challenging, or devaluing it is quite impossible. Mocking religious figures and institutions is considered both a sacrilege and a crime punishable by law. Some cartoonists use symbolism to transgress religious taboos. The power of symbolism offers them a way to work through some of the ambiguity that characterizes freedom of opinion. Decoding the cartoons reveals many layers of meanings that appeal to multiple audiences. Yet, what viewers find out may make them uneasy and force them to admit that a commitment to freedom of expression, even when their own religious beliefs are concerned, involves tolerating the expression of ideas which could be deemed offensive or disturbing. Other Arab cartoonists prefer to silence their urge to question religion or make fun of its symbols and figures. They do not exploit the subversive potential of cartooning. Their humour is characterized by a desire not to shock or confront. Their style is ‘old-​fashioned’ and the symbolic language they use is often explicit and stereotyped. Careful not to push too far, their cartoons shape a one-​dimensional representation of reality and do not go deep into the cultural symbols of society. Their cartoons offer a glimpse into the way multiple forms of repression transform people and crush their ability to think freely. They express the tension between a history of repressing dissent and the cartoonists’ attempts to elaborate a satirical language that would be capable of both translating this situation and breaking free from it. As Abdellah Hammoudi explains in his book, Master and Disciple: The Cultural Foundations of Moroccan Authoritarianism (1997: viii), at the heart of Arab culture lies a paradigm of authority that juxtaposes absolute authority against absolute submission. The coercive apparatus generates terror through repressive measures, of course, but perhaps more durably through undermining the corps propre, and in extreme cases slowly eradicating it. Subjects become impotent at producing interpretive concepts to account for the oppressive milieu created; that milieu thus defeats the formation of discourses that can compete with those promoted by (and promoting) the authoritarian state. Since the early years after the death of the Prophet Muḥammad, religion has been used in Arab Islamic countries to maintain people in a state of unquestioning submissiveness and to muzzle and discredit free expression. The most pernicious effect of this long history of repression and silencing may have been its encouragement of self-​censorship. Cartoonists’ ideas related to religious and cultural taboos are stifled before they reach expression or consciousness. 173

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However, censorship can be an impetus to creativity. Censorship silenced many cartoonists and prevented them from expressing unique perspectives about religion, but it also shaped works that somehow escaped suppression. As Michel Foucault explains in his essay on the work of philosopher Georges Bataille, ‘A Preface to Transgression’, there is an interdependence between transgression and taboo. ‘The limit and transgression depend on each other for whatever density of being they possess: a limit could not exist if it were absolutely uncrossable, and, reciprocally, transgression would be pointless if it merely crossed a limit composed of illusions and shadows’ (1977: 34). Still, it is not always easy to draw a definite line between the permissible and the forbidden. Censors are troubled by the impossibility of an exact definition of blasphemy. This means that the limits not to transgress are frustratingly enigmatic. But this also suggests that the meanings associated with religion and blasphemy can be re-​appropriated by cartoonists in their ongoing struggle for subversive creativity. Notes 1

2

This also includes self-​censorship among many artists who share the same beliefs as their public but prefer not to challenge them in their creative works. According to Article 267–​5 from the Penal Code, Is punished by imprisonment of six months to two years and a fine of 20,000 to 200,000 Dirhams or one of these two penalties anyone who violates the Islamic religion, the Monarchy or incites to attack the territorial integrity of the Kingdom. The penalty incurred ranges from two to five years of imprisonment and a fine of 50,000 to 500,000 Dirhams or to one of these penalties when the acts referred to in the paragraph above are committed either by speech, shouting or threats uttered in public places or meetings, or by posters displayed to the public either by sale, distribution or any means fulfilling the condition of publicity including by electronic means, on paper and by audio-​visual means. (Kingdom of Morocco, 2018)

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Osama Hajjaj, ‘Saudi Arabia corruption’, Cartoon Movement, 6 November 2017. https://​ cartoonmovement.com/​cartoon/​saudi-​arabia-​corruption Yazeed Alharthi (2006–​2021) Cartooning for Peace. www.cartooningforpeace.org/​en/​ dessinateurs/​yazeed/​ ‘Le Chat’ was a daily comic strip, created by Philippe Geluck, a Belgian comedian, humourist, and cartoonist and published in the Belgian newspaper Le Soir (The Evening) between 22 March 1983 and 23 March 2013. It became one of the bestselling Franco-​ Belgian comic series and the mascot of Le Soir. Cartooning for Peace is an association created in 2008 under France’s 1901 law (which allows the establishment of non-​profit organizations called associations culturelles). The project was launched after an international conference entitled ‘Unlearning Intolerance’ that took place at the United Nations headquarters in New York in 2006. It brought together Plantu, a former editorial cartoonist at the newspaper Le Monde, and Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations. Many events are organized by the association to promote human rights and freedom of expression. In 2012, the association 174

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7

8

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organized an international gathering which reunited thousands of people. The conferences were sketched by funny cartoons drawn live by the 23 cartoonists who had been invited to the event. Nadia Khiari, ‘Libres Paroles: Nadia Khiari alias Willis from Tunis’, in Alexandre Faure, Le Crayon, 10 December 2015. www.lecrayon.net/​Le-​blog/​Libres-​Paroles/​ Libres-​paroles-​Nadia-​Khiari-​alias-​Willis-​from-​Tunis Doae El Adl, Facebook, 24 February 2013. www.facebook.com/​doaeladl/​photos/​ 413421675413265 Hani Abbas, Facebook, 6 September 2015. www.facebook.com/​photo.php?fbid=​ 715246985246755&set=​pb.100002843806538.-​2207520000..&type=​3

References Abbas, H. (2015) Facebook, [online] 6 September. Available from: www.facebook.com/ ​ p hoto.php?fbid=​ 7 15246985246755&set=​ pb.100002843806538.-​2207520000..&type=​3 Alharthi, Y. (2006–​2021) Cartooning for Peace [online]. Available from: www.cartooningforpeace.org/​dessinateurs/​yazeed/​ Amin, H. (2002) ‘Freedom as a value in Arab media: perceptions and attitudes among journalists’, Political Communication 19(2): 125–​135. Beaumont, P. (2016) ‘Jordanian writer shot dead as he arrives at trial for insulting Islam’, The Guardian, [online] 25 September. Available from: www.theguardian.com/​ w orld/​ 2 016/​ s ep/​ 2 5/​ jordanian-​writer-​shot-​dead-​trial-​insulting-​islam-​nahed-​hattar Brown, N. J. (2017) ‘Islam in the Arab world: the contest for religious authority’, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace [online] 11 May. Available from: https://carnegieendowment.org/2017/05/11/officialislam-in-arab-world-contest-for-religious-authority-pub-69929 El Adl, D. (2013) Facebook, [online] 24 February. Available from: www. facebook.com/​doaeladl/​photos/​413421675413265 Foucault, M. (1977) ‘A preface to transgression’, in D. F. Bouchard (ed) Language, Counter-​Memory, Practice, Selected Essays and Interviews, trans D. F. Bouchard and S. Simon, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp 29–​52. Gall, C. (2006) ‘Protests over cartoons of Muhammad turn deadly’, The New York Times, [online] 6 February. Available from: www.nytimes. com/​2006/​02/​06/​international/​middleeast/​protests-​over-​cartoons-​of-​ muhammad-​turn-​deadly.html Gharib, A. (2009) Larbi Sabane, alcaricatirist wa fanan arasm asakhir, Casablanca: Publications of the World of Education. Gilbert, J. R. (2004) Performing Marginality: Humour, Gender, and Cultural Critique, Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. Gocek, F. M. (1998) ‘Political cartoons as a site of representation and resistance in the Middle East’, Political Cartoons in the Middle East, Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers. 175

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Hajjaj, O. (2017) ‘Saudi Arabia corruption’, Cartoon Movement, [online] 6 November. Available from: https://​cartoonmovement.com/​cartoon/​ saudi-​arabia-​corruption Hammoudi, A. (1997) Master and Disciple: The Cultural Foundations of Moroccan Authoritarianism, Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Ifex (2013) ‘Egyptian cartoonist sued over drawing deemed anti-​Islamic’, [online] 3 January. Available from: https://​ifex.org/​egyptian-​cartoonist-​ sued-​over-​drawing-​deemed-​anti-​islamic/​ Kelidar, A. (1993) ‘The political press in Egypt, 1882–​1914’, in C. Tripp (ed) Contemporary Egypt: Through Egyptian Eyes: Essays in Honor of P. J. Vatikiotis, London: Routledge, pp 1–21. Khiari, N. (2015) ‘Libres Paroles: Nadia Khiari alias Willis from Tunis’, in Alexandre Faure, Le Crayon, [online] 10 December. Available from: www.lecrayon.net/​Le-​blog/​Libres-​Paroles/​Libres-​paroles-​Nadia-​ Khiari-​alias-​Willis-​from-​Tunis Kingdom of Morocco (2018) Penal Code, 5 July, Ministry of Justice and Freedoms. Mernissi, F. (1992) Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World, trans Mary Jo Lakeland, New York, NY: Basic Books. Randall, V. (1999) ‘The media and religion in Third World politics’, in J. Haynes (ed) Religion, Globalization and Political Culture in the Third World, London: Macmillan Press, pp 45–​68. Scott, J. (2005) Satire: From Horace to Yesterday’s Comic Strips, Clayton, DE: Prestwick House, Inc. Sheline, A. (2019) ‘Royal Religious Authority: Morocco’s “Commander of the Faithful” ’, Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. Available from: https://www.bakerinstitute.org/media/files/files/02d67a3e/cmepub-luce-sheline-030719_hvUZDee.pdf Tessler, M. (2002) ‘Islam and democracy in the Middle East: the impact of religious orientations on attitudes toward democracy in four Arab countries’, Comparative Politics 34(3): 337–​354. Visier, C. (2015–​2016) ‘Charlie Hebdo: a brief history’, Newsletter, Istanbul: Istanbul Bilgi University, European Institute, pp 12–​19. Zayadin, H. (2016) ‘ “Les Lignes Rouges sont surtout des Illusions”: l’Utilisation de la Satire pour Briser les Tabous’, Ifex, [online] 28 June. Available from: https://i​ fex.org/​fr/​les-​lignes-​rouges-​sont-​surtout-​des-​illusions-​lutilisation-​ de-​la-​satire-​pour-​briser-​les-​tabous/​ Zdafee, K. (2019) Cartooning for a Modern Egypt, Arts and Archaeology of the Islamic World vol 13, Leiden: Brill.

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Hizbullah’s Humour: Political Satire, Comedy, and Revolutionary Theatre Joseph Alagha

Islam and humour According to Geert Jan van Gelder, ‘One of the main functions of humour [is] the gentle undermining of certainties’ (Rosenthal, 2011: xvi). Adding the dimensions of purpose and structure, Schweizer argues that humour ‘is not a stable, inert form of expression, but –​more often than not –​it flickers through multiple modes, even in one and the same joke, cartoon, or comedy performance’ (Schweizer, 2020: 35). He adds, ‘Islamic rules that deem mockery, sarcasm, and even teasing to be an indication of moral failings (the 49th Qur’anic surah [Al-​Hujurat], verse 11, as well as several Hadiths such as Abu Dawud, Book 43, 4972) have the force of moral idealism behind them’ (Schweizer, 2020: 36). In addition, verse (5:57) admonishes the believers not to engage in idle mockery, and verse (6:108) calls on them to abstain from insulting one another, and, by extension, God. Notwithstanding these Qur’anic verses and hadith, Islamic traditions confirm that Prophet Muḥammad had a good sense of humour (see Chapters 2 and 4 in this book). Al-​‘Abidi deconstructed canonical hadith texts in order to demonstrate that humour in Islam has the same high status as serious discourse; they are both on a par. She argues that in addition to appearing sombre and strict –​both in ritual observances (‘ibadat) and social transactions (mu‘amalat) –​Islam, as a religion, left ample room for humour, laughter, smiling, joy, fun, happiness, and joking. Al-​‘Abidi stresses that humour was not against the sacred; rather, humour’s profane dimension functions within religion’s narrow confines and is concomitant and harmonious with it, by highlighting the tolerance and openness (infitah) of religion (Al-​‘Abidi, 2010). 177

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Background: Resistance Art and humour The Lebanese resistance movement Hizbullah –​which is ideologically influenced by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s wilayat al-​faqih (Guardianship of the Jurisprudent/​Jurisconsult)1 –​is infamous for its ‘terrorist’ global reach and militant face. In the 1980s and early 1990s, Hizbullah abducted Westerners in Lebanon and fought the Israeli army, until Israel withdrew its forces from Lebanon in 2000, after 22 years of occupation. Hizbullah reaped political capital and boosted its pan-​Arab and pan-​Islamic credentials as being the only guerrilla movement that forced Israel to withdraw and return land, while national Arab armies succumbed to Israel’s military might. In 1992, Hizbullah became a parliamentary party after winning seats in the legislature, and in 2005, it joined the Council of Ministers. Since then has been represented in the Lebanese Cabinet with an average of two ministers. In the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, Hizbullah became a regional actor fighting alongside the Syrian regime and lending logistical support to the Iraqi and Yemeni Shi‘ite armed militias. As a result, Hizbullah lost of most of its accumulated pan-​Arab and pan-​Islamic support since, after becoming a Party, it was viewed as a sectarian movement aiding Shi‘ites, irrespective of whether they were oppressors or oppressed, as opposed to Hizbullah’s stipulated ideology of standing by the oppressed, come what may (Alagha, 2011b: 15–​16, 29–​30). In terms of global reach, many countries –​including the US, Israel, and the six Arab countries that form the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) –​classify Hizbullah as a ‘terrorist organization’. Up until 2019, the UK differentiated between Hizbullah’s ‘political wing’ and its ‘military wing’, dubbing only the latter a terrorist organization. On 26 July 2013, the EU followed the UK’s classification. However, in March 2019, the UK revised its policy and categorized Hizbullah, in its entirety, as a terrorist organization. On 29 April 2020, Germany followed suit and classified Hizbullah a ‘terrorist organization’ and censured any Hizbullah-​related activity on its territories.2 Given this persistent view of Hizbullah as a radical Islamist organization and hotbed of religious fundamentalism, it would seem counter-​intuitive that this movement would have room for performing arts, let alone humour, within its cultural politics of Resistance Art.

From violence to art: humour as an integral part of Hizbullah’s Resistance Art In conformity with its pragmatic policy to adapt to circumstances as they change, it is important to keep in mind that Hizbullah is not a monolithic entity. The Party’s internal structure allows it to operate on a number of 178

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levels. Hizbullah is a sophisticated, complex, multifaceted, and multi-​layered organization, composed of at least four main divisions: (1) the ‘military wing’: the jihadi and ‘terrorist’ branch; (2) the social services, NGOs, and civil institutions branch; (3) the ‘political wing’ branch; and (4) the cultural politics branch termed Resistance Art (Alagha, 2011a: 185; Alagha, 2013: 226–​227). I highlight the latter –​Resistance Art –​since it is neglected by many researchers who stress the militancy and military aspects at the expense of the other branches. Nevertheless, Hizbullah tries to convey that its four divisions are complementary and function in ‘perfect harmony’ and in line with the Party’s holistic vision of founding a better and just society (Alagha, 2011a: 185; Alagha, 2013: 226–​227). Although there are a few studies focusing on political satire and Hizbullah’s reaction to mockery of its leadership (Haugbolle, 2007; Binay, 2009; Sørensen, 2016; Fischione, 2020), hardly any, or perhaps none, have focused on the role of humour within the genre of Hizbullah’s Resistance Art. This chapter will also follow scholarly and public debates on the legitimacy and permissiveness of using various humour genres (including comedy, political satire, revolutionary theatre, and cartoons) and different kinds of joking (permitted, neutral, forbidden). According to Hizbullah’s understanding of Resistance Art, humour ought to be didactic, that is, have a clear purpose and function. The mechanism of choice in determining the allowed (halal) from the prohibited (haram) expressions of humour is intuitive, simple, and structured, where the advantages (masālih) of humour should outweigh its disadvantages (mafāsid). In other words, the measure of legitimacy to sanction (allow) humour is the salient condition of precluding ‘indecency’ or debauchery (7:33) that characterize low-​brow art. In certain cases, if the distinction between (halal) and (haram) is blurred or unclear, then the recourse, or the ultimate course of appeal, is to follow the edicts of the religious authority (marja‘ al-​taqlid) prescribed by the Shi‘a. Humour as Resistance Art ought to be understood in the larger framing that sheds light on how Hizbullah has worked to transform all art as part of ‘the art of resistance’ that simultaneously resists, not merely tyranny and oppression, but ‘purposeless art’ or ‘art for the sake of art’. This view is articulated within a larger need to sponsor ‘purposeful art’ that allows Muslims to remain close to God and politically mobilized, both during their leisure time and while at work. In contesting the social and political control of a hegemonic power, comedy, as a purposeful form of Resistance Art (al-​fann al-​muqawim al-​multazim al-​hadif), is an embodiment and reflection of the pressing issues in society, a cultural resistance against invasion, occupation, aggression, deprivation, disenfranchisement, and so on. The envisioned long-​term objective would be to establish social justice and a more equitable society, where people conduct their affairs in balance and moderation, or exercise ‘action of excellence under God’s guidance and 179

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governance’ (3:26; 6:57), while fulfilling the prima facie duty of delivering ‘justice and equity’ (57:25). The rapid evolution of Hizbullah from a marginal splinter group to a dominant segment in Lebanese and international politics enhanced its orientation toward cultural and artistic productions by giving them more weight and visibility in the public space. In line with Imam Khamina’i, Hizbullah believes that art is the most eloquent and effective means of Islamic propagation (Khamina’i, 2009: 6, 9, 27, 50, 83), and here lies its functional role. This forms the crux of the group’s justification of Resistance Art. Hizbullah relates public interest (maslaha) to reform, resistance, mobilization, and political struggle. For that reason, the Party considers purposeful art, or ideologically motivated art, as Resistance Art (‘Abbas, 2009: 6–​7). In its ideology, Hizbullah regards popular culture as a site of struggle between: (1) the ‘resistance’ of subordinate groups in society, the subaltern groups, or the ‘oppressed’, and (2) the forces of ‘incorporation’ operating in the interest of dominant groups in society, or the ‘oppressors’ (Storey, 2001: 5–​14; Alagha, 2011a: 155–​157; Storey, 2014: 11–​13). As an Islamic protest movement, Hizbullah considers Resistance Art as a counter-​hegemonic art that aims at rectifying individuals and reforming society by portraying art as pious moral productions that provoke serious thought and discussion, rather than as art for the mere sake of art. Rik Pinxten postulates that art contributes to the dissemination of democracy and promotes democratic thinking. He argues that artists ought to buttress a democratic society, which recognizes the diversity of its population, so that they can freely and skilfully express their own cultural identity, and thus contribute to enhancing the overall cultural sphere (Pinxten, 2003). From this perspective, Hizbullah considers cultural politics as a tool with which to promote another face, different from its stereotyped militant face. The Party has established three institutional centres that deal with cultural productions and artistic performances, headed by three leading Shaykhs: Shaykh Akram Barakat, the head of the Cultural Islamic Al-​Ma‘ārif Association; Shaykh ‘Ali Daher, the head of Hizbullah’s Cultural Unit; and Shaykh Shafiq Jaradi, the Rector of Al-​ Ma‘ārif Al-​Hikmiyya College. In order to understand and analyze the ever-​growing body of cultural productions generated by Hizbullah, the three Shaykhs and their aides, whom I interviewed between 2009 and 2020, shed important light on its cultural politics. They also gave me selective access to Hizbullah’s constituency and other Party officials. In addition to interviews, my methodological approach also includes ethnographic and field research, discourse analysis, and observations of artistic productions such as theatre performances in festivals, comedy shows, and publication of cartoons. The latter are discussed as part of the chapter’s focus on Hizbullah’s humour as a genre of Resistance Art. 180

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Theoretical perspectives Shaykh Akram Barakat –​the director of the Cultural Islamic Al-​Ma‘ārif Association –​answered the pressing question on the permissibility (halal) of joking and laughing. Barakat explained that the face of a believer is something holy in Shi‘a Islam since it reflects the kindness in his heart (bushruhu fi wajhihi, wa husnuhu fi qalbihi). Thus, the believer in his innate, inborn nature, likes to joke, as Shi‘ite jurisprudence holds that: ‘The humorous, joking nature of a believer is considered as a prayer when it is intended to relieve and inculcate joy in the heart of another person.’ According to Shi‘ite traditions, the Prophet Muḥammad liked jokes and humour, and he used to joke even when he got old; so did Imam ‘Ali. Nevertheless, this joking –​that God willed to be a kind of joy to the human being –​should not be a negative personal trait that leads to excessive joking, because moderation should be the norm: ‘Islam is the religion of the golden mean’ (al-​Islam din al-​wasat) (2:143) between excess (ifrāt) and deficiency (tafrit). Thus, ifrāt is something disliked in Shi‘ite jurisprudence, especially if it leads to indecency, debauchery, or (physical) harm; in that case, it becomes prohibited (Barakat, 2020: np). Barakat stresses that the joking person should bear in mind two prohibitions. First, the initiator of joking should not lie to the other person, with the purpose of intentionally tricking the listener in order to cause harm. Careless or dangerous pranks would fall under this category. Second, the initiator of joking should honour the harm principle (la darar wa la dirār) because this kind of joking could inflict bodily injury on others (Barakat, 2020: np). Nevertheless, these principles might have drawbacks as they seem to clash with the most fundamental aspect of humour, that is, its often indeterminate, slippery, and ambiguous nature. Certainly, unfettered humour cannot thrive if it needs to meet those two bars. By the time it is determined whether or not the two requirements are met, a humorous statement or situation may be dead and gone. Although it seems that this clashes with the ‘spirit of humour’, in actual practice the person making a humorous remark will intuitively know whether the joke falls within the bounds of the permissible, that is, this process does not require cognitive deliberation, but is rather automatic. In line with Imam Khamina’i (2004: 16–​51), Barakat argues that Islam calls for progress in all spheres of public life: Resistance Art elevates human worth and values. As such, the basis of Shi‘ite jurisprudence is the call for innovation and modernity in order to remain up to date with all aspects of life (Interview, 5 August 2013). How does this translate itself into humour per se? Hizbullah considers political satire as a sub-​genre of humour and that is why it subsumes it under art. From this perspective, the Party considers the joke as part of the building block of political satire, and, as such, there is a fine line between tolerated and non-​tolerated humour. Hizbullah has 181

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moved from a closed interpretation toward an open understanding of art, but one that still promotes purposeful, didactic Resistance Art, which includes humour as a main ingredient, and the sub-​genres of music, theatre, dance, comedy, and satire. Yet, they all have very specific normative contours and discourses on what permissible art is: that it should have a purpose (telos), which is to advance the goals of the movement, that is, mobilization art, purposeful art, or Resistance Art. In other words, the group’s religious leaders are the arbiters charged with casting judgement on whether humour, or a piece of art, is purposeful and functional. While their reasoning allows for contextual interpretation, the mechanism of sanctioning an artistic production is based on the jurisprudential concept of maslaha. According to Hajj Muhammad Ra‘d –​the current head of Hizbullah’s parliamentary bloc and Shura (Consultative) Council member –​maslaha is a secondary source of Islamic law that refers to one of the maxims of Islamic jurisprudence (qawa‘id al-​fiqh), which states that the avoidance of vice is always preferable to any benefit that might accrue from the act, or ‘the warding off of vices is preferable to obtaining interests’ (dar’ al-​mafāsid muqaddam ‘ala jalb al-​masālih). In other words, the sanctioning mechanism is like a jurisprudential–​balancing act: ‘everything that has negative effects and whose disadvantages (mafāsid) outweigh its advantages (masālih) is considered prohibited’, otherwise it is allowed. In short, Hizbullah considers an artistic practice, such as humour, allowed if and only if  3 it is: (1) purposeful; and (2) the advantage (maslaha) behind it outweighs the disadvantage (mafsada) (Interview, 9 August 2013). This calls for further explanation. Notions of maslaha (public interest, human interest, common good) and ‘the good pious Muslim’ are translated into ideas about authentic Islamic cultural heritage, pious art, and entertainment (fun) within the normative, foundational domains of local customs, sound reason, sense of justice, social and community cohesion, and peace and order (Masud, 2000–​2001: 24–​28; Masud, 2005: 107–​108). In line with Shi‘a traditions, Hizbullah, enjoins the pursuit of ‘purposeful fun’ and humour within the domain of certain religious safeguards (al-​ dawabit al-s​ har‘iyya) and jurisprudential stipulations (al-​mahadhir al-​shar‘iyya), to the point of arguing that Islam sanctions fun and enjoins disseminating happiness in the hearts of the believers, providing for those who do so a great remuneration in Heaven, as Moses, the Prophet, the fifth Imam Muhammad al-​Baqir, and the sixth Imam Ja‘far al-​Sadiq had warned (Cultural Islamic Al-​Mā‘arif Association, 2007: 6–​7).4 Muhammad Kawtharani –​the deputy director of Hizbullah’s Cultural Unit –​considers Resistance Art as the art of Islamic revival or renaissance that revitalizes the umma (the worldwide community of Muslim believers) and awakens it from hibernation. Thus, Resistance Art appears as an art form that moves emotions and feelings and deploys them as part of a struggle against invasion, occupation, and oppression (Interview, 13 August 2018). Employing a 182

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functionalist approach, Shaykh Jaradi encourages the profane expressions of fun, joking, humour, and political satire as forms of Resistance Art but within the sacred framework of pious and religious sensibilities (Interview, 10 July 2020). Hizbullah adopted the Kantian notion of ‘Art is Humanity’ and resorted to the ‘collective language’ of art and music in order to convey its cultural face through didactic Resistance Art. Most likely, Hizbullah is the only Islamic movement that has an orchestra of over 100 musicians who play more than 44 instruments, mocking –​in a humorous–​sarcastic manner –​other Islamic movements’ ‘distorted’ reading and ‘selective interpretation’ of the primary sources of the Qur’an and hadith, which consider these as ‘instruments of the Devil’ (Alagha, 2012).5 Nevertheless, as we will see below, Hizbullah is more restrictive in its humour policy than in its overall, relatively open policy toward the performing arts. The next section sheds light on this issue by analyzing the ‘humorous’ setting of two joyful musical plays of revolutionary theatre.

Hizbullah-​sanctioned humour Two case studies of situation comedy that illustrate this trend are the joyful and festive musical plays When Do We See You? (2008) and the artistic performance Dawn (2009) of revolutionary theatre –​both intended to commemorate the birth of Imam al-​Mahdi, the Twelfth Imam. When Do We See You? featured men, women, and children performing all together on stage without observing the gendered religious distance prescribed by Muslim clerics, as the context and purpose overrode all other considerations. The context was the celebration of the birth of Imam al-​ Mahdi and the purpose was to strengthen the esoteric-​eschatological bond with him until he appears again at the Day of Judgement. The late Ayatullah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah (1935–​2010) –​the highest-​ranking Shi‘ite religious authority (marja’) in Lebanon and alleged Hizbullah’s ‘spiritual leader’ in the 1980s –​legitimated these mixed-​gender artistic expressions: ‘I do not consider the profession of dancing and singing, which preserves moral obligations, to be prohibited.’6 Even though the play featured a scene portraying Hizbullah fighters chanting, dancing, and performing with weapons on stage, this scene was a brief symbolic interlude of ‘Resistance Art’, aimed at portraying the centrality of the Party’s struggle against occupation. In a joyful and festive atmosphere, Hizbullah’s music bands played revolutionary orchestral music (see above), which was accompanied by sound and light special effects that contributed to an atmosphere of awe in a colourful show dedicated to Imam al-​Mahdi. This ambience, and in particular the lively colours of the theatrical sets, created a breath-​taking atmosphere that demarcated day from night through a symbolic contrast of light (good/​moral) versus darkness (evil/​immoral). 183

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The overall message of the performance was the commonly accepted wisdom that purposeful righteous work, sacrifice, and noble intentions will herald the reappearance of Imam al-​Mahdi as a prophetic figure who will deliver the world from evil and injustice, as per popular Islamic culture and the Shi‘ite tradition.7 A distinguishing mildly humorous feature of the play was the presence of the children, who were performing in an organized, expressive manner, in spite of all the bright lights, infra-​red and laser-​beam colours, loud sounds, intensive movement, loud revolutionary music, and special effects –​including the shaking of the theatre stage like an earthquake, thus creating an effect of incongruity. All of these might seem scary and distracting to children of a young age, yet, due to their commitment (iltizam),8 both the children and the youth were determined to act and perform in an ambience of reverence and anticipation. In a similar vein, the musical play Dawn had the same aim but it was more creative and daring. Fire blowers acted on stage and acrobats walked on four-​metre poles. Even though this was a rather austere, solemn religious display commemorating the birth of Imam al-​Mahdi, there was a humorous aspect in these scenes something akin to a circus performance. According to Kawtharani, what was significant was the purposefulness of the scenes: the dialogue between the fire blowers and the masses that centred upon the binary concepts of Heaven and Hell; light and darkness; good and bad, and so on. At the same time, the dialogue between the actors and the towering acrobats, coupled with a humorous puppet show, promoted the values of humility and respect by asking the simple question of ‘why are you so high/​ tall?’, aimed to warn the audience to be humble and to make themselves useful to the service of humanity. There was a clear pedagogic theme aiming to teach that the small (short) should respect the big (tall) –​that is, those who have more power and status versus those who do not –​and that, at the same time, the big should protect the small. This theme seems to reflect the belief of what Imam al-​Mahdi is supposed to be doing in his abode, pending his second coming, as believed and heralded by the Shi‘ite eschatological vision (Interview, 7 August 2009). So, where is the humour? Is it the creative, and, perhaps, the glitzy performance of acrobats and fire blowers? If so, they add spectacle to the performance, with some sense of playfulness, but can this show be categorized as an example of humour? What is presented here is the mildest form of comedy (in terms of potential for irreverence), that is, a situation comedy acted out in acrobatic and performative ways (singing, dancing, and a humorous puppet show). It is worth noting that there was no verbal humour, no anti-​clerical or otherwise subversive element in this performance and ‘light-​hearted’ acting. How could these performances comport with Shi‘ite traditions and doctrines? In line with Khamini’i’s edicts (fatwas) that consider the above artistic shows as halal (Khamina’i, 2009: 102), Ayatullah Fadlallah sanctioned 184

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playing the role of the Prophet and imams in theatre or in movies, especially if these roles are to the maslaha (benefit) of Islam and help to disseminate its universal message: there is no absolute rejection of this subject, for there is no evidence –​ neither in the primary sources of the Qur‘an and hadith –​that prohibits the representation of prophets or Imams by an actor in a play or in a movie. Yet, here emerges a secondary level of consideration related to the role the actor is playing. The actor has to make sure that his/​her role is neither going to weaken the personalities and the greatness of the holy religious people, nor undermine their status. Indeed, if there is any slight disdain to their holiness, then the artistic work becomes prohibited. In short, the action in itself is not prohibited. Rather, the prohibition depends on whether the image of the Prophet or Imam is distorted or misrepresented or not.9 In commenting on the above plays, Shaykh Khudr al-​Dirani, al-​Manar’s ombudsman or the ‘director of religious censorship’, argued that theatre should not only be based on the word but also on scenes and artistic expressions that ought to speak for themselves: ‘It was the purposefulness of the scenes (maslaha) that mattered’ (Interview, 9 August 2013). Thus, the scene ought to be a stark indicator of the content. He stressed the punctuality and meticulousness of Hizbullah’s theatrical productions. According to al-​ Dirani, this is the way in which Hizbullah’s plays ought to be disseminated and construed: ‘This is our manner of knowledge production, dissemination, and consumption’ (Interview, 9 August 2013). In turn, Shaykh Barakat regards plays of revolutionary theatre and satirical–​humorous puppet shows as artistic expressions, and as such as a humanistic endeavour, not a religious one. He adds that Hizbullah’s cultural productions reflect the environment in which the Party operates. Hizbullah has no problem with diversity; on the contrary, Islam believes that diversity enriches culture. According to Barakat, Hizbullah’s cultural productions are oriented toward the realization of these goals (Interview, 16 October 2009). Such practices are honed on an annual basis, as for instance, in August 2008 Hizbullah’s Imam Al-​Mahdi Scouts Association inaugurated ‘The Arts’ Unique Workshop’ dedicated to artistic and creative performances. The aim was to reduce psychological stress on gifted children and youth by helping them express their talents and skills through all kinds of plastic and performing arts. Plastic arts included drawing, painting, graffiti, making artefacts (statues and puppets from wax, wood, and clay), and so on. Performing arts encouraged them to engage in theatrical works and humorous puppet shows as well as studying music and playing musical instruments, under the supervision of professional teachers and musicians.10 185

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Shaykh Shafiq Jaradi, the Rector of Al-​Ma‘ārif Al-​Hikmiyya College, considers humour –​when it informs Resistance Art –​as having a positive role of disciplining the self, insofar as it stresses creativity in the work of humans. For instance, revolutionary theatre and ‘Black Comedies’ are permitted because they glorify the martyrs, the suffering of the handicapped and wounded, and the pain of those who lost loved ones. The purpose is to convey the message of human suffering and sacrifice in a ‘happy’ way or joyful manner (Interview, 10 July 2020). This is in line with the religious and human values that promote activism and mobilization –​whose main purpose is to safeguard individual and societal rights, as Imams Khumayni and Khamina’i repeatedly stated (Khumayni, 2002; Khamina’i, 2009: 106–​107). Yet, from my fieldwork observations, it seems that Hizbullahis are not seeking humour, but joy because they despise ‘low-​brow’ humour but embrace joy. Joy and humour are not the same, although they can overlap; in the same way that laughter from joy is not the same as humorous laughter. If these plays are designed to bring joy, then people laughing from joy are not laughing because they find something funny. And if the plays are merely performative in a playful and acrobatic way, then to call this humour is a bit of a stretch –​at most it is implied, situational humour not verbal, witty, intellectual, satirical humour. It appears that the Hizbullahis are all in favour of joyous (though not necessarily humorous) laughter, and for implicitly funny entertainment based on acrobatics and puppetry, but that they are reluctant to go any further than this, let alone condone any form of subversive or irreverent verbal humour. The next section on the limits of permitted humour follows logically from this exposition.

Political satire and cartoon controversy: limitations and borders of humour as ‘Resistance Art’ If we explore comedy and sociopolitical satire, we can look into the limits of the concept of maslaha’s flexibility when it comes to the alleged insulting of religious doctrines and sensibilities. This section argues that not every artistic expression can be legitimized in the Islamic cultural sphere, especially if Hizbullah deems it as insulting, or simply inappropriate to the religious sensibilities of its pious audience who are the consumers of this kind of entertainment. The following two examples illustrate this trend: the comedy show of Basmat Watan and the political satire of the al-​Sistani cartoon (‘caricature’ in Arabic).

The comedy show Basmat Watan Basmat Watan, produced, broadcast, and aired on LBCI11 TV channel, is a weekly political satire show that delivers skits and a Jon Stewart type of 186

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satirical news. Its title is an oxymoron, meaning either ‘The Death of a Nation’ or ‘The Laughs of a Nation’. The episode aired on 1 June 2006 almost led Lebanon into sectarian infighting, when one of the programme’s comedians derided Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbullah’s Secretary General. In a Christian-majority suburb of Beirut where LBCI is based, a comedian –​dressed in a Shi‘ite turban and attire –​mocked Nasrallah in his capacity as a political leader, but not as a religious leader, thus trying to avoid offending the religious sensibilities of Hizbullah’s constituency (see Chapter 6 in this volume for another manifestation of this). Nevertheless, the mere wearing by the Christian comedian of the Shi‘ite turban and attire that represents a Sayyid –​ a direct descendant of Prophet Muḥammad (Nasrallah) –​ was viewed as offensive. This might explain why Hizbullahis took to the streets chanting Imam Husayn’s call in Karbala’: ‘Death to humiliation (hayhat minna al-​dhilla)’, intending to go all the way to the LBCI headquarters to ‘burn’ the TV channel. On their way, they created mayhem in Sunni and predominantly Christian areas, almost clashing with the locals, adherents to a diametrically opposed ideology (Islamism versus right-​wing Christian Resistance), especially the youth residing in these areas. After Hizbullah members of parliament and middle-​ranking cadres failed to contain their crowds, in an unprecedented call, Nasrallah himself, by way of Hizbullah’s audio-​visual media, called on the demonstrators to return to their homes. Although they immediately obeyed, the riots tainted Hizbullah’s intended image as an advocate of free speech and expression, and an upholder of public freedoms. In contrast, the last summer season episode of Basmat Watan, aired in July 2013, did not trigger any negative reaction from Hizbullah’s heads or its constituency, since alongside Sayyid Nasrallah, the Sunni Mufti of the Lebanese Republic and the Maronite Cardinal were also depicted and ridiculed. This might also be the case because the message behind the show was that of national unity and religious tolerance and coexistence since, by using light humour and verbal parodies, the show made fun of all three religious figures (Shi‘ite, Sunni, and Maronite Christian), at a time when sectarian discord was rupturing the achievements of the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. However, the episode of 8 November 2013 was not well received by Hizbullah’s constituency because a comedian mocked Sayyid Nasrallah –​ both in his religious and political capacity. This time, the Hizbullahis vented their anger by blocking the airport road with burning tyres. Although the Lebanese security forces opened the road after successfully negotiating an end to the protest, their violent reaction compromised Hizbullah’s intended image as advocates of freedom of expression. In a talk show discussing his views on joking and comedy, Charbel Khalil,12 the producer of Basmat Watan, disclosed his views on joking as the most 187

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disseminated form of popular protest and expression. He argued that the joke, or the concept of joking, is a critical–​satirical outlet characterized as the weapon of the weak, the silent majority in ‘cultural humanism’, which considers jokes as ‘a humanist perspective intended to cause commotion and draw attention’. In other words, jokes should not target people on a personal basis and encroach upon their dignity and humanity. Rather, the joke empowers the silent majority and gives it a podium, a pedestal, from which to vent its anger and frustration, not only via social media, but also through traditional media, such as TV, and theatrical performance. Khalil clarified that he aims to say things as they are without any euphemism or embellishment, no matter how bleak the message is. He stated that he decided to delve into the world of joking to make subaltern voices heard (cf. Gramsci), to give ‘the voice of those who have no voice’ (Younis, 2020: np). According to Khalil, the power of the joke lies in its ability to belittle and demean the enemy –​oppressive rulers, violent dictatorships, the government and those in power, and state repression –​thus stripping them of their power, especially in places where state repression has forced critical art forms to go underground. And so, a person armed with jokes can face almost anything, including occupation, violent crackdown, and surveillance. Thus, Khalil believes that the joke is created and disseminated as a strong message of political and social protest in communities that are experiencing oppression, injustice, and suffering (Younis, 2020: np). In another talk show, Khalil labelled his comic works as ‘Artistic Resistance’ (muqawama faniyya) (Husseini, 2020: np). Although these views seem to bear a striking resemblance to Hizbullah’s conception of ‘Resistance Art’, Khalil ‘resists’ by using different modes of confrontation. Whereas Hizbullah refuses to use any form of ‘low-​ brow’ art, including aggressive comedy, to target its critics or opponents, Khalil does not hesitate for a single moment to do so since he believes that justice is retributional, thus, the response should match the offence. In other words, just as Hizbullah does not want others to encroach on its religious sensibilities, the Party refrains from reciprocating, even if its figureheads are targeted on a personal level, because its religious safeguards and jurisprudential stipulations bar it from doing so; thus, Hizbullah’s ‘prohibitions’ operate like a double-​edged sword, warding off offences aimed against the moral fibre of its constituency while opening the door to some humorous transgressions. Yet, Khalil conceded that he was heavily criticized and accused of offending religious sensibilities, although he said that he typically exercises the due diligence of ‘constructive, cultural self-​criticism’. Many lawsuits were filed against him, but none bore fruit or smeared his reputation nor diminished his enormous productivity of more than 24,000 sketches of comic work and writing in the past 27 years. As Khalil claims, the reason for this is that 188

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when he writes sketches and jokes, he gives due diligence and consideration to the highest and noblest concepts of human virtues (Younis, 2020: np). Thus, his work falls within the domain of ‘purposeful art’, and not ‘art for the sake of art’. This seems to be another commonality between Khalil and Hizbullah, although each one defines and construes ‘purposeful art’ differently. Nevertheless, for both, humour is a socially constructed phenomenon.

Political satire: the ‘caricature’ of al-​Sistani Shi‘a Muslims have also demonstrated against cartoons created by Sunnis, not just against Western cartoons. It is certainly noteworthy that there are demonstrations in many parts of the Arab and Muslim world against any sort of cartoon, but this requires attention and critical discussion.13 Simply stated, in keeping with the aniconic prohibition against depictions of the Prophet Muḥammad, Shi‘ite religious authorities (marja‘s or marāj‘) or Grand Ayatullahs also cannot be cartooned in any way. In the framework or domain of piety and religious discourses, Muslim religious authorities can be criticized in writing, in discourse, but they cannot be depicted in cartoon form, as this is viewed as demeaning to their religious status as well as insulting to the religious sensibilities of their followers. In analyzing this phenomenon, Schweizer comments: ‘Restrictive Islamic humour sensibilities as well as explicit scriptural regulations of laughter are so pronounced –​ especially in the most fundamentalist Islamic societies –​that cracking jokes at high-​order targets of religion is not only unpopular, it might constitute a capital offense’ (Schweizer, 2020: 36). Violent demonstrations erupted in Iraq after the Saudi Asharq Al-​Awsat daily newspaper14 caricatured the 89-​year-​old Iraqi religious authority (marja‘) Grand Ayatullah al-​Sistani standing between two railway wagons: the first one is named ‘Iraq’ and the second one is dubbed ‘sovereignty’; he is shown cutting the chain that is connecting them. Initially, the cartoon was published in Asharq Al-​Awsat in the early morning of 3 July 2020.15 Later on, in the afternoon of 3 July 2020, the figure was pixelated.16 The next day, on 4 July, it was totally removed and deleted from the electronic version of the newspaper, as the print version was already sold out and nothing could be done in order to retrieve all the copies. Many Shi‘ites interpreted this as a direct criticism and accusation of al-​Sistani for compromising Iraqi sovereignty by issuing the mandatory religious duty edict (fard ‘ayn fatwa) on every capable Iraqi to carry arms against the Islamic State (ISIS) in the summer of 2014 –​after ISIS took hold of two-​thirds of Iraq and threatened its capital Baghdad.17 This call led to the creation of the mostly Shi‘ite paramilitary Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (al-​Hashd al-​Sha‘bi), counting one million members, and the eventual defeat of ISIS in 2018. 189

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Although Hizbullah does not follow (yuqallid) al-​Sistani as its religious leader, the Party issued a political declaration against Asharq Al-​Awsat: We strongly censure insulting this grand religious authority and its enormous stance in the conscience of Muslims and their beliefs. Sistani played the role of the safety valve for Iraq and is a major factor in upholding the country’s national unity and political stability via his famous fatwa, which enjoined fighting ISIS and eventually led to liberating Iraq from its spell and upholding Iraq’s territorial integrity. While Hizbullah regrets the demeaning stance of the newspaper and its ‘disgraceful’ level of insulting one of the most important religious authorities in the Arab and Muslim world, the Party affirms that no one can undermine his leading historic and sincere, honest role. ... The insult renders a free service to the foes of the umma, namely, the US and Israel, and all those who are seeking to invest in creating dissention, discord (fitna) and chaos as well as social, political and religious unrest. Hizbullah calls on the dear Iraqi people to exercise due vigilance and maintain social and community cohesion in order to achieve complete and true independence [which is an indirect reference to the presence of US soldiers on Iraqi soil].18 In turn, the Council of the Beirut ‘Ulama’ –​which includes Sunnis and Shi‘as –​strongly condemned Asharq Al-​Awsat, arguing that freedom does not give licence to demean, slander, and vilify religious authorities by insulting and humiliating their ‘dignified status’. The ‘Ulama’ also warned against the potential for sedition, discord, and animosity of such discourse, stressing that the caricature is an insult, not only to Iraqis who regard al-​ Sistani as a symbol of national unity, but also to Muslims worldwide who consider him as a moral compass. They asked the newspaper to apologize and to stop these ‘heinous acts’.19 This discourse seems reminiscent of Isaiah Berlin’s distinction between positive and negative freedom: ‘freedom to’ and ‘freedom from’. Freedom to do whatever one wants as long as that person does not harm others (la darar wa la dirar or J.S. Mill’s harm principle) and freedom from external constraints or sanctions. Using Freud’s terminology, ‘freedom to’ builds civilization, while ‘freedom from’ might compromise civilization and eventually lead to its destruction, since the ‘law of the jungle’ would reign instead of the ‘rule of law’, especially if those who feel offended by the cartoons take the law into their own hands. The Union of Iraqi Artists bashed the newspaper and called for associations dealing with art, culture, and the media to lend their unequivocal support to the person and stature of al-​Sistani:

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At a time when Iraq was looking forward to building solid diplomatic relations with its neighbours and regional actors –​based upon social, religious, economic, political, and cultural commonalities –​Asharq Al-​ Awsat published a libelling caricature depicting Sistani. This amounts to a blatant breach of professional media work ethics and betrays the objectivity of press covenants. Exploiting art to slander an eminent religious personality leads to fuelling violence and extremism, which in turn, might even result in terrorism. We call upon art and cultural associations to condemn, in the strongest possible terms, this breach, while enjoining upholding national unity and solidarity, as a tribute to the leading role of the ‘ulama in inculcating peace and stability in Iraq.20 In due course, these vehement criticisms led Asharq Al-​Awsat to issue a formal apology and to remove21 the cartoon from its 3 July 2020 issue, arguing that social media blew the matter out of proportion, since the newspaper did not intend, in any way, to demean al-​Sistani or any other Iraqi religious authority for that matter. Rather, the newspaper argued that it only intended to draw attention to the ‘blatant’ Iranian interference in Iraqi affairs.22 In turn, al-​Sistani responded via his representative Shaykh Ibrahimi that ‘The Lord has pardoned … I have prayed a lot for the cartoonist to be forgiven’.23 That said, although the context is different, nevertheless, to a Western audience, this might seem reminiscent of the Danish cartoon controversy, where pious Muslims violently rejected seeing cartoons of Prophet Muḥammad in any way whatsoever, as they considered such caricaturing as a heinous act of iconicity, which state authorities and civil laws in most Muslim-​majority countries regard as a felony (criminal act) (Ammitzbøll and Vidino, 2007; Klausen, 2009; Kuipers, 2011). It might be difficult, if not impossible, for Western readers and audiences to comprehend why so much energy was expended for a simple cartoon. Relying on an extensive number of prophetic traditions (ahadith) that legitimize this practice, Ali and Grabar argue that there is a long history of Islamic depictions of Prophet Muḥammad (Ali, 2001; Grabar, 2003). According to Grabar, the story of the representations of the Prophet starts ‘with an account of representations of the Prophet Muhammad in a pious book of the eleventh century belonging to mainstream Sunni learning and it ends with a late twentieth-century image of the young Muhammad from Shi‘ite Iran’ (2003: 36). In turn, Princess Wijdan Ali –​a direct descendant of Prophet Muḥammad and member of the Royal Society of Fine Arts in Amman –​demonstrates that ‘there were many illustrations of the Prophet in the early Mongol manuscripts from the Ilkhanid Dynasty down to the Ottoman period’ (Ali, 2001: 1). In this regard, Burckhardt argues that, ‘Aniconism to some extent becomes co-​extensive with the sacred; it is

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even one of the bases, if not the basis, of the sacred art of Islam’ (1970: 97). Nevertheless, Ali adds: Human representation in the form of a portrait is considered a taboo among a minority of Muslims who believe that any representation of a living being is banned in Islam. The subject of Prophet Muhammad’s portraiture however, is considered a taboo among the greatest majority of Muslims, including those who do approve of and practice human figurative representation. (2001: 1) Nasr expands Burckhardt’s argument by stressing that ‘Aniconism must not be confused with the prohibition of the painting of living beings. The first is a basic aspect of Islam practised by all Muslims and the second an injunction to avoid the danger of a type of idolatry’ (1987: 191). On these grounds, Nasr argues that ‘Islamic art does not imitate the outward forms of nature but reflects their principles’ (1987: 8). Ali articulates this doctrine as such: Figurative art can be perfectly accommodated into the universe of Islam, provided it does not exceed its proper limits, or participate directly in the spiritual economy of the religion. Aniconism in religion is opposition to the use of icons or visual images to depict living creatures or religious figures; in Islam it is the opposition to the personification of God and the Prophet, [and it] has two functions. It ensures that the primordial stature of man, whose form is made in the image of God, will neither be imitated nor supplanted by a limited and one-​sided temporal work of art; and it deters the creation of idols that might interpose between man and God. (2001: 9) How do the above debates comport with Hizbullah’s views? Are the Hizbullahis more liberal or conservative than the majority of Muslims? When Hizbullah’s religious authority, Imam Khamina’i of Iran –​who has a sizeable following among the Shi‘ite diasporas –​was asked about his ruling on the production and selling of pictures depicting Prophet Muḥammad and Imam ‘Ali, contrary to the quote above, he answered: ‘There is no religious (shar‘i) prohibition on so doing, on the condition that they are purposeful and decent, that is, the pictures should not display insults or mockery in the eyes of customs or promulgated standing laws’ (Khamina’i, 2004: 40, 50–​51). Although the fatwa was given as an answer to the ‘production and selling’ of images, it could have been extended to cover the public or private display of such holy images. Within these precepts of practice, guidelines of behaviour, and stipulations, Khamina’i affirms: ‘It is sanctioned [allowed] to 192

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buy and sell pictures and statues; also there is no prohibition on displaying these in theatrical works’ (2004: 49). This ruling seems in sharp contrast to Sunni interpretations, let alone Salafi readings, of Prophet Muḥammad’s following ahadith: There are two sayings attributed to the Prophet that condemn the depiction of living beings. The first: ‘On the Day of Judgement artists would be asked to recreate their own creations and upon failing to do so would be severely punished’. The second: ‘Those who will be most strictly punished by God on the Day of Judgement will be the painters and sculptors’. Both sayings are actually maxims that set down the law for aniconism, which is the prohibition of depicting God, although they are very often wrongly interpreted as total prohibitions of imagery. However, they have not affected Islamic art to the extent that some might believe. (Ali, 2001: 9) It seems that Shi‘a attitudes toward aniconism are more relaxed than Sunni ones; and that Salafi prohibitions against depictions of the Prophet and his followers are the most stringent. Nevertheless, there are exceptions, as one Dutch (liberal) Salafi remarked: ‘I don’t think I would ever say, that in Islam “cartoons of Prophet Muhammad are unacceptable to Muslims because any depiction of the Prophet, Allah, and key religious figures, even highly laudatory (admiring) ones, is considered haram”. It is never this clear. More precise would probably be that depicting Prophet Muḥammad is objectionable for some Muslims and Islamic trends, even more so when they depict him in an unflattering way; or something like that.’ (Interview, 19 October 2020) In all respects, it appears that the matter is not as straightforward as many people might think, since the variables of place and time, in addition to context and meaning, are extremely important in determining whether visual representations of Prophet Muḥammad are forbidden or allowed.

Analysis of the limitations placed on humour Does Hizbullah have a problem with comedy shows and cartoons per se? Can these fall within the domain of pious fun and permissible entertainment? How does this attitude comport with Hizbullah’s position toward artistic practices, namely that the Party is not stringent when it comes to ‘fun’ and ‘pious entertainment’? How does Hizbullah deviate from other Islamic movements that consider acting and dancing on stage, as well as gender 193

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mixing as abominations, or taboos, which are contrary to Islamic sensibilities and norms, while also objecting to comedy and cartoons that seem to target the ‘halo’ of its religious authorities? In response to the question: ‘Is there a prohibition in Shi‘ite discourse on comedy and cartoons as such?’, Abd Al-​Halim Fadlallah, the director of Hizbullah’s Consultative Centre of Studies and Documentation (CCSD) and Shaykh Shafiq Jaradi, the Rector of Al-​Ma‘ārif Al-​Hikmiyya College, stressed that ‘there are no jurisprudential reservations on comedy as such’; on the contrary, it is recommended (mustahab). Nevertheless, they attributed the relative scarcity of comedy productions in Hizbullah’s Islamic cultural sphere to the overemphasis on the concept of ‘obligatory caution’ (ihtiyāt wujubi), which often results in restricting and suppressing creativity and artistic innovation (Interviews, 10 July 2020). It seems that Hizbullah’s sensitivity toward comedy might be leaning toward the assumed likelihood of ‘insulting’ or ‘hurting’ the sensibilities of its senior religious figures, and, by extension, the Shi‘ite traditions they represent. Kawtharani even went further to categorize this kind of humour as indecent low-​brow art that falls into the category of debauchery, lahu, or laghu. Debauchery refers to al-​fawahish that is mentioned in the Qur’anic verse (7:33): ‘The things that my Lord has indeed forbidden are: shameful deeds [debaucheries], whether open or secret’. Lahu refers to types of performances that lead to amusement, idle pastime, or negative diversion from purposeful activities, as stated in the Qur’anic verse (31:6). Laghu, literally ‘foolish talk’, is ‘all speech and actions that are baseless or abhorrent’, or simply those kinds of activities that encourage the pursuit of pastime per se, as mentioned in the Qur’anic verse (25:72) (Interview, 14 July 2020). In other words, Kawtharani, Barakat, Jaradi, and other Hizbullah leaders do not legitimize humorous performances as such; rather, they sanction them only if they fall into the domain of purposeful and didactic Resistance Art. Ayatullah Fadlallah’s progressive-​constructive thinking offers viewpoint diversity within the Islamic world. Like Abd Al-​Halim Fadlallah and Jaradi, Ayatullah Fadlallah reiterated that there are no jurisprudential prohibitions to comedy and caricature per se. He stressed that in terms of the religious safeguards and jurisprudential stipulations, comedy and caricature, like other forms of Resistance Art, should be in the service of humanity and human values. Purposeful or ‘didactic’ comedies (Weisl-​Shaw, 2010), which highlight the social, political, and economic ills that plague society in an artistic way, are welcomed even if they use a sharp sense of critical satire. If a comedy does not cater to the human values of internal worth and dignity, does not elevate man’s status, and does not serve justice and the good, then it should be shunned (Interview, 4 August 2009). In short, Hizbullah condones (allows) 194

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permissible, purposeful humour only based on what it does, that is, based on its sociopolitical function. Again, they have a functionalist view toward humour, and not humour as mere entertainment or an end in itself. Ayatullah Fadlallah stressed the need to judge and act according to the jurisprudential principle of maslaha, which stipulates weighing the advantages and disadvantages of every artistic work in order to rule out certain comedies and artistic expressions that promote purposelessness (Interview, 4 August 2009), and thus threaten the very foundations of the Islamic cultural sphere. In this respect, Ayatullah Fadlallah concurred with Imam Khamina’i, namely, that art should be in the service of ‘noble human goals’, as such being the main reason for the well-​being of the humanistic community (Khamina’i, 2009: 73). Nevertheless, Ayatullah Fadlallah held another view, which indirectly criticized Hizbullah’s practices. He stressed that ‘not a single person holding public office is immune to criticism; whether he is a political or religious leader … he is not infallible and he is bound to err: blessed he who does not commit mistakes. … We welcome any criticism, especially if it is constructive and aimed at reform; so ought Hizbullah.’ (Interview, 4 August 2009) It seems Ayatullah Fadlallah is more liberal than Hizbullah when it comes to comedy or political satire and, by extension, to the freedom of speech and expression. Thus, there are divergent views between Hizbullah’s constituency and other Shi‘ites who follow Ayatullah Fadlallah’s rulings. Yet, both Hizbullah and Ayatullah Fadlallah use a process of negotiation –​balancing the pros and cons of any particular humorous act –​to determine whether it is purposeful and functional, and thus permissible. The incumbent Shi‘ite religious authorities are assigned this task of arbiter of determining whether humour is permissible or not. Hizbullah have censured comedy shows and caricatures that might infringe on the Shi‘ite doctrine or ‘hurt’ the religious sensibilities of its constituency. Therefore, in spite of Ayatullah Fadlallah’s views that do not bar criticizing religious figures when they err, it seems that the problems of satirists started when they included Hizbullah personalities and other prominent religious authorities, such as Ayatullah al-​Sistani, as the targets of satires and cartoons.

Conclusion This chapter may come across as a piece of apologetic commentary advocating and sanctioning Hizbullah’s approach to humour. This would be in direct contrast to Western discourse on the ‘spirit of comedy’ whose 195

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aim is to transgress, to push boundaries. Thus, one may question how Hizbullah’s restrictive approach to what constitutes permissible, that is, didactic (purposeful) humour, is compatible with the ‘spirit of comedy’, as it is understood in the West. Schweizer maintains that It’s not unreasonable to conclude that today’s extremely varied, diverse comical landscape is the result of the West’s progressive opening up to ever more subversive uses of comedy across a span of centuries. That this trajectory is neither inevitable nor historically unavoidable can be demonstrated by reference to other religious traditions. Islam, for instance, has not seen a comparative liberalisation of its humour culture within the same time span; in fact, the inverse rather seems to be the case. (2020: 36) In light of the above quote, it seems more plausible and accurate to say that Hizbullah has developed its own definition and spirit of permissible comedy as a tool to promote its ideology through art and culture. As a resistance movement, Hizbullah has been able to shift from the restrictive politics of a narrow, exclusive identity to a more encompassing identity based on the mobilization of its intellectual and cultural resources. By analyzing the ever-​ growing body of cultural production generated by Hizbullah, it emerges that humour as a Resistance Art fits in a longer discourse of Shi‘ite ‘benefit’ or ‘purpose’ (maslaha). There are far-​reaching implications to the declaration of leading Shi‘ite thinkers that cultural production has to be central to the construction of revolution. Considering Shi‘ite thinking at the forefront of changing Islamic attitudes toward humour and the performing arts points to the very different ways that Hizbullah conceives of both culture and the role of religion in public life. Hizbullah’s understanding of public good (maslaha), dictates a sort of prima facie (rule of thumb) screening, a moral yard-​stick aimed at protecting its constituency from indecency, debauchery, and sometimes physical harm that could be associated with humour as an ‘art for the sake of art’, and by extension, any performing art per se. Stressing the salient roles of purpose (telos) and function, the type of humour sanctioned by Hizbullah should be viewed as situated in the service of political mobilization, and therein lies the propaganda role of Resistance Art. Yet, sometimes the line is blurred between Resistance Art and propaganda. Such cultural expressions are encouraged as potentially important sources of mobilization against aggression and occupation in the name of promoting peace and social justice. By embracing the Kantian notion of ‘Art is Humanity’, and in line with Rik Pinxten’s (2003) argument that art advances democratic thinking, Hizbullah advocates that art should promote an open society. Yet,

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it shows less tolerance to genres of humour that do not have such clearly utilitarian aims. Notes 1

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Hizbullah follows (yuqallid) the Iranian religious authority (marja‘) Ayatullah al-​Khamina’i, whom it refers to as al-​Sayyid al-​Qa’id (Supreme Leader or Rahbar). www.counterextremism.com/​threat/​hezbollah [Accessed 27 July 2020]. ‘If and only if ’ is a logical connective between statements indicating that the named conditions are both sufficient and necessary for a statement to be true. In this case, all jokes that display purpose and provide an advantage are allowed and, conversely, any sanctioned humorous statement will satisfy those two conditions. Cultural Islamic Al-​Ma‘ārif Association (2007) Majalis Al-​Afrah [Celebration of Feasts], Beirut: Cultural Islamic Al-​Ma‘arif Association. Many Islamists classify musical instruments such as the violin, contrabass, cello, bassoon, clarinet, flute, piccolo, piano, trumpet, trombone, French horn, tuba, saxophone alto, saxophone tenor, percussion, drums, conga/​tumbadora, bass drum, cymbals, timpani, the xylophone, keyboard, percussions, oboe, and viola as ‘instruments of the Devil’, based on their interpretation of the Qur’an (5:90) and the following aḥadīth: Sahih al-​Bukhari: Book no. 15, ḥadīths no. 70 & 72; Book no. 58, ḥadīth no. 268; Sahih Muslim: Book no. 4, ḥadīth no. 1942; Book no. 024, ḥadīth no. 5279. The Jurisprudence of Art, http://​engl​ish.bayy​nat.org.lb/​se_​002/​jurisp​rude​nce/​art.htm [Accessed 17 July 2009]. Plays are not alien to Shi‘ite culture and religious traditions, as they constitute part-​and-​ parcel of Shi‘ite rituals; most notably the Ta‘ziya of ‘Ashura commemorating the death of Imam Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet. This commitment to ‘obedience’ has a religious connotation that is in line with the strictly applied religious sensibilities. The Jurisprudence of Art, http://​engl​ish.bayy​nat.org.lb/​se_​002/​jurisp​rude​nce/​art.htm [Accessed 17 July 2009]. See ‘The Opening of the Expressive Arts Project’, Al-​Intiqadnet, www.alintiqad.com/​ essaydetails.php?eid=​902&cid=​46 [Accessed 1 August 2008]. www.lbcgroup.tv/​[Accessed 18 July 2020]. A famous stand-​up comedian, political satirist, actor, writer, director, producer, and TV and movie playwright. Official website available from: https://​charbe​lkha​lil.com/ ; www.facebook.com/​charbelgkhalil/​; www.lebaneseactors.net/​actor-​412/​Charbel-​Khalil/​ [Accessed 10 July 2020]. Khalil brags that he writes his jokes from an academic background as he has an MA in the Art of Drama and Production from the College of Fine Arts at the Lebanese University and he constantly keeps on updating his knowledge through avid reading, especially in the history of comedy. Since there are cartoons in the Muslim world (see, for example, Chapter 7 in this volume) it is the heightened sensitivity toward certain types of cartoons (those depicting Prophet Muḥammad or making fun of Islam) that triggers protests. Asharq Al-​Awsat (3 July 2020) 15193: 13. www.rudaw.net/​arabic/​middleeast/​iraq/​0307202011 [Accessed 10 July 2020]. ‫​االوسط‬-‫​الشرق‬-‫​صحيفة‬-‫​على‬-‫​للرد‬-‫​يدعو‬-‫​العراق‬-‫​فنانو‬-‫​تجمع‬/350735​/‫ محليات‬www.alsumaria.tv/​news/​ [Accessed 10 July 2020]. https://​ara​bic.sput​nikn​ews.com/​ara​b_​wo​rld/​202​0070​5104​5917​886-​‫​ال ​ع‬-‫​في‬-‫​مظاه​رات‬-‫اند​الع‬ ‫​فيديو‬-‫​سعو​دية‬-‫​صحيفة‬-‫​كاريكا​تير‬-‫​على‬-‫​احتج​اجا‬-‫راق‬/​[Accessed 10 July 2020].

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‘Hizbullah denounces the grave offence against Sayyid al-​Sistani: What the newspaper has done is a service to the enemies of the umma’. Available from: www.alahednews.com.lb/​ article.php?id=​21094&cid=​113; https://​alma​nar.com.lb/​6909​124 [Accessed 10 July 2020]. ‘The Council of the Beirut ‘Ulama’ denounced insulting Sistani’. Available from: www. alahednews.com.lb/​article.php?id=​21086&cid=​113 [Accessed 10 July 2020]. www.alsumaria.tv/​news/​‫​االوسط‬-‫​الشرق‬-‫​صحيفة‬-‫​على‬-‫​للرد‬-‫​يدعو‬-‫​العراق‬-‫​فنانو‬-‫​تجمع‬/350735​/‫محليات‬ [Accessed 10 July 2020]. www.alsumaria.tv/​news/​‫​امس‬- ‫​نشرته‬- ‫​الذي‬- ‫​الكاريكاتير‬- ‫​تحذف‬- ‫​االوسط‬- ‫​الشرق‬/ 350807 ​/‫سياسة‬ [Accessed 10 July 2020]. www.skypressiq.net/​2020/​7/​4/​​-‫​تصدر‬-‫​االوسط‬-‫​الشرق‬-‫​السيستاني‬-‫​للمرجع‬-‫​االساءة‬-‫​ب‬-‫​اتهامها‬-‫بعد‬ ‫​االول‬-‫[ بيانها‬Accessed 10 July 2020]. ‘Watch Sistani’s response to the Saudi Asharq Al-​Awsat newspaper’s offence’. Available from: www.youtube.com/​watch?v=​1EOnKq5wSnU [Accessed 4 July 2020].

References Books and articles ‘Abbas, F. (2009) Zaman Al-​Intisarat, Beirut: Dar Al–​Hadi. Al-​‘Abidi, L. (2010) Al-​Fikh fi Al-​Islam, London: Saqi. Alagha, J. (2011a) Hizbullah’s Identity Construction, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Alagha, J. (2011b) Hizbullah’s Documents, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Alagha, J. (2012) ‘Jihad through Music: Hizbullah and the Taliban’, Performing Islam 1(2): 263–​289. Alagha, J. (2013) Hizbullah’s DNA and the Arab Spring, New Delhi: University of Calcutta Press and Knowledge World Publishers (KW). Ali, W. (2001) ‘From the literal to the spiritual: the development of the Prophet Muhammad’s portrayal from 13th century Ilkhanid miniatures to 17th century Ottoman art’, EJOS 7(IV): 1–​24. Ammitzbøll, P. and Vidino, L. (2007) ‘After the Danish cartoon controversy’, Middle East Quarterly 14(1): 3–​11. Barakat, A. (2020) ‘Joking and COVID-​1 9’, Shaykh Akram Barak Facebook Page, [blog] 22 March. Available from: www.facebook.com/​ 103583057837290/​posts/​134871528041776/​ [Accessed 23 March 2020]. Bellamy, R. (1994) ‘The Social and Political Thought of Antonio Gramsci’, in The Polity Reader in Cultural Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 22–37. Binay, S. (2009) ‘Why will Hassan Nasrallah win the Nobel Prize for education? Zeitgenössische politische Witze im Libanon/​Contemporary political jokes in Lebanon’, in G. Tamer (ed) Humor in der arabischen Kultur/​ Humor in Arabic Culture, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp 299–​311. Burckhardt, T. (1970) ‘The Void in Islamic Art’, Studies in Comparative Religion 4(2): 97–​100.

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Cultural Islamic Al-​M ā‘arif Association (2007) Majālis Al-​A frah, Beirut: Cultural Islamic Al-​Ma‘ārif Association. Fischione, F. (2020) ‘A critique of religious sectarianism through satire: a case study of Lebanese rap’, in S. Damir-​Geilsdorf and S. Milich (eds) Creative Resistance: Political Humor in the Arab Uprisings, Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, pp 297–​326. Grabar, O. (2003) ‘The story of portraits of the Prophet Muhammad’, Studia Islamica 96(VI–​IX): 19–​38. Haugbolle, S. (2007) ‘That joke isn’t funny anymore: Bass Matt Watan’s Nasrallah skit and the limits of laughter in Lebanon’, Arab Media and Society, pp 1–​15. Husseini, D. (2020) ‘Almakshuf/​In the Open’ [TV programme] 7 October. Available from: www.otv.com.lb/​?s=​‫[ عالمكشوف‬Accessed 9 October 2020]. Khumayni, I. (2002) Dirasat fi Al-​Fikr al-​Siyasi ‘ind Al-​Imam Al-​Khumayni, Beirut: Al-​Ghadir. Khamina’i, I. (2004) Ajwibat Al-​Istifta’at, Part II, Beirut: Dar Al-​Mahajja al-​Bayda’. Khamina’i, I. (2009) Al-F ​ ann Al-​Islami ‘inda Al-​Imam Al-​Qa’id, compiled by Muhammad Salar, the cultural attaché of the Islamic Republic in Lebanon, Beirut: Dar Al-​Mahajja al-​Bayda’. Klausen, J. (2009) The Cartoons that Shook the World, London: Yale University Press. Kuipers, G. (2011) ‘The politics of humour in the public sphere: cartoons, power and modernity in the first transnational humour scandal’, European Journal of Cultural Studies 14(1): 63–​80. Masud, M.K. (2000–​2 001) ‘De Kunsten en religie in Islamitische Jurisprudentie’, trans C. Schoenmaeckers, Soera: Midden-​Oosten Tijdschrift 8.4–​9.1: 24–​8. Masud, M.K. (2005) ‘Clearing Ground: Commentary to “Shari‘a and the Modern State” ’, in A.M. Emon, M. Ellis and B. Glahn (eds) Islamic Law and International Human Rights Law: Searching for Common Ground?, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 104–​114. Nasr, S.H. (1987) Islamic Art and Spirituality, Albany: State University of New York Press. Pinxten, R. (2003) De artistieke samenleving, De invloed van kunst op de democratie, Antwerp: Uitgeverij Houtekiet. Rosenthal, F. (2011) Humour in Early Islam, Leiden: Brill. Schweizer, B. (2020) ‘The keys to irreverent comedy’, Free Inquiry 40(4). Available from: https://​secu​larh​uman​ism.org/​2020/​06/​the-​keys-​to-​irr​ever​ ent-​com​edy/​ [Accessed 10 October 2020]. Sørensen, M.J. (2016) Humour in Political Activism: Creative Nonviolent Resistance, London: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Storey, J. (2001) Cultural Theory and Popular Culture, London: Prentice Hall. Storey, J. (2014) From Popular Culture to Everyday Life, London: Routledge. Weisl-​Shaw, A. (2010) ‘The comedy of didacticism and the didacticism of comedy in Calila E Dimna and Sendebar’, The Modern Language Review 105(3): 732–​742. Younis, H. (2020) ‘Naqta Fasila/Semicolon’ [TV programme], 28 March. Available from: www.otv.com.lb/ ?s= ‫[ عالمكشوف‬Accessed 10 July 2021] Interviews Alagha, J. (4 August 2009) Interview with Ayatullah Fadlallah, Beirut. Alagha, J. (7 August 2009; 13 August 2018; 14 July 2020) Interview with Muhammad Kawtharani, Beirut. Alagha, J. (16 October 2009; 5 August 2013) Interview with Shaykh Akram Barakat, Beirut. Alagha, J. (5 August 2013; 10 July 2020) Interview with Shaykh Shafiq Jaradi, Beirut. Alagha, J. (9 August 2013) Interview with Hajj Muhammad Ra‘d, Beirut. Alagha, J. (9 August 2013) Interview with Shaykh Khudr al-​Dirani, Beirut. Alagha, J. (10 July 2020) Interview with Abd Al-​Halim Fadlallah, Beirut. Alagha, J. (19 October 2020) Interview with Ahmad B., Beirut.

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‘Putting the Fun Back into Fundamentalism’: Toying with Islam and Extremism in Comedy Mona Abdel-​Fadil

Introduction Comedians who poke fun at self-styled ‘Islamic fundamentalists’ often invoke the truism that ‘if we don’t ridicule religious zealots, then the terrorists have won’. Joking about Islam and extremism can come in many shapes and forms. The controversial Danish Muḥammad Cartoons and Charlie Hebdo’s satirical drawings are among the most notorious examples, not least due to the strong and violent reactions they spurred. These controversies also led to discussions on the boundaries of freedom of speech in satire (Godioli, 2020). Nevertheless, there is a much wider spectrum of comedic engagements with the theme of Islam and extremism. For instance, we witnessed an upsurge in comedy on the topic after 9/​11, which has paved the way for much of the English-​language comedy about Islam and extremism that we see today.1 While post-​9/​11 comedies typically poked fun at al-​Qaeda (and sometimes Bin Laden), today ISIS is a common target of ridicule within this genre.2 Such parodies quite literally ‘put the fun back into fundamentalism’ to borrow a joke from the renowned and talented British-​Iranian comedian Omid Djalili. While Western and English-​language parodies of ISIS are often hailed for being daring and innovative, the truth is that comedians in the Middle East have also produced a plethora of ISIS parodies in Arabic.3 Typically, members of ISIS are portrayed as sex-​crazed, dim, rigid, hypocrites who lack a profound understanding of Islam. On YouTube, one can find Palestinian, 201

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Syrian, Iraqi, and Egyptian sketches that poke fun at ISIS in Arabic (Trofimov, n.d.; Al Arabiya, 2014; Kamin, 2014; Daily Dot, 2015, 2021; Freij, 2015; Saul, 2015; Al-Rawi, 2016). The Arab region is the hardest hit by the violence of ISIS fighters, thus making ISIS a highly legitimate target of ridicule. Political comedy is often considered a tool for ‘speaking truth to power’ (Al-​Rawi 2016, Alkheder, this volume). Anti-​ISIS skits are steeped in dark humour and thus serve as both comic relief and political critique.4 For instance, in a spoof commercial, an ISIS wife is handed a special ISIS-​ branded washing powder which not only removes the blood stain from her husband’s shirt, but eventually self-​detonates, killing her, too! A number of skits feature remastered, upbeat and, (more or less suggestive) dance versions of a solemn ISIS chant, serving not only to ridicule the song, but also poking fun at ISIS’s view of dancing as forbidden in Islam. As Giselinde Kuipers states: ‘Humor often deals with sensitive topics, touching on or transgressing social norms and moral boundaries. Such sensitivities vary greatly between groups, cultures, and contexts’ (2009: 229). Joking about ISIS certainly fits this bill. When comedy breaks taboos, it invariably upsets some segments of the audiences. Here, I examine and compare two short, one-​off skits that ridicule ISIS. The first is the BBC production ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’, and the other is called ‘Daesh’.5 The Arabic-​language skit ‘Daesh’ was originally created by the Palestinian satire show Watan ala Watar (Homeland Hanging by a String). It aired in 2014 but was rebroadcast the same year by the Saudi-​owned Rotana network, which serves pan-​Arab audiences. With its 15 TV channels, covering everything from conservative Islamic content to pure entertainment, Rotana is dedicated to music videos and TV dramas, and is a common staple in satellite bundles in the region. By contrast, ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ was produced primarily for British audiences and aired on BBC. Nonetheless, both skits are available for global audiences via YouTube. Both ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ and ‘Daesh’ went viral and caused controversy (Taylor, 2015; Khalaf, 2017). Some viewers disapprove of ‘Daesh’ and ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’, because they believe that ISIS is far too serious and violent a topic to be dealt with through comedy. ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ is a one-minute-and-41-seconds-long British comedy skit aired in 2017 as part of a series called Revolting. The skit mocks the idea that Muslim converts and Muslims who grow up in England would be tempted to leave their safe and comfortable existences for a life of hardship and violence. The ‘Daesh’ skit is longer (four minutes, 58 seconds) and a bit more slapstick in style than ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’. ‘Daesh’ mocks the arbitrariness of violence and ISIS soldiers’ dim-​witted immaturity. In this chapter, I will briefly outline and critically examine each skit separately, before providing a conceptual comparison of ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ and ‘Daesh’. I am particularly interested in the 202

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skits’ content, their plot, and the comedic tools that drive them. More specifically, I will analyze and compare the stylistic and genre-​specific choices, and the intertextual references embedded in each production. The fact that ‘Daesh’ is produced in Arabic and (primarily) for audiences in the Arab world in a Muslim majority context, while ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ is produced in English and (primarily) for audiences in the UK and in a minority Muslim context, suggests that this conceptual comparison may be a fruitful line of inquiry. I will examine to what extent contextual factors, such as where the skit is produced and who the target audience is, appear to dictate the build-​up of the respective skits. I shall also discuss how the various intertextual elements of each skit relate to each geographical and societal context. The analysis is informed by my expertise within the fields of contemporary Islam, media studies, and the anthropology of the Middle East. I also lean on research from the field of political comedy and draw on my experience as a comedy improviser and writer of satire.

Toying with ISIS’ recruitment of women in ‘the West’: ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ is framed as a teaser for the next season of the (imaginary) reality show The Real Housewives of ISIS. It features a variety of reality show-​inspired scenes with ISIS wives, draped in black abayas (robes) from head to toe. Their distinct British accents signal that they were born and bred in the UK. Following the narrator’s introduction to the teaser and the show, the opening line by one of the ISIS wives is: ‘It’s only three days ’til the beheading and I’ve got no idea what I’m gonna wear’, delivered in a chirpy tone of voice. The tone does not match the dreary prospect of witnessing a public beheading. The beheading is portrayed as if it was a fun social event. The emphasis is on how the beheading is seen as an opportunity to show off a fashionable wardrobe. Not having found an outfit yet to dress up in mocks the drab shapeless black garb that all the ISIS wife characters are wearing, making them virtually indistinguishable from one another. And, of course this segment is also taking a stab at The Real Housewives genre that is mimicked (and ridiculed) in the sketch. Staring into the camera, the character mentions her long line of successive (dead) husbands, which is simultaneously a stab at the easy come and go of romantic partners in both the reality genre and ISIS. An interlinked densely packed one-​liner is: ‘So this is my sixth marriage, I’ve been widowed five times’, which is delivered while a bomb explodes in the background. The comedic timing is flawless. The ISIS wife quickly regains her composure, straightens her robe, and says ‘six times’ while staring into the camera with a reassuring smile, confirming to the audience that 203

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she just lost her sixth husband in the explosion going off behind her. The incongruity of the ISIS wife’s cheerful nonchalant tone of voice when she speaks of being widowed six times is in part what paints a funny picture. In addition, the subtext points to the impending inevitability of this ISIS wife being widowed a seventh time or eighth time soon, which tickles the audience’s comedic (if macabre) sensibilities. Moreover, the absurdity of the ISIS wife not caring about how many times she is widowed, or how much hardship she is put through, is in itself a subversive comedic choice which is packaged in cheerful chatter. Aside from being comical in and of itself, this segment also alludes to the multiple spousal (and therefore sexual) partners she has had, in the capacity of being an ISIS wife. Thus, this segment functions as a meta commentary on both the heartlessness and the ironies of the serial marriages perpetuated by ISIS. Paradoxically, the serial marital partnerships perpetuated by ISIS represent a more liberal view on both sexual and marital relations than common mainstream idealized views of Muslim marriages which tend to focus on the sanctity of both marriage and virginity.6 Rather than focus on the media-​saturated angle of ISIS soldiers being ‘sexually insatiable’, the subtext of the serialized widow joke is that the ISIS wife may actually be content with switching sexual partners so frequently in the ISIS-​condoned way. Thus, the joke about the ISIS wife who was widowed six times in a row, also serves as a meta joke about the ironies of sexual and marital relations within a religious fundamentalist framework. One of comedy’s key operating principles is incongruity, that is to say the mismatching of elements for comedic effect. Using The Real Housewives reality show format and their style of bickering, verbal backstabbing, and envy as a means to ridicule ISIS’ brainwashing and grooming activities is a case in point. Moreover, the skit shines a satirical light on ISIS-​ recruited Britons’ need for constant excitement and yearning for danger. Indeed, the thrill of (unpredictable) action twinned with risk serves as an implicit backdrop as to why British citizens may be seduced by ISIS’ online propaganda. All the one-​liners in ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ are jokes in their own right, but some have additional intertextual references. For instance, there is the ISIS housewife who confesses: ‘Abdul seduced me online, he had me at free healthcare’. ‘Free healthcare’ functions primarily as a reference to how ISIS (and other fundamentalist groups) attract supporters by promising perks such as free healthcare and schooling, in addition to job opportunities, but it can also be viewed as a side-​kick to the shortcomings of the National Health Service (NHS).7 ISIS’ grooming activities, their promises of social benefits for all, and the technological shift to online grooming and flirtation, all contribute to women being recruited into ISIS from the UK and elsewhere. Leaving a comfortable life in the UK for a rather insufferable 204

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life in the IS state is in and of itself comical because it defies common sense. In another scene, one of the characters says, ‘I’m so glad I came out here. It is everything those guys in the chatrooms told me it would be. And it’s full of so many wonderful surprises’, she adds cheerfully to the camera before the video cuts to behind-​the-​scenes footage of the same ISIS wife on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor and cursing her fate: ‘Didn’t have to do this in Birmingham! Bullshit’. These jokes on a string constitute what is commonly referred to as ‘pile-​on jokes’ among comedy improvisers. That is to say, these are jokes with multiple instalments, where interlinked exaggerations and punchlines are piled onto one another in order to create an overarching comical effect, often drawing on the absurd. In this case, the various instalments feature a variety of hardships which serve to underline the absurdity of leaving a dull but comfortable life for a life full of violence and misery. Additionally, the skit features a series of pile-​on jokes about how living in the IS state brings many surprises, including the laborious household tasks and ‘minor’ social restrictions such as being chained to the kitchen, all serving to add detail to the incongruity and poke fun at what is portrayed as an overarching ISIS worldview. Despite the dark humour and the rather depressing topics discussed, the sketch comes across as light-​hearted due to the delivery and the playful incongruity of the main elements. One of the features that makes ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ skit comical and its punchlines effective is the excellent comedic timing of the cheerfully delivered lines coupled with the rather dark and depressing themes addressed. In one scene, an ISIS housewife is euphoric because she is now held on an eight-​foot chain, which is longer than her last leash. This line is delivered while the ISIS wife nonchalantly shows the camera a heavy metal chain with which she is shackled to the kitchen stove. The metal chain noisily uncoils as she moves closer to the camera, enhancing the comical effect. ‘So, I can almost get outside … which is great’, the ISIS wife character quips, adding to the gallows humour. These jokes are transgressive and provide pockets of comic relief about taboo topics, while simultaneously directing critique toward ISIS for their complete lack of gender equality and their violent practices (among other more specific grievances). The fact that ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ is not only poking fun at ISIS but also at a genre of reality shows is essential. Toying with the format, in this case The Real Housewives franchise, is an example of what Kuipers (2009: 229) calls ‘meta-​humor’. ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ skit marries the real drama of ISIS (jihadism, martyrdom, repressive gender views) with the ‘drama’ of The Real Housewives reality genre (bickering, backstabbing, jealousy, and preoccupation with the superficial). This intertextuality and the borrowing of elements from the reality genre also gives the entire sketch a funny undertone, where the bickering, backstabbing, jealousy, and preoccupation with outfits also serve to transform the skit into a meta joke 205

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about both ISIS and the genre itself. The fact that the skit also serves as a parody of The Real Housewives genre is in part responsible for many of the absurdities and the delivery of the jokes in a particular disparaging style of (trash) talking. Throughout the skit, the ISIS wives make references to social media, and they cherish Instagrammable moments. For instance, in one scene, one of the ISIS wives is modelling a camouflage suicide vest (over her black abaya) that she was gifted from her ISIS husband. One of the other ISIS wives says: ‘Hashtag OMG, Hashtag Jihadi Jane, Hashtag Death to the West, ISIS emojis’, while typing frantically on her smart phone. The ISIS wife modelling the suicide vest asks the others: ‘How do I look?’ seeking affirmation. ‘Aww babes, I love it. You look gorgeous’, one ISIS wife says to her face, and then in the next shot, she tells the camera that ‘she looked massive’, which mimics the type of backstabbing and gossipy dialogue in The Real Housewives reality shows. The gallows humour is taken up a notch in the next line: ‘You’re gonna need a lotta Semtex to kill that one!’ The subtext and punchline of this joke is that the ISIS wife modelling the suicide vest is so ‘massive’ (that is, fat) that she will need plenty of explosives (Semtex) to effectively obliterate herself. In effect, this joke is packing layers of subtext and intertextual references. On the one hand, it is a playful stab at the superficial preoccupation with liposuction and with being skinny displayed in The Real Housewives genre. This is underlined by the fact that the character in question is by all reasonable standards anything but ‘massive’. On the other hand, the Semtex joke is also a stab at the lack of regard for one’s own and other people’s lives displayed by ISIS (and other militants) who are willing to enter into crowds to blow themselves up to kill scores of people. One could also argue that this is a subtle reference to how militant ideologues tend to preach that martyrdom is a great honour, while simultaneously ensuring that their own lives are never risked or sacrificed.8 And, last but not least, this joke, points to the fact that women are increasingly entering into this realm of martyrdom through suicide missions, which used to be an exclusively male prerogative. Comedic drama also ensues when another ISIS wife makes an entrance while sporting the same type of camouflage suicide vest. This cringeworthy fashion crisis, while morbidly comical in an ISIS context, is also an intertextual reference to the competitive intra-​personal relationships characteristic of The Real Housewives genre and the interlinked obsession with sartorial choices. The suicide vest drama signals that the climax of an ISIS romance is speeding up one’s spouse’s martyrdom. Still, this is also a playful stab at the limited fashion options in an IS state, not to mention that there is nowhere to go to show off one’s outfits. The lack of places to go out and the sparse entertainment or leisure options are also an intra-​textual reference to the joke at the beginning of the skit about the public beheading. 206

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In improvisational comedy this technique is termed ‘a call-​back’, that is, calling back a previous joke. The intertextual references make ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ a suitable vehicle through which to carry out social critique. Without intertextuality, the jokes would fall flat, or simply be jokes about violence devoid of any societal critique. That is to say, viewers need to know about certain current events in order to get all the punchlines. References to actual news stories and current issues are enmeshed in the jokes, and in a sense the more intertextual references a viewer spots, the funnier a joke may seem. Intriguingly, sometimes comedy functions as a springboard for acquiring news, or learning about current affairs. This has certainly been found to be the case with The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (Baym, 2005). In the case of ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’, despite all its mockery, it actually provides a surprisingly informative take on ISIS and their grooming activities (Ramsay and Alkheder, 2020). Thus, viewers with limited knowledge about ISIS might actually learn something about ISIS from watching the skit. ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ does not depict ‘ordinary Muslims’ as part of the twisted and thwarted extremist ISIS universe full of absurdity and violence.9 The producers of the skit are at pains to make sure that the category ‘Muslim’ is never blurred with the category ‘extremist’ and/​or ‘ISIS’. It helps the audiences a great deal that the skit is crystal clear about who and what it is ridiculing. ISIS is named both in the title of the skit and repeatedly during the sketch. There is no ambiguity here. The joke primarily targets ISIS and the women who become seduced by them, but it also mocks ISIS’ sympathizers. The Real Housewives genre also gets a side-​punch, but it is not the main target of the ridicule. Rather, the reality TV genre is the format through which the social critique and comedy is performed. ISIS, the main target of the skit, is considered a legitimate object of comedy because the atrocities committed in its name construct ISIS as a particularly well-​suited target for transgressive humour across multiple cultural and geographical contexts. Fascinatingly, the ISIS wives are not portrayed as mindless victims, which is a subversive comedic choice. Thus, ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ clearly paints the picture of ISIS as being the villains, while simultaneously portraying the women who were ‘seduced’ by them as having agency and autonomy in their own lives. The skit explicitly toys with the restrictions and risks of living in a dangerous war zone with many strict regulations. Yet, at the same time the subtext is that these ISIS wives have voluntarily made the choice to abandon an easy life in Birmingham for a life of hardship as serial widows in the IS state. ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ is an example of transgressive humour which may appeal to certain individuals or groups, but will horrify others, not least due to the serious and sensitive topics it pokes fun at. Still, the 207

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intertextuality of the skit, combined with the broad range of punches to both The Real Housewives genre and to ISIS may be redeeming for those not immediately drawn to the black humour that pierces through the skit. Intriguingly, the main expressions of emotions in this skit are joy, merriness, and light-​heartedness which are in stark contrast to the actual macabre content being delivered. The juxtaposing of transgressive, taboo content and conventional sentiment is largely what makes the jokes ‘work’ but it is also what may give rise to disgust among some viewers. The humour itself may be too dark to appeal to all, and most likely it will revolt a number of viewers who neither believe that these topics should be joked about, nor are able to see the funny in the darkness. The dark humour portrayed pondering what to wear to a beheading (spoken about lightly), the serial widow (losing six ISIS husbands, and still counting), and the elongated yet highly restrictive metal chain that the wife is excited about since it is longer than the previous one, can certainly instil disgust in audiences. Yet, these jokes also serve as comic relief in light of ISIS’ own media campaigns. The playful light-​hearted delivery of the punchlines in ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ sugar-​coats the disturbing content, making the contrast of happiness and desolation all the more comical (to some). ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ received critique for being tasteless, insensitive, and taking things too far. Still the skit was also hailed by viewers for its transgressive humour. And, as pointed out by Ramsay and Alkheder (2020), ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ actually builds on accurate information about ISIS’ recruiting strategies. Similar critique and praise have been put forward about ‘Daesh’, to which we turn next.

Ridiculing the ISIS soldiers’ twisted ideologies and militarized practices: ‘Daesh’ ‘Daesh’ is a bit more slapstick in style than the British skit, starting with the image of three ISIS soldiers in military slacks and vests, with big (obviously) fake beards. They are armed. Two of the ISIS soldiers are in focus, and the third one, sporting a big Kalashnikov on his shoulder, is in the background. The setting is outdoors, at a checkpoint, where cars drive up and the occasional pedestrian wanders through. The two main characters are the ISIS soldiers guarding the checkpoint. It is their job to stop pedestrians and cars. The tone of the checkpoint conversations alternates between boorish, hostile, and absurdly friendly. As viewers, we witness how these two ISIS soldiers engage in a series of absurd conversations and rounds of questioning of people trying to get through the checkpoint. Many of the conversations bounce (somewhat erratically) between friendliness and small (if significant) pockets of hostility. The first segment of ‘Daesh’ sets the slapstick overtone. It features an ISIS solider beckoning his partner to cover him, prompting the 208

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dim-​witted partner to sling a black piece of cloth (possibly an ISIS flag) to cover the face of the soldier who had asked for help. ‘What are you doing? Cover me. Cover me from behind!’ the ISIS soldier says agitatedly while removing the black scarf/​flag from his face. The technique of punning is used here. ‘Cover me’ has the same dual meaning in Arabic as in English. Given the context of carrying weapons and being in combat mode, the dim-​witted partner ought to have understood the command, which is why the misunderstanding becomes comical. Portraying ‘enemies’ as idiots is a typical trope in political comedy and there is certainly precedent for this trope when it comes to portraying religious fanatics as idiots in Arab comedy. Indeed, in Arabic-​language comedy, religious fanaticism has been a point of ridicule for decades, even if executed unevenly and through blurred genres of comedy and drama (Ramsay and Alkheder, 2020). As discussed by Ramsay and Alkheder (2020: 198–​199), Arab comedy’s renewed attempts to ‘reimagine’ religious militants in a purely ‘comical light’ increased with the rise of ISIS in the region. Still, according to Ramsay and Alkheder (2020: 198–​199), comedic depictions of ISIS tended to have a stilted quality, falling back on the same tried and tested motifs –​false beards, incompetent, buffoonish henchmen, and cheerfully hypocritical caliphs. This description is an excellent fit for the ways in which the ISIS soldiers are depicted in ‘Daesh’. The choice to use visibly false beards hardly seems coincidental. In a sense the false beards are laughable in and of themselves. Still, the laughable beards also serve to illustrate the performative aspects of conservative and militant ideologies, which tend to excessively focus on external markers of piety such as garb, head-​cover, and facial hair. The subtext is that IS (and the likes) are brutes who know (and care) little about the pillars or ethics or readings of Islam. ‘Daesh’ depicts ISIS soldiers as a mixture of dumb, naive, and ruthless in all their encounters with the locals. The first person to show up at the checkpoint is a man in a car. He is asked to turn off the engine and get out of the car. Once the ISIS soldiers establish that the man is Lebanese, they proceed to enthusiastically ask if he is related to a Lebanese celebrity. This dialogue pokes fun at the ISIS soldiers being seduced by popular culture references which are forbidden in an ISIS universe. In response, the Lebanese man says that he is not related to the celebrity before adding: ‘I don’t watch TV because it is haram’. The fact that the Lebanese character is quick to assure the ISIS soldiers that he himself adheres to a fundamentalist stance of considering TV as strictly prohibited, can be interpreted as a reference to ritualized performative piety. Nevertheless, it can also be construed as the Lebanese character being far more religiously conservative and consistent than the two ISIS soldiers who may publicly denounce popular culture as haram only to wallow in TV dramas and music videos and admire celebrities 209

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in private. The segment with the Lebanese man ends with him being asked how many prayer components (raq’at) he had prayed for the dawn prayer, to which he responds two obligatory prayers and two voluntary ones. The ISIS soldiers seem pleased with this answer until they ask him where he prayed. When the Lebanese man says that he prayed in the mosque, one of the ISIS soldiers whacks him on the head and scolds him, ‘You forgot two extra prayers for the mosque’. We then see the Lebanese man move out of the screen and we hear a gunshot. While we do not witness the murder, the Lebanese character’s death is implied. For readers unfamiliar with prayer rituals in Islam, this latter rule about adding on two prayers for the mosque is entirely fictional. Thus, the joke serves as an example of how extremists like ISIS make up and impose upon others a series of random rules which they arbitrarily label ‘Islamic’ or ‘true Islam’. On a more sombre note, Ramsay and Alkheder (2020) maintain that the ‘Daesh’ skit mirrors a specific incident, namely the brutal killing of Alawite truck drivers by ISIS in a similar checkpoint encounter. One decisive factor in support of this analysis is that the Alawite truck drivers had been questioned about Sunni prayer rituals. This interrogation about Sunni prayers is mimicked in ‘Daesh’ and serves to underscore the skit’s general critique of ISIS. Against this backdrop, this segment provides a critical and comedic commentary on the nonsensical arbitrary borders of ‘religious’ commitment, dictated by extremist understandings of Islam and the violence it inspires. Throughout the ‘Daesh’ skit, many of the characters refer to ‘takh takh’ which is the equivalent to ‘pew pew’ in English and mimics the sound of gun shots. The repeated use of ‘takh takh’ illustrates how the shooting is spoken about in a cartoonish and video-​game way. Moreover, the light-​hearted delivery of the takh takhs are incongruous with the serious backdrop of armed ISIS soldiers at a checkpoint, and this becomes a running joke. This playful vibe is also present when the second civilian appears at the checkpoint, on foot, and a group of ISIS men sneak up on him before pouncing on him, as if playing a game of hide and seek (albeit enhanced with rifles in hand). The ISIS soldiers laugh heartily at their own prank and then one of them asks the man an utterly whimsical question about how many A’s there are in an authoritative collection of Islamic texts. The pedestrian does not even try to answer but instead amicably responds, ‘I will take a “takh’’’ and then walks out of sight (that is, out of camera view); then, once again, we hear the sound of a bullet being fired. ‘Daesh’ at times relishes in absurd dialogue. For instance, the longest stretch of the ‘Daesh’ sketch is a conversation between the two (main) ISIS characters and a Jordanian man. The ISIS soldiers burst into laughter when he states that his name is ‘Khokha’, which means ‘peach’ in Arabic.10 They crack a couple of name-​related jokes, but they appear not to believe that Khokha is indeed his name, so they ask for his ID papers. When examining these, the 210

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ISIS men spot that Khokha is listed as ‘Christian’ on his national ID card. One of the ISIS soldiers sceptically probes: ‘You are Christian?’ Khokha responds ‘yes’, upon which he receives a slap on the face. This is followed by a parodic conversation between the two ISIS soldiers, when one of them calls dibs at killing Khokha. This banter erupts into a quarrel about who gets to kill Khokha since killing a Christian will land them more ‘points’ (hasanat) for good deeds (in the afterlife) than killing a Muslim. One of the ISIS men weighs in: ‘I shot five Muslims, this one is Christian’, insinuating that it is far more lucrative to kill one Christian than five Muslims. A silly and inconsistent point system is then discussed. It is important to note that embedded within this joke there is a critique of the fact that extremists who commit violence in the name of Islam often target Muslims and may in fact be killing more Muslims than Christians or people of other faiths (or no faith). This scene also functions as a commentary on the devaluation of Muslims’ lives, not just in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) but in the world at large. The conflict between the two ISIS soldiers escalates when they pounce on each other with weapons in hand. Suddenly, Khokha intervenes and suggests that they each use a bullet on him and thereby share the hasanat for killing him. The climax of this scene is when Khokha has a heart attack and the two ISIS soldiers are sad that he died without giving them the chance to kill him. A surreal, game-​like mood penetrates parts of the skit. These two ISIS soldiers sound like they actually care about Khokha, when they are uttering his name softly, and gently slapping his face, saying variants of: ‘Khokha, please wake up so we can get the hasanat’ and ‘wake up and we will shoot you a bit and then you go back to dying again’. The delivery of these lines is for the most part in a gentle, soft, caring tone and the juxtaposing of all the friendly verbal cues and moral stances makes up for a highly absurd and dark humorous backdrop when the issue at hand is the casual execution of Khokha. This segment rests on the premise that the gravity of the violence and the killings escapes the ISIS soldiers. Furthermore, the image that is painted is one of immature ISIS soldiers who are ‘playing soldiers’ in a childlike game, for whom this is all just make-​believe. Thus, the ISIS soldiers’ (recurring) insistence that Khokha wake up, so they can kill him again, also insinuates that ISIS soldiers have only a fleeting grasp on reality in their game-​like existence, where they see Khokha as ‘playing dead’, then being resurrected or getting a new life, and subsequently getting to the next level of their checkpoint game. In this manner, ‘Daesh’ is packed with darkly humorous critiques of senseless killing. The meaninglessness of the gratuitous violence is palpable in nearly all scenes. Moreover, the ISIS characters are mocked for being stupid, childish brutes. Still, their portrayal as weirdly friendly and boorishly clumsy somehow softens the blow and makes it less antagonistic. Put differently, 211

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the ISIS soldiers are humanized, even if they are portrayed as violent idiots, who do not know any better. The humanizing segments of the skit are conveyed through an absurd comedy style, particularly in the dialogues with the characters who pass through the checkpoint. The social clumsiness and at times misplaced kindness in these dialogues humanizes the ISIS soldiers and eventually leads to the absurd Stockholm syndrome twist, where Khokha sympathetically offers the two ISIS characters the prospect of sharing the heavenly rewards of killing him, before reeling over with a heart attack. This humanization depicts the ISIS characters as ‘flawed and misled individuals who are, implicitly at least, candidates for rehabilitation into society’ (Ramsay and Alkheder, 2020: 205). Throughout ‘Daesh’, the arbitrariness of the ISIS soldiers’ questions at the checkpoint, and their alleged importance conveys a critique of a corrupted version of Islam which becomes a main point of ridicule. Likewise, the childlike and immature playing with life and death becomes a meta comment about the ISIS soldiers’ inability to understand the gravity of what they are a part of, either due to immaturity or to dimness. The skit ends with an Israeli pedestrian being ushered through, and no further questions asked. This ending serves as a pertinent commentary on some of the surprising alliances that are forged in MENA, a point I shall return to. All in all, ‘Daesh’ only somewhat fulfils the audience’s expectations of the ISIS soldiers to be ruthless, harsh, and extremely violent. In the next section, we take a closer look at how ‘Daesh’ and ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ draw on distinctive intertextual references and comedic tools.

‘Daesh’ versus ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’: decoding ISIS jokes Ridicule ‘can be a form of aggression’ and the act of mocking someone can be understood ‘as a form of hostility’ (Kuipers, 2009: 223). This certainly holds true for the material analyzed in this chapter. It may come as no surprise that with a target such as ISIS, both skits launch a critique of ISIS’ ideas and activities through the tool of mockery. ‘Daesh’ and ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ are both unquestionably hostile toward ISIS and their grooming activities and proclivity for violence. In fact, most of the embedded jokes are packed with critique of ISIS’ modus operandi and heavy on intertextual references. Together, the Arabic skit ‘Daesh’ and the English skit ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ ridicule the brutalities and violence committed by extremists (be it chaining up women, beheadings, or killing those passing through a checkpoint). They also critique the meaninglessness of such violent acts and the twisted ideologies from which they spring. Nonetheless, their stylistic choices are quite different. The intertextual references embedded 212

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in each skit draw on both cultural and political references that the imagined audiences are likely to pick up on. Intertextuality is one of the main tools in satire. Hence, understanding (and appreciating) satirical skits such as ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ and ‘Daesh’ is highly reliant on viewers’ prior and contextual knowledge. It is this knowledge which enables audiences to decode and interpret satire either favourably or unfavourably (Boukes et al, 2015). According to Kuipers (2009), humour marks social boundaries through knowledge. In her own words, ‘humor requires three forms of knowledge: knowledge to decode the joke, to recognise the incongruity, and humor-​specific knowledge about genres and scripts, as well as specialised knowledge to decode “meta-​humor” ’ (Kuipers, 2009: 229). Thus, humour not only unites or divides across lines of personal taste, but social boundaries and structures of knowledge also ease or obscure audiences’ comprehension of jokes. In the case of political satire about ISIS, having background knowledge about the organization, their militancy and recruitment processes will feed into the viewer’s experience of amusement. Still, ‘Daesh’ and ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ were created in dissimilar corners of the world, in different languages and with diverse target audiences in mind. Thus, ‘Daesh’ and ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ draw on specific cultural and intertextual references that may resonate with their main target audience. ‘Daesh’ and ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ certainly display some interesting similarities and differences in the comedic techniques and the intertextual references they employ. For instance, while ‘Daesh’ is a less upbeat and cheerful skit than ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’, it too relies on incongruity, particularly in the form of misplaced friendly amicable chit-​ chat in hostile situations, such as under gunpoint. Much like in the case of ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’, ‘Daesh’ singles out ISIS and extremists as the clear targets of ridicule. In both skits there is no ambiguity or blurriness between ‘ordinary Muslims’ and members of ISIS. The juxtaposing of such serious offences and violence with an innate friendliness and everydayness is a similar comedic technique to the one employed in ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’. There is a comparatively stronger emphasis on showing the arbitrariness in addition to the absurdities of the extremist worldview in ‘Daesh’. This might also be related to the imagined audience. ‘Daesh’ is produced for an Arabic-​speaking audience who will for the most part be familiar with mainstream understandings of Islamic teachings, and thus be well-​equipped to recognize absurd, distorted, and arbitrary elements deemed ‘Islamic’ by ISIS. British audiences are likely to have a more uneven understanding of both ISIS and Islam, but neither are strictly necessary to decode the comedy in ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’. Familiarity with the news stories about ISIS successfully recruiting women from the UK will suffice as a main point of reference. 213

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At the very outset, the thematic focus of each skit reflects the different regional effects of ISIS’ activities. ‘Daesh’ focuses on how ordinary citizens in the Arab world, trying to get from point A to Z, are stopped and harassed by ISIS at the checkpoint. That is to say, ‘Daesh’ focuses on how arbitrary brutality and warfare seeps into the everyday lives of Arabs, causing fractures in their lives and at times tearing apart lives in the most literal sense. In contrast, ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’, while set in the IS state, focuses on the female recruits leaving the plush pleasures of the UK for a life of violence and (backward) hardship. The characters are not local to MENA, but British converts to Islam or Muslims born and bred in the UK. While ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ invariably uses these characters to ridicule ISIS, the focus is nonetheless on ISIS’ impact on the UK. More specifically, the overarching focus of the skit is ISIS’ grooming activities and their recruitment of British citizens to their ranks. The jokes are definitely on ISIS, but always with a sense of distance to the target. In ‘Daesh’, the target seems a lot closer. This may also account for some of the dramatological differences. ‘Daesh’ intermingles slapstick comedy with elements of sombre drama which has been a typical trait for Arab comedy that toys with Islam and extremism (Ramsay and Alkheder, 2020).11 In the original Watan ala Watar version of ‘Daesh’, the break with the typical conventions of comedy is further enhanced by the fact that ‘Daesh’ actually uses some real live footage from the Alawite truck driver incident in ISIS territories, footage which is blended into the end of the skit (Ramsay and Alkheder, 2020: 117).12 In contrast, ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ is consistently comedic throughout the skit. Moreover, adherence to The Real Housewives genre functions not just as a meta joke about the genre of real housewives, but also as a tool for structuring (and tightening) the skit. The intertextual references in each skit reflect symbolic boundaries not only in terms of cultural and geographical references, but also in the form of transgressive humour (Kuipers, 2009: 229). In a similar vein, Ramsay and Alkheder (2020) divulge that, when writing their book Joking About Jihad, people in the UK on the whole found the topic ‘sick’, ‘grotesque’, or no laughing matter. In contrast, their contacts in the Arab world for the most part appear to have ‘thicker skin’ and welcome this sort of black humour. This type of satire builds on a long tradition of dark political humour in the region. Political satire permeates cultural production and everyday conversations. In fact, toying with political strife is so embedded into cultural contexts that it is expressed even in the darkest of times –​or perhaps more accurately –​ because of dire times.13 ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ is packed with transgressive humour, an example of which is the casual reference to beheadings in the skit. Kuipers (2009) argues that an often-​used humour and transgressive technique is triggering disgust in the viewer. While disgust is often talked about in terms 214

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of bodily excrements and the likes (Oppliger and Zillman, 1997), disgust is also a primary affect that is triggered when watching satire about grotesque topics, such as ISIS beheadings or chaining women to a stove, as depicted in ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’. As Ramsay and Alkheder (2020) argue, there is a fine line between satirizing the deeply disturbing practices of ISIS in a comical way and ceasing to be funny altogether. But, as Kuipers (2009) argues, transgressive humour that does not go far enough, falls flat. The bitter aftertaste of transgressive humour such as that portrayed in ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ comes from disgust, directed at both ISIS’ real horrific beheadings, and the taboo of using such real events for comedic purposes. Oppliger and Zillman (1997) speak of ‘disgust-​sensitive’ and ‘disgust-​tolerant’ audiences, arguing that these two audiences will decode the same joke differently. In the context of this chapter, a number of audience members may be repelled by ISIS per se and may consequently find themselves unable to separate their disgust for ISIS from the skit itself. Yet other viewers might find the humoristic attack distasteful and deem ISIS’ activities too grim and taboo for humoristic display. It is not uncommon to downgrade humour (as ‘unfunny’) when one finds it offensive (Oppliger and Zillman, 1997). The probability of audiences responding with unlaughter increases with jokes that deal with taboo or draw on disgust (Smith, 2009). Nonetheless, some viewers will be highly amused by the offensive comedic packaging of the ‘Daesh’ and ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ skits. According to Oppliger and Zillman (1997), rebellious personalities enjoy disgust in humour to the fullest. In a sense, for some viewers, the more shocking or disgusting or inappropriate, the funnier a joke might be perceived. Contextual factors, such as the audiences’ proximity to ISIS’ activities and the degree to which ISIS affects the everyday life of the viewers, may also play a role in perceiving the parodies as acutely funny, comic relief, tasteless, or too close to home. While ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ draws heavily on the sensationalist newsworthy aspects, the suicide mission, the hardship of war, and gender roles, ‘Daesh’ focuses more on the local repercussions of having ISIS as your next-door neighbour, even mixing real footage with the comedic material to create a more blurry comedic expression that simultaneously hurts and makes you laugh. In a sense, the close proximity of the effects of ISIS surfaces in the comedic expression and thematic focus. The critique of Israel for its occupation of Palestine in ‘Daesh’ also betrays a proximity to the target of ridicule. The checkpoint, as the setting for ‘Daesh’, is another example of intertextuality. In addition to the literal reference to ISIS checkpoints, the skit alludes to Israeli checkpoints in Palestine and to pan-​Arab responses to the conflict. Also, the Palestine–​Israel conflict is highlighted in the final punchline of ‘Daesh’. In the very last segment, an Israeli pedestrian is beckoned to walk through the checkpoint. The ISIS 215

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soldiers give the Israeli VIP treatment, utterly devoid of any interrogation or antagonism. He is simply met with, ‘Welcome. Welcome’ instead of the customary erratic combination of friendliness and hostility, characteristic of all previous encounters. In terms of encoding social critique into the political humour, the reference to the Palestine–​Israel conflict is important in ‘Daesh’. In fact, the Israeli pedestrian is the only person to get through the checkpoint alive. The three Arabs (of different faiths) who tried to pass through before the Israeli all suffered their demise at the hands of ISIS. Thus, ‘Daesh’ also embeds a regional critique of leaving Palestinians to fend for themselves. More specifically, the punchline can be interpreted as a stab at ISIS (and other militants in the region) for making deals with Israel or whoever suits them without having a principled stance on their own citizens’ wellbeing, Arab politics at large, or freeing Palestine. While both ‘Daesh’ and ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ mock the absurd conventions that ISIS abides by, it is only ‘Daesh’ that makes explicit reference to Islamic teachings or uses any terminology that is interlinked to the main tenets of Islam, even if this is done in an intentionally distorted way. This very distortion exemplifies Kuipers’ (2009) point about the symbolic boundaries that are drawn up on the basis of knowledge. Indeed, understanding the embedded jokes in the series of dialogues between the ISIS soldiers and the characters trying to get through the checkpoint requires basic knowledge about Islam. It is via general knowledge about Islam that a viewer would be able to recognize what the ISIS soldiers say as distorted versions of mainstream Islamic teachings. While ‘Daesh’ refers to the ISIS soldiers’ corrupted understandings of Islamic knowledge, it also reconstructs dialogue based on real interrogations of Alawite citizens who were, in fact, massacred at the hands of ISIS. The target Arabic-​speaking audience for ‘Daesh’ is likely to be familiar with both the absurdist and distorted understandings of Islamic teachings perpetuated by the ISIS characters and share an antipathy for both ISIS and their skewed understanding of Islam. ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’, for the most part, steers away from any explicit verbal references to Islam. In fact, if it were not for the visual cues such as the ISIS wives’ ‘abbayias (long, loose robe worn over other garments) and hijabs, there would be no reference to the main characters being Muslims or Muslim coverts. Nonetheless, the militant group ISIS’ controversial and self-​ declared linkages to Islam serve as a backdrop to the skit. The only mention of Islamic terminology is the reference to the word jihad which means ‘struggle’ and has multiple connotations ranging from inner struggle to violent combat. It is the latter meaning that is thrown about in global news and is referred to in this skit while the ISIS wife (Jane) is modelling the suicide vest in the aforementioned Instagrammable moment. In this context, ‘#JihadiJane’ is funny due to the alliteration and the juxtaposing of the very average British name ‘Jane’ with the word jihad(i), and further because of the absurdity of 216

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cheerfully hashtagging an imminent violent act on Instagram. Still, no real or in-​depth knowledge of Islam or MENA is needed to decode these jokes. The intertextual references are mostly to local current events (recruitment of women from Birmingham) and global news stories (beheadings, warfare, ISIS’ media platforming), and the meta humour about The Real Housewives reality genre. And, the fact that these women are so clearly depicted as ISIS wives, and not as ‘ordinary Muslim wives’, sends a clear message about who the target of ridicule is. This is particularly important in a global political climate where ordinary Muslims with no affiliations to –​or sympathies for –​any militant groups, are increasingly scapegoated as sympathizers or as potential security threats in the wake of acts of terrorism carried out in the name of Islam (Kinnvall and Nesbitt-​Larking, 2011; Liebmann, 2018). Another very clear difference between the two skits is the gender-​ composition embedded in the plot. In consequence, ‘Daesh’ features only male characters and ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ only features female characters. It is not a coincidence that ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ gives voice and agency to ISIS women. It functions as a counternarrative to the news stories that render the women recruited to ISIS as empty vessels with no voice, agency, or willpower. Similarly, the humanizing of male ISIS soldiers in ‘Daesh’, serves as a counternarrative against the herd-​like quality with which they are portrayed in both regional and global news. Still, viewers do not have to fully understand all the intertextual references in ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ and ‘Daesh’ to find them funny. Audiences may also relish the unexpectedness of what is perceived as strange (Boukes et al, 2015: 723). Some studies (Becker and Waisanen, 2013; Boukes et al, 2015) suggest that audiences will only laugh when unfavourably disposed to the target of ridicule or when the satire is not experienced as a personal attack on oneself. That is to say, being sceptical of or having antipathy for ISIS will (in this context) lend itself to appreciating ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ and ‘Daesh’ skits even more. In both skits, the object of ridicule is clearly ISIS. Such ISIS parodies poke fun at the terrorists, focusing on the stupidity, randomness, and meaninglessness of their violence. While it can be argued that this humour strengthens negative stereotypes about ISIS and/​or terrorists who operate ‘in the name of Islam’, ordinary Muslims are kept out of the equation or are depicted as distinctly different from terrorists. In other words, these distinctions are clear-​cut in the skits themselves (particularly when compared with, for instance, the Danish Muḥammad cartoons, in which the link between Muslimness and extremism is far more blurry). Still, there is no guarantee that viewers will maintain this clear distinction in their minds (and hearts) after watching either ‘Daesh’ or ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’. A number of quantitative audience studies on political humour suggest that partisan viewers will read their own overarching politics into comedy (Becker and Waisanen, 2013).14 217

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This means that audiences with diametrically opposite political stances may perceive ‘Daesh’ and ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ as an affirmation of their own worldview. In effect, viewers who operate with a clear distinction between ISIS and ordinary Muslims and viewers who believe the distinction to be non-​existent, may potentially interpret the jokes in ‘Daesh’ or ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ as being in alignment with their own politics. Evidently, ‘putting the fun back into fundamentalism’ is no uncomplicated task, even if the last laugh is inevitably on ISIS.

Conclusion Political satire and skits about ISIS seem to have two functions beyond being (potentially) funny: critiquing a twisted understanding of Islam and dismantling fear –​that is, signalling to the terrorists that their attempts at paralysing the world with fear are futile. In fact, satire and counter-​narratives about ISIS can sometimes even be viewed and used as ideological warfare, a means of combatting ISIS’ influence in the world. Mockery and exposure of meaningless violence, absurdities and inconsistencies, or hollowness of ideological views can serve to undermine the appeal of terrorist groups such as ISIS (Al-​Rawi, 2016; Ramsay and Alkheder, 2020). As argued by Kuipers, ‘Humour is a very potent way of drawing symbolic boundaries’ (2009: 219). This is particularly true of highly transgressive and potentially offensive humour such as the ISIS skits discussed in this chapter. Political satire, with its dense intertextual references, sets up symbolic boundaries separating those who find the jokes offensive and those who do not. In this sense, both ‘Daesh’ and ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ serve to divide collectives, not only between friends and foes of ISIS, but also between fans of different kinds of comedy. Notes 1

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Most notably The Axis of Evil Comedy Show featuring comedians Dean Obidellah, Aron Kader, Ahmed Ahmed, and Maz Jobrani. Other comedians who have contributed to this genre include Maysoon Zayid and Omid Djalili. This genre is not to be confused with jihadi humour prescribed and condoned by ISIS themselves, as discussed by Alagha (this volume) Hizbullah’s own halal jokes. As argued by Amin (Chapter 4 in this volume), it is baffling that Muslims have been cast as ‘humourless’, particularly when coupled with the fact that it is possible to trace so-​called ‘Muslim humour’ all the way back to medieval sources, and there is a strong tradition for comedy in most Muslim majority countries. Ultra-​conservative Muslims are poked fun at in the same way as militant fundamentalists (with less emphasis on brutality and violence), portrayed as ignorant, hypocritical, and over-​sexed. The Salafi conservative religious character in the famous Egyptian comedy The Terrorists & Kebab in the 1990s certainly fits the bill. Another classic trope in many of the skits is a silly dialogue in exaggerated or badly executed classical Arabic. This latter

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was invoked on several occasions during my fieldwork with Islam Online in Cairo, when research participants wished to poke fun at very conservative Muslims (Abdel-​Fadil, 2012). In Arabic, D.A.E.S.H. is an acronym equivalent to I.S.I.S., but with an additional connotation of ‘crushing’ or ‘trampling’ or even ‘bigotry’ depending on the dialect and conjugation. ISIS despises being called ‘Daesh’, so using this term is an act of resistance, particularly when coupled with ISIS’ threat to cut off the tongues from anyone who uses the term (Garrity, 2015). The reality is of course far more complex. Both serial monogamy and extramarital sexual relations exist in Muslim communities. While polygamy is practised in some communities, it is far from the norm. See for instance, BBC 4’s Getting On. The Palestinian film Paradise Now deals beautifully with this eerie paradox. Several studies suggest that Muslims are often but not exclusively portrayed in comedy through negative stereotypes. See for example Sjö (2019); Hirzalla & van Zoonen (2016); Ahmed (2013) for more on a detailed analysis. See also Chapter 11 in this volume: ‘Comedy as Social Commentary in Little Mosque on the Prairie: Decoding Humour in the First ‘Muslim Sitcom’ ’. Khokha, incidentally, is also the name of a peach-​coloured furry muppet on the Egyptian version of Sesame Street. The Arabic ISIS parodies typically joke about twisted understandings of Islam and violence, but also about sexuality and oppressive gender roles. A number of them directly target Al-​Bukhari, the leader of ISIS (at the time). For instance, in a satirical song by the Lebanese band ‘The Great Departed’, ISIS’ front figure, al Baghdadi’s understanding of Islam is ridiculed through the lines: ‘because Islam is merciful we slaughter and divide the meat’. This pitch-​dark humour is a wordplay which functions as a reference to both ISIS beheadings and the Islamic tradition of dividing meat (from slaughtered animals) among the poor as part of Zakat. This song is recorded before a live audience and receives too many outbursts of laughter and cheer to count (Mackey, 2014). The live ISIS footage is omitted in the Rotana version of the skit. For instance, during the so-​called Arab Spring when ordinary citizens took to the streets of Cairo to protest against political dictatorship, the police responded by bashing demonstrators with battons, snipe-​shooting, sexual violence, and the lesser evil: tear gas. In response, Egyptian demonstrators showcased their remarkable resilience and dark sense of humour by playfully displaying all their creative ad hoc gas protection masks and body shields, made from regular household items or pieces of garbage. These iconic images travelled around the world. There was also a point in the upheaval when demonstrators chanted, ‘The people want the old tear gas’, as a facetious reference to the fact that the police forces had recently switched to using expired tear gas which was causing more severe damage to the demonstrators’ eyes and lungs. Moreover, the wording and rhythmic delivery was undoubtedly a play on the iconic (political) slogan –​‘The people want the regime to fall’–​that set the Arab world ablaze in 2011. Negative and even Islamophobic stereotypes about Muslims may surface in comedy as demonstrated by Ahmed (2013).

References Abdel-​Fadil, M. (2012) ‘Living ‘the Message’ and Empowering Muslim Selves: A Behind the Screens Study of Online Islam’, PhD thesis, Oslo: University of Oslo.

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Ahmed, A. (2013) ‘Faith in comedy: representations of Muslim identity in British comedy’, South Asian Popular Culture 11(1): 91–​96. doi:10.1080/​ 14746689.2013.765232. Al Arabiya (2014) ‘Theme Song of Iraqi Sitcom Mocking ISIS Goes Viral’, [online] 30 September. Available from: https://​engl​ish.alarab​ iya.net/​en/​vari​ety/​2014/​09/​30/​Theme-​song-​of-​Iraqi-​sit​com-​mock​ ing-​ISIS-​goes-​viral. Al-​Rawi, A. (2016) ‘Anti-​ISIS Humor: Cultural Resistance of Radical’, Ideology, Politics, Religion & Ideology, 17:1, 52–​68. Baym, G. (2005) ‘The Daily Show: discursive integration and the reinvention of political journalism’, Political Communication 22(3): 259–​276. doi:10.1080/​10584600591006492. Becker, A. B. and Waisanen, D. J. (2013) ‘From funny features to entertaining effects: connecting approaches to communication research on political comedy’, Review of Communication 13(3): 161–​1 83. doi:10.1080/​ 15358593.2013.826816. Boukes, M., Boomgaarden, H. G., Moorman, M. and de Vreese, C. H. (2015) ‘At odds: laughing and thinking? The appreciation, processing, and persuasiveness of political satire’, Journal of Communication 65(5): 721–​744. doi:10.1111/​jcom.12173. Daily Dot. (2015) ‘How Muslims make fun of ISIS’, The Daily Dot, [online] 21 January. Available from: www.dailydot.com/ ​ d ebug/​ muslim-​comedy-​videos-​make-​fun-​of-​isis-​is-​al-​qaeda/​ Daily Dot. (2021) ‘How Arab comedians mock ISIS and Al-​Qaeda on YouTube’, The Daily Dot, [online]. Available from: https://​www.dailydot. com/​debug/​muslim-​comedy-​videos-​make-​fun-​of-​isis-​is-​al-​qaeda/​ Freij, M. (2015) ‘Palestinian comedy group believes in importance of laughter despite regional unrest’, Jordan Times, [online] 16 July. Available from: http://​jordantimes.com/​news/​local/​palestinian-​comedy-​g roup-​ believes-​importance-​laughter-​despite-​regional-​unrest Garrity, P. (2015) ‘Paris Attacks: What Does ‘Daesh’ Mean and Why Does ISIS Hate It?’, NBC News [online]. Available from: https://​www. nbcnews.com/​storyline/​isis-​terror/​paris-​attacks-​what-​does-​daesh-​mean-​ why-​does-​isis-​hate-​n463551 Godioli, A. (2020) ‘Cartoon controversies at the European Court of Human Rights: towards forensic humor studies’, Open Library of Humanities 6(1): 22. doi: http://​doi.org/​10.16995/​olh.571 Hirzalla, F. and van Zoonen, L. (2016) “‘The Muslims are coming”: the enactment of morality in activist Muslim comedy’, HUMOR 29(2): 261–​ 278. doi:10.1515/​humor-​2015-​0125 Kamin, D. (2014) ‘Arab TV works to counter Isis and stereotypes with satire’, Variety, [online]. Available from: https://​variety.com/​2014/​tv/​ global/​arab-​tv-​counters-​isis-​with-​humor-​1201330106/​ 220

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Khalaf, R. (2017) ‘This video mocked ISIS housewives. not everyone is laughing’, Step Feed, [online] 5 January. Available from: https://​stepfeed. com/​this-​video-​mocked-​isis-​housewives-​not-​everyone-​s-​laughing-​3336 Kinnvall, C. and Nesbitt-​Larking, P. (2011) The Political Psychology of Globalization, Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/​acprof:oso/​ 9780199747542.001.0001 Kuipers, G. (2009) ‘Humor styles and symbolic boundaries’, Journal of Literary Theory 3(2): 219–​239. doi:https://​doi.org/​10.1515/​JLT.2009.013 Liebmann, L.L. (2018) ‘Media, Muslims and minority tactics: compelling dialogues in Norway’, in K. Lundby (ed) Contesting Religion, Berlin: De Gruyter, pp 187–​204. doi:10.1515/​9783110502060-​016 Mackey, R. (2014) ‘Mocking ISIS in Beirut’, The New York Times, [online] 10 September. Available from: www.nytimes.com/​2014/​09/​11/​world/​ middleeast/​mocking-​isis-​in-​beirut.html Oppliger, P. A. and Zillmann, D. (1997) ‘Disgust in humor: its appeal to adolescents’, HUMOR 10(4): 421–​438. doi:https://​doi.org/​10.1515/​ humr.1997.10.4.421 Ramsay, G. and Alkheder, M. (2020) Joking About Jihad: Comedy and Terror in the Arab World, London: C Hurst & Co Pub Ltd. Saul, H. (2015) ‘The Middle East Is Trolling Isis’, The Independent, [online] 5 March. Available from: www.independent.co.uk/​ n ews/​ world/​ middle-​east/​middle-​east-​trolling-​isis-​parody-​videos-​hijacking-​f amous-​ propaganda-​song-​10087107.html Sjö, S. (2019) ‘Humor som bro eller hinder: Islam i två norska filmkomedier’, Ingen spøk, pp 119–​140. Cappelen Damm Akademisk/​ NOASP. doi:10.23865/​noasp.69.ch6 Smith, M. (2009) ‘Humor, unlaughter, and boundary maintenance’, The Journal of American Folklore 122(484): 148–​171. doi:10.2307/​20487675 Taylor. A. (2015) ‘11 times the Middle East mocked the Islamic State’, The Washington Post, online. Available from: https://​www.washingtonpost. com/​ n ews/​ worldviews/​ w p/​ 2 015/​ 0 3/​ 0 6/​ w atch-​ 1 1-​ t imes-​ t he-​ middle-​east-​mocked-​the-​islamic-​state/​ Trofimov, Y. (n.d.) ‘Syrian filmmakers mock Islamic State in satirical videos’, The Wall Street Journal, [online]. Available from: https://o ​ nline.wsj. com/​articles/​syrian-​filmmakers-​mock-​islamic-​state-​in-​satirical-​videos-​ 1422910097?reflink=​desktopwebshare_​permalink Comedy cited • ‘Daesh’ • Omid Djalili, No Agenda • BBC 4’s Getting On • Monty Python, Four Yorkshire Men • The Axis of Evil Comedy Show 221

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• The Colbert Report • The Daily Show • ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ • Terrorism and Kebab (al-​irhab w-​al-​kebab)

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PART IV

Muslim Comedy in North America

10

Queering Islam in Performance: Gender and Sexuality in American Muslim Women’s Stand-​up Comedy Jaclyn A. Michael

Introduction: What kind of Muslim are you? American Muslim stand-​up comedy is a very American cultural practice that showcases the diversity of this religious community in various clubs, performance halls, and in social media spaces such as YouTube. In their performances, comics draw from personal experiences to describe and critique stereotypes and assumptions about what it means to be Muslim in America today. Travina Springer (2017), a Black comic who recently converted to Islam, jokes about how she has to deal with others’ expectations of her new religious identity: ‘People are like, “But what kind of Muslim are you? Are you like … Muslim-M ​ uslim?” [laughter] I’m like, you know, I am regular. Like, “As seen on TV.” [laughter] That kind of Muslim. But not the angry one! I’m not angry. Come on –​look at my face!’ [smiles broadly] Comic Zahra Noorbakhsh (2016b) similarly addresses what people may expect of her, an Iranian American Muslim, with a joke that describes her diverse lifestyles: ‘I usually identify myself as the pork-​eating, alcohol-​ drinking, pre-​marital-​sex-​having kind of Muslim right away. [laughter] Yeah. Pork eaters in the house!’ What kind of Muslim are you? These performers are in fact many different kinds of being Muslim –​they are Black, female, eat pork, drink 225

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alcohol, and have sex outside of marriage. Jokes like these illustrate how Muslim humourists are challenging standard assumptions and are literally embodying a diverse American religious community –​one that includes their backgrounds, experiences, and identities. Yet comics like Springer and Noorbakhsh are not typical performers in a genre usually known for and defined by its heteronormativity. They are part of a trend in stand-​up humour that I argue queers (see below) the ways in which the American Muslim community and Islam are defined, particularly in terms of gender, sexuality, and the body. In performances that are more than simple entertainment, these humourists testify to the many kinds of being American and Muslim that includes both genders, diverse sexualities, and various abilities. This chapter draws from the recent stand-​up humour of American Muslim performers who identify as women, and some as LGTBQ+​, who speak on matters related to religion, gender, and sexuality in their performance material. Taking comic material as text, I use the methods of literary analysis to identify and then examine the messages and implications of jokes as they are embedded in larger contexts of public discourse. My evaluation identifies several trends in their performances through how these voices represent being Muslim in terms of gender, sexuality, and the body. In their stand-​up humour, these performers embody an Islam that is feminine, queer, and differently abled, thus challenging the power of male cisgendered (someone whose gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth) and normative bodies that usually define the Muslim community. Their efforts are political because they seek to deconstruct dehumanizing stereotypes of Muslim women and replace those by articulating their empowerment and control in their lives and in the decisions they make. They confront the gendered dimensions of Islamophobia by drawing attention to how women are particularly defined by its illogical assumptions. As they create space through their performances for discussions about matters of how gender and sexuality are related to belonging in the Muslim community, these comics show how modes of being American Muslims are constructed outside the purview of traditional Islamic authority and discourse. The dynamics of representing being Muslim through the perspectives of one’s gender, sexuality, and body in stand-​up performance demonstrate how these aspects of minority Muslim lives are constructing new ideas of community and Muslim traditions.

Theory and method of queering Islam in women’s stand-​up performance The stand-​up comics discussed in this chapter use publicly performed humour as a method of what I describe as ‘queering’ Islam. Although the word has historically served as a slur to marginalize gay men and women, 226

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today queer (as an adjective and a verb) is used to affirm non-​binary culture and to critique heteronormativity. Queer theory has developed as an academic field of study since the early 1990s, and queer approaches to the study of religion engage and interrupt the power and authority of heteronormative ideologies in defining and legitimizing all aspects of religious life (Schippert, 2011: 66–​84). My approach to queering Islam starts with basing the data of this chapter in the humour and experiences of Muslim women whose voices are often overlooked or distorted in American popular culture. In her study of the queer nuns of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Melissa Wilcox (2018: 186) describes the method of queering religion as how ‘some queer communities challenge and rework traditional approaches to religion, spirituality, ethics, and ritual’. As I will describe, marginal voices challenge how the Muslim identity and community is customarily defined as cisgendered, male, and able-bodied. They also use humour and performance to confront larger ideological discourses that have some basis in myopic assumptions about gender and sexuality. Claudia Schippert (2011: 81–​83) argues that queer analysis is a method of contesting the heteronormative logics that support religious and political ideologies, whether it be oppressive Muslim attitudes or Islamophobia. The kinds of Muslim-​ness that these performers articulate are evidence of the power of queer approaches to reframing and dismantling ideas that regularly dehumanize their communities. Analyzing the intended messages of stand-​up humour includes the perspective of the comic and the particular social contexts that make jokes relevant. In this chapter, I describe the socially critical purposes of humour and the broader discourses that this humour is in conversation with. For this I rely on the concept of the ‘pedagogical directive’, an idea developed by Bambi Haggins in her study of Black American stand-​up comedians. Haggins (2007: 7) describes how a performer can also change their audiences’ ideas: ‘in order for the comedic discourse produced by the black comic to be effectively edifying, it must be self-​aware and self-​reflexive –​able to illicit [sic] thought along with the laughter’. Yet stand-​up comics prompt thought with more than just their words. As they perform in front of audiences, they bring their bodies into play and employ the body as an opportunity to re-​signify the meanings inscribed on them by society, religious community, and cultural contexts (Butler, 1990). Humour and joking are dynamic and subject to multiple levels of interpretation, most importantly by the audience. I acknowledge this by describing how the intended messages of jokes can also serve to reinforce the very ideas and assumptions they seek to change. Linda Hutcheon (1995) calls this the trans-​ideological nature of humour, irony, and comedy. The potential for humour and joking to serve the goals of the person performing it is subject to multiple contexts that impact how a performance makes meaning for its listeners. 227

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Religion: modes of representing Islam and being Muslim in women’s comedy The modes of being Islamic that are articulated in the humour of the female performers studied here queers how Islam is often defined by male, cisgendered heterosexuality. Islam as presented by these comics is feminine, sexual, queer, Black and Brown, and includes differently abled bodies. Themes such as religion, culture, gender, sexuality, and ability are prominent in the material of performers who contest and redefine these categories, often drawing on their personal experiences. All of the performers in this chapter describe themselves as Muslim; however, what being Muslim and being religious means, and the prominence of this identity in their creative work, varies from person to person. These performers embody and give voice to various ways of being Muslim that include challenging negative stereotypes held by others about religious aspects of their community. Their humorous work also addresses biased attitudes held by Muslims themselves. Some comedians invoke aspects of Islam and being Muslim that are defined negatively, and humorously contest the premises that construe them as foreign and threatening. They use stand-​up comedy to reveal the incongruities of contemporary Islamophobia, defined (Green, 2019: 9) as the irrational fear, hatred, and hostility toward Islam and Muslims (and people racialized as Muslim) that results in individual and systemic racism and discrimination. In the American context, Islamophobia is deeply connected to anti-​Black racism and Orientalism (Beydoun, 2018: 152–​173). These attitudes define Muslims generally as a civilizational threat to American (read as Christian) culture, and specifically exclude Black American Muslim histories and lives from the broader American Muslim experience. Anti-​Muslim prejudice has often informed American governmental activities and policies, from state surveillance of prominent Black American Muslim leaders in the twentieth century to the post-​9/​11 ‘War on Terror’, and most recently, the Trump administration’s 2017 ban on immigration from several Muslim majority countries. Similar to Islamophobic attitudes in other national contexts, American Islamophobia is a sentiment that questions the legitimacy of Islam as an American religion and results in anti-​Muslim and anti-​Black racism on both the individual and institutional level. These negative attitudes toward Muslims are also expressed in specifically gendered terms that deny Muslim women’s agency and the legitimate expression of their sexuality. For example, Muslim women are all simply presumed to be oppressed by Muslim men and therefore in need of being saved from these situations (Abu-​Lughod, 2002). When men do violate women, these women are understood to be victims of an inherently oppressive ‘Islam’, which incorrectly constructs a diverse community as a monolith (Hammer, 2013: 110). As I will show, a major trend in this humour 228

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is to invert these expectations and assumptions of Islamophobia, producing what Mucahit Bilici (2010: 207) describes as comedy that ‘is the world of Islamophobia turned upside down’. Zahra Noorbakhsh (2016a) uses stand-​up performance to challenge assumptions that hearing Arabic spoken is associated with negativity such as terrorism, threats, and violence. She begins her set by playing ominous sounding music and dramatically reciting (in Arabic) the bismillah, a one-​ sentence invocation naming God’s presence, mercy, and compassion that is a key verbal testimony to Islamic monotheism. It is also recited frequently in the Qur’an and when Muslims begin a journey or begin a task. After quickly surveying her audience’s reaction Noorbakhsh smiles and quickly says, ‘That’s a Muslim check’, which prompts laughter from the crowd. Arabic, whether presented as simply a language or as the language of Islam and Muslims, is often represented as strange or sinister. In opening her set this way, Noorbakhsh instead cleverly suggests that this Arabic phrase is part of a unique and exclusive Muslim culture. When Noorbakhsh recites Arabic to begin her performance, she both conjures these negative assumptions and disarms them by describing her recitation as simply part of the coolness of being Muslim. In this same performance Zahra Noorbakhsh (2016a) asks the audience to take the Muslim shahada (verbal testimony or witness) as she tells the story about trying to convince her friends to convert to Islam as a young girl as a way to get good ‘heaven’ points in the afterlife. In an effort to help her gain more points, she tells the crowd that converting to Islam is simple, and all they have to do is repeat after her (in Arabic): ‘la ilaha illa-​llah’ (there is no God but Allah). While Noorbakhsh does not explain the literal meaning of these words, the audience knows from the set up to this ‘conversion’ that this is part of becoming Muslim. She then points her microphone into the crowd and they repeat the line. Noorbakhsh smiles in triumph and proudly exclaims ‘three thousand million heaven points!’ The crowd responds with applause, and Noorbakhsh hops up and down, happily declaring ‘creeping Sharia in the house!’ ‘Sharia creep’ is a phrase commonly used in Islamophobic discourse to describe the irrational fear that Muslims are covertly working to mandate adherence to the Sharia in their local and national forms of governance (Quraishi-​Landes, 2012). Other Muslim women stand-​up comics respond to the rhetorical power of ‘Sharia creep’ with jokes that expose the inaccurate premises which define Muslims as a threat to American society. In a segment on this topic, Mariam Sobh (2017) excitedly begins with stating ‘it’s real!’ and then takes her audience through a series of examples of how Muslims are supposedly taking over the country. Children in schools thought they were preparing for a tornado by crouching on the floor in a line; however, they were actually being indoctrinated to learn ‘Muslim prayer’. The growing popularity of 229

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natural toothbrushes is what Muslims have been doing for years when they use a miswak (natural cleaning stick for oral hygiene) to brush their teeth (a preference going back to the Prophet Muḥammad). American hipsters dancing to the musical performances of Muslim musicians such as Omar Souleyman have no idea that the lyrics are supposedly messages of religious indoctrination. Sobh’s litany of how seemingly mundane aspects of American life are somehow part of a widespread plot to make America a Muslim country parodies the premises of this misplaced fear. When Muslim comics like Sobh and Noorbakhsh ridicule the premises and conclusions of fearmongering such as the supposed threat of ‘Sharia creep’, they take comic advantage of what Mucahit Bilici (2010: 197) describes as the ‘negative charisma’ that makes Muslims today comically relevant on unfortunate terms. In this humour, these women address the negativity that informs general assumptions about American Muslim lives –​their languages, their aspirations, and their identities –​and attempt to diffuse its power through pointing out its flawed conclusions. Islamophobic attitudes stereotype Muslims in gendered ways, and they impact how Muslim men and women are regularly defined negatively in matters of their religious identity, agency, and sexuality. These ideas are generated within a global discourse (and often part of justifying military interventions), which means that the actions of oppressive Muslim men in other societies influence opinions about American Muslim women’s lives (Hammer, 2013: 125). Because Muslim women are routinely dehumanized by Islamophobic assumptions about their agency (or lack of it), Muslim female comics often use stand-​up humour to address these ideas and contest their underlying logic. To many non-​Muslims, the hijab serves as a symbol and confirmation of Muslim women’s supposed oppression (Abu-​ Lughod, 2002). Comedian Tissa Hami (Baker, 2008) uses the headscarf and chador (a long outer coat) as literal props to interrogate their charged symbolism. She wears a black chador and hijab as performance costume, and during her set she takes both items off. This is part of a joke that begins by acknowledging that the audience may not know quite what to think about what she is wearing: ‘Well, you might be wondering why I’m dressed like this, and well –​I’m Muslim, and to be honest I should be wearing a long coat, but I was feeling kind of slutty today [shakes her hips side to side]. Speaking of stripping, I thought I’d do a little striptease of my own if that’s okay.’ Hami removes her outer black chador, then her headscarf and throws the clothing behind her on stage. The audience is silent, and she responds by asking for affirmation: ‘Some encouragement would be nice, but okay’. Perhaps not sure how to interpret this, the audience then reacts with applause. 230

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Hami’s comment that she was ‘feeling kind of slutty today’ gestures to the misogynistic view that Muslim women should be shamed for not dressing modestly (however that is defined). This is a sentiment found in other Muslim women’s stand-​up material, such as in comic Zainab Johnson’s (2018) performance on Late Night With Seth Meyers. Wearing a sheer black top and fully visible black bra, Johnson opened her set by acknowledging to the audience, ‘Yes I’m Muslim, and yes I’m underdressed.’ Johnson’s glib gesture to what her dress may or may not say about her suggests that she, like other Muslim women, are tired of trying to conform to others’ expectations about what they should be wearing. Hami’s intentions with her piece are to challenge the power of the hijab in defining Muslim women’s religiosity. As she (Baker, 2008) explains: ‘In Iran, where I was born, I could never get up on stage or get up anywhere in public and take off the hijab; I would get arrested on the spot. So in a place where I could do that, I wanted to do that –​to show that I’m the exact same person whether I have it on or not.’ People’s assumptions about what a Muslim woman’s dress reveals regarding her religious commitments and sexuality are part of many Muslim women comics’ humour. While some of this material seems to address non-​Muslim opinions, other humour challenges Muslim views about the women in their religious community. The stand-​up comedy of these women reveals diversity in different aspects of religious practice, and, like Tissa Hami’s hijab as costume material, challenges its power as the primary marker of a woman’s piety. Some Muslim women comics who do not wear hijab describe how their feelings about this practice have changed over time, in dialogue with God and other interested parties. Her desire not to wear a headscarf as a young girl is the main theme in Zahra Noorbakhsh’s (2016a) ‘Heaven Points’ material. Growing up in Iran, she is scolded by her schoolteacher for not wearing a hijab. This leads to the teacher explaining that in life, humans acquire both good points and bad points based on their actions; if she wants to spend the afterlife in Heaven with Allah, she had better accumulate more good, or in her youthful understanding, ‘Heaven’ points. Young Zahra has a conversation with her mother, who wears a hijab, about what the headscarf means to her. ‘I wear hijab because I like it,’ her mother explains, ‘because it is my tradition. I’m comfortable wearing it. I’ve been wearing it since I was nine years old. I feel naked without it. It is my tradition –​it doesn’t have to be your tradition.’ Zahra recalls her teacher’s admonition, and her mother continues: ‘That is Mrs Bahari’s Islam. She interprets the Qur’an one way; we see it another.’ This very personal experience reveals complexity and debate on what wearing a hijab may mean –​and may not mean –​for a Muslim woman’s religious identity. 231

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In an interview about her one-​woman performance ‘Dirty Paki Lingerie’, actress and comic Aizzah Fatima (Mohsenian-​Rahman, 2016) reflects how perceptions of Muslims have changed, nearly 15 years after the 11 September 2001 (9/​11) terrorist attacks and five years after the launch of her feature stand-​up. After 9/​11, Fatima explains, people openly questioned the very idea of a Muslim American identity. Today, she says, ‘We’re starting to see now that Muslim is a culture, not just a religious thing.’ Fatima’s comments about how her Muslim identity is both religious and cultural, captures how stand-​up comics describe and define being Muslim in diverse ways, often in cultural expressions. From the perspective of these humourists, being an American Muslim woman today means being concerned with Islamophobic attitudes that automatically render an entire language as a threat, and that harbour the fear of an impending ‘Sharia creep’. It also means speaking up about the problematic ways that a hijab serves as the primary marker of either a woman’s oppression or her piety. As they reveal incongruities about how their religious identities and commitments are understood, Muslim women participate in what Rebecca Krefting (2014: 2–​13) describes as ‘charged humour’, which is an intentional effort by the comic to use comedy to challenge social inequalities and cultural exclusion. Krefting argues that charged humour has a significant cultural value in that it is a practice that produces cultural citizenship. Aizzah Fatima’s remarks about how her religion is no longer excluded from the realm of cultural expression illustrate the connection Krefting makes between socially critical humour and participating in the American cultural project. American minorities have long taken to public spaces and performed humour as a way of calling attention to their marginalization and to expose the incongruities in American nationalist rhetoric (Boskin, 1997; Rappoport, 2005; Carpio, 2008). The sentiments of Aizzah Fatima, and the work of other women in this chapter, show how American Muslim women are the latest to participate in this historical cultural trend.

Sexualities: desire, agency, and patriarchy in Muslim women’s comedy While Islamophobic attitudes about Muslim women tend to define them as sexually oppressed, women in stand-​up comedy celebrate their diverse sexualities in their material. This is not surprising or revelatory in and of itself because jokes about sex and sexuality are a regular topic in stand-​ up performance. Stand-​up comedy is a genre of performance in which controversial or taboo topics are regularly part of its entertainment value and also its relevance to the politics of social discourse. Yet when women comics joke about sex and sexuality they are often described as ‘bawdy’ (Gilbert, 2004) or are understood as being provocative –​a label rarely applied to 232

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cisgendered male comics who tread in similar territory. Muslim women’s humour engages topics that, while some may consider them inappropriate, are serious issues they face as they live their lives. Because it is performed by comics with intersectional identities and marginalities (Crenshaw, 1991), this humour is an opportunity to interrupt the predominance of cisgendered male perspectives in defining Muslim identities today. Muslim women comics often describe their sexualities in the context of their marital relationships, which is usually done from a heterosexual perspective. Jokes about marriage, including the pressure to get married, or familial involvement with finding potential marriage partners, parody the expectations of Muslim women imposed by others, and invert conclusions that they do not have agency in these situations. Maysoon Zayid (2015) describes her quest to catch a husband at the age of 33 as more of a desire to recoup the large amount of money she has spent on her friends’ weddings than a personal desire to find a partner. Zayid, a Palestinian-​American, shares why she went to Gaza, Palestine to find her husband: ‘You want to know why I went to Gaza? ’Cause they got no place to run!’ She continues to describe how she went to a Gazan refugee camp, found a man she preferred, and instead of offering him marriage she asked if he wanted a visa (which he of course did). In this humorous retelling of how she ended up arranging her own marriage, Zayid describes her actions as practical and even political in her choice to marry a Palestinian refugee. For some Muslim families, arranged marriages are preferred by parents and children who seek to enter into a marital relationship. These types of partnerships develop in various ways, depending on a family’s traditions, intentions, and financial means. Muslim women’s comedy explores the dynamics of this approach as it draws attention to how decision makers come to biased conclusions about what makes a perfect match. In her one-​woman comedic performance ‘Dirty Paki Lingerie’, Aizzah Fatima’s (2012) material includes her take on how some Pakistani parents dictate the arrangement process. Performing as an older woman concerned for the eligible children in her family, Fatima scours matrimonial advertisements in the local paper and calls certain families to inquire further. She asks how much the family’s male suitor makes (he is a doctor) and then tries to convince them that the ‘fairness’ or skin-​tone of her female relative shouldn’t matter that much –​they are all Pakistanis, and, ‘Our girls don’t look like the white girls with the blond hair’. The older woman’s concerns with whiteness and income are exaggerated in Fatima’s performance as a method to suggest their problematic intentions. Speaking about her objectives with this material, Fatima (Mohsenian-​ Rahman, 2016) explains, ‘I just wanted to poke fun of a culture which is obsessed with marriage with that particular character, for the sake of starting a debate and conversation around these issues.’ Arranged marriages, and the questionable preoccupations that can be part of that process, are an aspect of 233

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Muslim women’s marriages and sexualities that are revealed and explored in this humour. Performances like Fatima’s are a critique of the ways in which eligible men, and especially women, can be commodified according to the unfair and unrealistic standards of both one’s family and society. Muslim women comedians who perform sexual humour meant to deliberately provoke participate in a standard comic practice to elicit a quick response from the audience. When delivered by a comic who is doubly marginal based on religious identity and gender, these jokes have the opportunity to prompt listeners to reflect on the assumptions they have regarding the identities of the performer. Wearing a black hijab and chador (long outer coat), Tissa Hami (2009) explains that ‘I was talking to a reporter recently, and he asked me, “As a Muslim woman, is there anything you wouldn’t talk about on stage?” (pauses and looks at the audience exasperatedly) Yeah. My dick.’ Hami’s annoyance is a reaction to how American Muslim women are consistently questioned about what their religious identity does and does not allow them to do –​a skewed perspective informed by unawareness at best, and Islamophobia at worst. While dick jokes have long been a popular part of performance humour used by some to express their masculinity and others to get an easy laugh, Hami’s joke goes beyond these typical strategies (Gilbert, 2004: 68–​69). Jokes like this are a subversive critique of how Muslim women are routinely denied recognition of any sexual agency due to myopic assumptions about what it means to live a Muslim woman’s life. It is also Hami’s gesture to how the stand-​up space is defined by the heteronormative male perspective. The punchline suggests that she is just another one of the guys. Some jokes about Muslim sexualities serve as an expression of women’s empowerment but also seem to reinforce male privilege over Muslim women’s agency, thus illustrating the trans-​ideological nature of humour. This humour illustrates the power of patriarchy in Muslim lives by depicting how it seeks to control women’s bodies in many cultural spheres, including everyday life as well as in religious participation. Prior to her marriage, Maysoon Zayid (2009) would perform a joke that names several ways in which her father sought to control her sexuality: ‘So I’m a virgin. And people are like, really? You’re a virgin? And people feel sad for me. And I just want you guys to know I’m a virgin by choice. [pauses] And that is my father’s choice! [laughter] My father has spent the majority of my life terrified that I will “accidentally” lose my virginity … so there is a list of activities that I’m not allowed to do. There is to be no horseback riding. Not even on a carousel. No bicycles. When my father sees a seesaw, he passes out cold. And under no circumstances am I to ever, ever, ever use a tampon.’ 234

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Part of the humour of this joke lies in Zayid’s interruption of the expectation that her assertion of ‘choice’ would be hers; instead, empowerment here is a male prerogative. By detailing the long list of prohibited activities, Zayid draws on the humour of absurdity to implicitly question the logics of her father’s determination. Any critique of how patriarchal ideology marginalizes Muslim women’s choices is indirectly conveyed in humour such as this. Comics addressing outsider stereotypes about Muslim women’s sexuality and agency are also prevalent in this stand-​up humour. Tissa Hami (Baker, 2008) jokes about what non-​Muslims must think when they see women praying behind men in the mosque: ‘I’ve noticed though, that a lot of Americans have misconceptions about Islam. You know, like in a mosque, the men pray in the front and the women pray in the back, right? Now see, Americans look at that and they think: those women are so oppressed. You see, we’re not in the back because we’re oppressed. We just like the view! We’re praying for a piece of that! [laughter]’ Clearly stated as she starts this joke, Hami wants to challenge Americans’ stereotypes of Muslim women as oppressed simply because they pray separately from, and behind, Muslim men in the mosque. She uses the hilarity of inversion to disrupt this assumption and instead present an inverse assertion –​that the Muslim women’s position in the mosque is a powerful place from which they can indulge their sexualities by gazing at the men in front of them. Joking about the female gaze toward male bodies in an incongruous context of ritual prayer in the male-​dominated mosque inverts assumptions about religious space and sexual agency. Yet this humour does not challenge male privilege in the mosque; instead, it claims that Muslim women find power in their marginalized situation, despite what others may conclude. These jokes show how some humour on the topics of Muslim gender, sex, and sexuality address outsider assumptions about agency without calling into question the logics that support the social, cultural, ideological, and religious conditions that marginalize women. While women comics ridicule simplistic conclusions about Muslim women’s lives, they do not critique the structural conditions of patriarchy that determine the unequal conditions of Muslim women’s religious participation. Muslim women joking about their sexualities have faced criticism from their community when this humour is deemed inappropriate to be performed and to be heard. During her stand-​up career, Tissa Hami was disinvited from a scheduled college campus performance when the sponsoring Muslim student organizations discovered jokes she had performed that they concluded were not suitable for a ‘traditional’ Muslim audience. When asked how the last-​ minute expulsion made her feel, Hami (Baker, 2008) said, ‘I was so angry, 235

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I was so upset. Because one of the things about stand-​up comedy is the freedom it gives you to stand up and say your mind. And to say anything you want, as long as it is funny.’ The student organizations disinvited Hami while keeping the other Muslim performer, Azhar Usman, who has described his humour as steering clear of offending families or saying something blasphemous (Khan, 2007). Hami’s assertion that in stand-​up comedy a performer can say anything they want as long as it makes their audience laugh is undercut by the gatekeeping within communities that dictates who can speak, and what they can speak about. Who is allowed to speak for the Muslim community, and what they may speak about, is mediated by forces that are often outside of the performer’s control. The politics of representation in performance, as shown by Hami’s disinvitation, reveals different positions on acceptability and authority with regard to jokes and comedy. Some Muslims believe that there is certain humour which is acceptable and other humour which is not appropriate. There is no universally applicable normative Muslim position on what is permissible when joking, and in fact comedy and humour have long been part of Muslim traditions, including the Qur’an and the hadith (the reported sayings of the Prophet Muḥammad) literature (Michael, 2018). It is not clear what motivates some Muslims to feel that the humour of comics such as Tissa Hami should be regulated –​individual assumptions about propriety are informed by specific religious opinions and cultural circumstances. Patriarchal attitudes that attempt to restrict women’s ability to speak about their oppressions is also a factor in the reception of women’s humour. The fact that Hami, also part of the Muslim community, sees no impropriety in her work further illustrates diverse Muslim attitudes toward what is acceptable in stand-​up performance. In a previous article, I describe Muslim American women’s humour as a process in which women take comic advantage of negative, outsider assumptions about their sexuality and agency (Michael, 2013). This is a common approach in American feminist humour (Walker, 1988; Gilbert, 2004), and it is part of the creative work of many women discussed in this chapter. However, Muslim women do not just challenge stereotypes that non-​Muslims may have of their identities with this material. As they use the stage to speak out, they also address the ways in which they are judged within their own religious communities. Muslim feminist humour draws on the hilarity of absurdity to illustrate how patriarchal attitudes attempt to supervise their sexualities. This critical perspective questions the ways in which wearing clothing such as the hijab defines women as lacking in sexual agency. The work of these women demonstrates how joking about sexualities is another way comics queer expectations –​both outside and within the community –​about desire, agency, and being Muslim today. 236

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Bodies: ability and race in Muslim women’s comedy The comedians in this chapter have bodies, and those bodies are important parts of their performances and what audiences infer from their presentations. When they stand up to deliver their jokes, they are at the same time literally presenting their bodies for their audience’s consumption. Some comics discuss their body –​or parts of it –​as part of their humour. For those with bodies that are socially constructed as different, speaking about that difference serves to diffuse what conclusions the audience may have about a performer’s ability and talent. Maysoon Zayid’s cerebral palsy is an important part of her on-​stage persona and performance material (as well as her work in public advocacy for people with disabilities). She often begins a set by proudly naming her identities (T. Ahmed, 2016): ‘I got 99 problems and palsy is just one. [applause] In the oppression Olympics I would win a gold medal! I’m Palestinian, a Muslim, I’m a woman, I’m a person of colour, I’m disabled, and –​[pauses] –​I live in New Jersey. [laughter]. So if you don’t feel better about yourself, maybe you should!’ Her palsy is visible in performance; she sits in a tall chair for the entire set and gesticulates often with her hands. She often jokes about her appearance as a way of destigmatizing it. For example, in one performance (Zayid, 2015), she explains to the audience that no, she isn’t drunk –​she shakes because of the palsy. The audience will know that she is intoxicated if they later see her walking straight. Other jokes about how her body shakes seem to reinforce her socially constructed marginality, as illustrated by her introduction (mentioned above) when she implies that her audience should feel superior to her. Performing self-​deprecating humour is possibly liberating for the speaker but can also serve to reinforce condescending views. As Ellie Tomsett (2018: 11–​13) argues in her discussion of women in comedy, self-​deprecation is an ambivalent strategy of resistance for the stand-​up performer. Yet, as Mary Klages (1992: 21) suggests in her analysis of jokes about disabled individuals, despite their appeal to the laughter of condescension, this kind of humour can serve an alternative, and perhaps more important cultural function. That is, it forces audiences to look at and, at best, learn from bodies usually socially constructed as deficient. The racialization of Muslims as a dangerous other has produced a popular genre of American-​Muslims-​at-​the-​airport jokes in stand-​up humour that are performed by comics whose bodies are perceived as a national security problem (Bilici, 2012; Michael, 2013). In the case of Maysoon Zayid, cerebral palsy is an essential part of her material that challenges racial, gendered, and Islamophobic assumptions about what constitutes a security threat at the 237

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airport. This material starts with Zayid (T. Ahmed, 2016) sharing that she isn’t afraid to go to Palestine –​she is afraid to go to the airport in America. Not only does she look Arab (‘I have the kind of facial hair that no waxing in the world can deal with’), but the shaking from palsy makes it seem like she is nervously hiding something. She continues by describing how her father –​who looks like Saddam Hussein –​will often invoke the name of Allah several times as he wishes her a safe journey. To the people at the security desk, an Arab-​looking woman who is shaking and accompanied by a man who looks like Saddam Hussein speaking a strange language can only mean one thing: a security threat. Zayid imagines how she would be quickly removed from the situation: ‘and before you can say jihad –​which is a word you should never say in an airport –​I’m on the next plane to Guantanamo Bay!’ In a post-​9/​11 world, certain bodies –​usually Brown, hairy, and male –​ that are racialized as Muslim are also automatically perceived as a social threat (Grewal, 2003). These negative associations give Muslim comics a platform to describe the ridiculous conclusions that follow from stereotyping people whose bodies fit the description. Zayid, as the shaking woman at the airport, as a potential terrorist, depicts how Arab and Muslim women –​or those racialized as such –​are also categorized as a threat, along with men. While her body’s condition marginalizes her socially, in her shaking Arab-​woman-​ at-​the-​airport material Zayid makes her palsy an instrumental part of this humorous critique. In simply being a woman with cerebral palsy who is an accomplished stand-​up comic, Zayid disrupts audience expectations of the lives and abilities of disabled women like her. In material about being Arab, Muslim, and a woman, her disability becomes more of an ability to challenge stereotypes and reframe perspectives about Muslims with bodies like hers. Race and racism do not seem to be a prominent theme in the material performed by the Black comics included in this chapter. I associate this with the larger context of how the negative relevance of just being Muslim today prompts Muslim responses through humour. Because American Islam is racialized as being Brown, Arab, or from the Middle East, this category of belonging often overlooks or excludes Black Muslims (Khabeer, 2016: 24–​ 25). And as the post-​9/​11 American stereotype of a threatening Muslim is Brown, Black Americans are therefore not recognized as an adverse threat to society. When race is spoken about in the humour of Black Muslim women like Summer Azim, Travina Springer, and Zainab Johnson, it is not because of the negative associations with being Black and Muslim. Rather, it is a part of material that addresses the ubiquity of American racism, no matter what religious community a person may be part of. For example, in a recent performance, Summer Azim (2016) describes the racism she faces as a Black Muslim living in Olympia, Washington as quite mundane. Azim shares that she has been asked more than once, while at the local grocery 238

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store, if she is from Africa. For these Black American Muslim women comics, their religious and gender identities are more relevant to the content of their stand-​up humour than their race. How race figures into the humour of women like these comics is likely to evolve as many Americans newly confront racism and the problem of police brutality following the 2020 uprisings that emerged nationwide in response to the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers in May of that year. Theorists of gender and performance have described the importance of the materiality of the body for the purposes of representation, especially for the political objectives of this mode of presentation. Judith Butler (1990) identifies the process of resignification as important for the subversion of identities and their qualities in public discourse by redefining meaning through embodiment. Comics such as Maysoon Zayid illustrate the connection between bodies, politics, and contesting stereotypes when she uses humour to emphasize the many abilities of a body that is socially constructed as not sufficient. Just by their literal presence on a public platform, Black women comics prove wrong the strict racialization of Muslim bodies as ones that are Brown or ethnically Middle Eastern. Queering how Islam is represented in stand-​up comedy is a process that is done by the literal bodies of the persons representing the community in this genre of performance. Their diverse bodies of various genders, abilities, and races produce new connotations to the category of American Muslim.

Muslim women’s comedy and constructing Islamic traditions I want to return to the question that started this chapter: what kind of Islam is this? Or in a more helpful phrasing, what kinds of modes of being Muslim do these humourists embody and articulate in their comic material? How does that impact how American Islam and American Muslims are known in popular culture, mass media, or within the community? As demonstrated in the work of women who occupy non-​normative social positions –​whether that be in terms of their gender, sexuality, race, or the body –​these modes of Muslim-​ness interrupt the ways in which the community is commonly represented. This is a presentation of Islam that is diverse in its embodiment and in the opinions and commentaries it offers for its audiences. In interviews, many of the women included in this chapter explain that they use stand-​up comedy to intentionally present an alternative to the regular representations of Muslims. As she tells personal stories in her performances, Zahra Noorbakhsh (2011) wants to show diverse aspects of her religion because she feels the ways in which Muslims are usually represented isn’t very inclusive. Aizzah Fatima (Mohsenian-R ​ ahman, 2016) wants to challenge simple expectations of Muslim women, especially those who wear the hijab, 239

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as more than an oppressed monolith. Prompted by depictions of the Muslim community that they felt did not reflect their experience, Muslim women comedians use public humour as a method of diversifying representations and the discourse about American Islam. How Islam is constructed, and how religion is presented by these women comics, is different from conceptions of Islam as essentially the ‘five pillars’ of practice, or as a specific set of monotheistic beliefs or theological doctrines. The way religion is articulated in stand-​up humour is defined by aspects of Muslim cultural expressions and attitudes, such as those about wearing a hijab or women’s participation in the mosque. As noted earlier, Azzizah Fatima observes that in stand-​up performance today it is clear that now Islam is understood not just in terms of religion, but also as culture. When religion is described in the humour of American Muslim male comics, it is similarly depicted as diverse cultural behaviours and opinions. For example, Black American Muslim comic Preacher Moss admonishes Muslims who are, in his opinion, too ‘weak’ to be visibly Muslim when out in public (for fear that they will face anti-​Muslim discrimination). Azhar Usman calls on his fellow American Muslims to be more engaged in local and national politics (Michael, 2013). The particular kind of Islam and religion that emerges in this stand-​up comedy is determined by the larger contexts of what prompts these performers to stand up and speak out. What makes American Muslim comedy relevant (for public consumption) in the current moment are the negative associations of simply being Muslim in a post-​9/​ 11 situation (Bilici, 2010). These comics want to generate more inclusive representations of their community in public performance, and some want to change particular attitudes held by Muslims and non-​Muslims related to their marginal identities. They do not, however, use stand-​up comedy to comment on or debate matters of faith, institutional hierarchies, or sacred personalities. In the process of presenting their ideas about religion and culture, Muslim female comics create space through their performances for discussions about how gender, sexuality, and the body relate to belonging in the Muslim community. The modes of being Muslim they present are women that have sexualities, agency, different bodies, and different approaches to their religious selves. They show that the American Muslim community includes those who are too often marginalized, for their gender, their preferences, or their bodies. Their intentionally diverse performances are not only meant to change non-​Muslim assumptions about the community. As they speak their personal truths in their humour, they represent and personify internal differences that some Muslims may not fully embrace. Zainab Johnson (Jappie, 2020) describes what it is like for her to perform in front of audiences of other Muslims:

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[I am] a woman getting on stage and unapologetically giving her perspective, talking about dating as a Muslim, navigating a world that is very much entrenched in sexuality but not preaching, navigating this space not just as a Muslim but as a Black woman and feeling like an outsider because some women may not give me the greetings because I don’t cover up. Johnson’s experience as a Muslim who performs her multiple experiences is empowering because it allows her to be unapologetic. Yet she acknowledges how being so open means that she feels the rejection from Muslims who don’t approve of her, in this case because she doesn’t wear a hijab. Johnson’s experience of feeling like an outsider is reminiscent of when Tissa Hami was disinvited from a performance sponsored by Muslim student groups. Muslim women comics point to the contradictions in the rhetoric of Muslim unity and solidarity when they testify to how they have at times been excluded. The stand-​up humour of these women thus not only reveals diversity in community; it also points to the fault lines in how Muslims themselves construct authenticity within the Muslim community. When Muslim women humourists articulate and embody diverse modes of their faith, they are constructing their religious community outside of the customary spaces of traditional Islamic authority and discourse. Those spaces –​dominantly male, cisgendered, and associated with the Middle East and the Arabic language –​often exclude women like the ones included in this chapter. While some comics do perform in mosques or Islamic centres, for the most part these representations are happening in public spaces not defined as Islamic or religious, and are delivered to diverse audiences that often include Muslims. As they diversify and expand how Islam and Muslims are represented, their humour participates in the broader construction of what constitutes tradition for Muslim communities. This should not be understood as a contradiction in terms of how or where Islamic ideas of tradition or modes of discourse are made. What ‘Islam’ is has long been answered, by Muslims and non-​Muslims, in sometimes contradictory ways. As Shahab Ahmed (2016: 72–​73) argues, Muslim history and contemporary experience are more helpfully understood as being inclusive of diversity and incongruity, rather than a discourse or experience that seeks to resolve contradictions or deny difference. Muslim women comics are creating and redefining what constitutes Islamic tradition, even if they are denied access, recognition, or authority in this effort. American Muslim women’s stand-​up humour shows that there is, in fact, no authoritative centre to the lived tradition; rather, the statements made by these performers indicate multiple centres that emphasize differing concerns. On public stages and social media platforms, these comedians queer what

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American Islam looks and sounds like in the twenty-​first century. Using public performance as a lens onto religious and social life, a nuanced and complex depiction of an American religious community emerges, through laughter, to challenge assumptions and redefine the boundaries of being and belonging. References Abu-​L ughod, L. (2002) ‘Do Muslim women really need saving? Anthropological reflections on cultural relativism and its others’, American Anthropologist 104(3): 783–​790. Ahmed, S. (2016) What Is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic, Princeton, NJ; Oxford: Princeton University Press. Ahmed, T. (2016) ‘Maysoon Zayid –​Beachbody Coach Summit 2016’, YouTube.com, [online]. Available from: https://​youtu.be/​kOzmgVKg5wY Azim, S. (2016) ‘Summer Azim & politics!’, Olympia Pop Rocks Podcast [online]. Available from: www.olympiapoprocks.com/​podcasts/​2016/​3/​ 25/​opr-​028-​summer-​azim-​politics Baker, G. (Producer and Director) (2008) ‘America at a Crossroads: Stand Up: Muslim American Comics Come of Age’. Public Broadcasting Service: WGBH Boston. Beydoun, K. (2018) American Islamophobia, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Bilici, M. (2010) ‘Muslim ethnic comedy: inversions of Islamophobia’, in A. Shyrock (ed) Islamophobia/​Islamophilia: Beyond the Politics of Enemy and Friend, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, pp 195–​208. Bilici, M. (2012) Finding Mecca in America: How Islam Is Becoming an American Religion, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Boskin, J. (1997) Rebellious Laughter: People’s Humor in American Culture, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York, NY: Routledge, Chapman & Hall. Carpio, G. (2008) Laughing Fit to Kill: Black Humor in the Fictions of Slavery, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Crenshaw, K. (1991) ‘Mapping the margins: intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color’, Stanford Law Review 43(6): 1241–​1299. Fatima, A. (2012) ‘Dirty Paki Lingerie’, All For One Theatre. YouTube. com, [online]. Available from: www.youtube.com/ ​ watch?v= ​ 3 d-​ R6QbRWo8 Gilbert, J. (2004) Performing Marginality: Humor, Gender, and Cultural Critique, Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. Green, T. (2019) The Fear of Islam: An Introduction to Islamophobia in the West (2nd edn), Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. 242

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Grewal, I. (2003) ‘Transnational America: race, gender and citizenship after 9/​11’, Social Identities 4(9): 535–​561. Haggins, B. (2007) Laughing Mad: The Black Comic Persona in Post-​Soul America, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Hami, T. (2009) ‘Thinly veiled humor’, Journeyman Pictures, [online]. Available from: www.youtube.com/​watch?v0Flo7 pKp4I Hammer, J. (2013) ‘Center stage: gendered Islamophobia and Muslim women’, in C. Ernst (ed) Islamophobia in America: The Anatomy of Intolerance, New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan US, pp 107–​144. Hutcheon, L. (1995) Irony’s Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony, London; New York: Routledge. Jappie, Z. (2020) ‘Zainab Johnson is creating unapologetic comedy’, OkayAfrica.com, [online]. Available from: www.okayafrica.com/​ zainab-​johnson-​is-​creating-​unapologetic-​comedy/​ Johnson, Z. (2018) ‘Zainab Johnson stand up performance’, Late Night With Seth Meyers, YouTube.com, [online]. Available from: www.youtube.com/​ watch?v=​0si5yV3fZYg&t=​5s Khabeer, S.A. (2016) Muslim Cool: Race, Religion, and Hip Hop in the United States, New York, NY: New York University Press. Khan, Y. (2007) ‘Does Islam have a sense of humor?’, BBC News, [online]. Available from: http://​news.bbc.co.uk/​2/​hi/​uk_​news/​magazine/​7102519.stm Klages, M. (1992) ‘What to do with Helen Keller jokes: a feminist act’, in R. Barreca (ed) New Perspectives on Women and Comedy, Philadelphia, PA: Gordon and Breach, pp 13–​22. Krefting, R. (2014) All Joking Aside, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Michael, J. (2013) ‘American Muslims stand up and speak out: trajectories of humor in Muslim American stand-​up comedy’, Contemporary Islam 7(2): 129–​153. Michael, J. (2018) ‘Contemporary Muslim comedy’, in M. Woodward and R. Lukens-​Bull (eds) Handbook of Contemporary Islam and Muslim Lives, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp 1–​13. Mohsenian-​R ahman, S. (2016) ‘Meet the Muslim actress fighting Islamophobia by airing Dirty Paki Lingerie’, Muslimgirl.com, [online]. Available from: https://​muslimgirl.com/​meet-​muslim-​g irl-​combating​islamophobia-​airing-​dirty-​paki-​lingerie/​ Noorbakhsh, Z. (2011) ‘All atheists are Muslim’, Bay Sunday, YouTube. com, [online]. Available from: https://​youtu.be/​hT_​gGxnlBMc Noorbakhsh, Z. (2016a) ‘Heaven points/​Z ahra Noorbakhsh, Snap Judgment LIVE’, YouTube.com, [online]. Available from: https://​youtu. be/​CHUNY2FUDNE Noorbakhsh, Z. (2016b) ‘Zahra Noorbakhsh at Comic Strip NYC’, YouTube.com, [online]. Available from: https://​youtu.be/​GCwXYtXAicc 243

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Quraishi-​Landes, A. (2012) ‘What is Sharia and is it creepy?’ The Islamic Monthly, [online]. Available from: www.theislamicmonthly.com/​ what-​is-​sharia-​and-​is-​it-​creepy/​ Rappoport, L. (2005) Punchlines: The Case for Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Humor, Westport, CT: Praeger. Schippert, C. (2011) ‘Implications of Queer Theory for the study of religion and gender: entering the third decade’, Religion & Gender 1(1): 66–​84. Sobh, M. (2017) ‘Creeping Sharia’, Facebook.com, [online]. Available from: www.facebook.com/​watch/​?v=​1298435020237944 Springer, T. (2017) ‘Travina Springer: becoming Muslim (stand up comedy)’, Daily Motion.com, [online]. Available from: www.dailymotion. com/​video/​x66trot Tomsett, E. (2018) ‘Positives and negatives: reclaiming the female body and self-​deprecation in stand-​up comedy’, Comedy Studies 9(1): 6–​18. Walker, N. (1988) A Very Serious Thing: Women’s Humor and American Culture, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Wilcox, M. (2018) Queer Nuns: Religion, Activism, and Serious Parody, New York, NY: New York University Press. Zayid, M. (2009) ‘Comedy Central’s The Watch List’, Comedy Central, [online]. Available from: www.comedycentral.com/ ​ v ideos/ ​ i ndex. jhtml?videoId=​84227&title=​maysoon-​zayid Zayid, M. (2015) ‘Me (Maysoon) @ 2015 NYAACF’, YouTube.com, [online]. Available from: www.youtube.com/​watch?time_​continue=​ 24&v=​XvPY34d6uXw

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Comedy as Social Commentary in Little Mosque on the Prairie: Decoding Humour in the First ‘Muslim Sitcom’ Jay Friesen

Introduction If in the early 2000s, a person had been asked to imagine a progressive Muslim comedy, the kind aimed at challenging some of the most pernicious stereotypes about Muslims post-9/​11, a relatively tame sitcom set in a sleepy farming community in rural Saskatchewan, Canada, would seem an unlikely setting. On the surface, offering social commentary about pervasive global issues such as Islamophobia and multiculturalism seems miscast on a landscape known more for grain elevators than minarets. The TV sitcom genre might also feel miscast for the job. For many, a traditionally styled sitcom is merely light-​hearted entertainment, poorly suited for earnest topics. What might the comedic genre contribute to the discourse on Muslim communities? Furthermore, how did this style both enable and constrict the underlying social commentary the series offered? This is the nature of questions that make Little Mosque on the Prairie (Little Mosque) (2007–​2012) a curious case study on the intersections between humour, Muslim communities, and social commentary in a Western media context. Accordingly, this chapter explores why the relatively mild-​mannered sitcom from Canada has become one of the most influential early instances of popular Muslim-​centred comedy in the Western world.1 What follows in this chapter is an exploration of two related ideas. First, the chapter examines how Little Mosque used traditional sitcom conventions in a new context to create a niche in the comedy landscape that was 245

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simultaneously familiar and comfortable but also innovative and fresh in its portrayal of Muslim characters. Yet, using this curious mixture of old and new raises pertinent questions about the series. From its earliest conception, the series aimed to deliver social commentary about what it meant to be Muslim in Canada for the broader viewing audience. The show’s emergence allows for a closer examination of comedy’s capacity to communicate culturally meaningful messages. As social justice scholar Ozlem Sensoy noted, ‘[Little Mosque] also grew out of a particular social moment, 9/​11, and had these pedagogical goals –​teaching white folks about a different kind of Muslim person’ (cited in Menon, 2012). Arguably, while the sitcom format depicted Muslims through comedy, it is also necessary to acknowledge that this form both promotes and limits the sort of didacticism that Sensoy mentions. Accordingly, the second component of this chapter is situating the series within the broader culture of comedy and social commentary. In particular, it examines how the sitcom format of the series simultaneously facilitated and constricted various pieces of commentary about Muslims through humour. It is by working through these ideas that I argue that Little Mosque was able to find a new comedic niche exploiting a seeming paradox. It used a conservative genre of humour, the sitcom, to do something entirely new, creating the first Muslim TV comedy. Identifying this paradox is only part of the equation. The next step is to explain how this style of comedy impacted the series’ representation of Muslims as well as the series’ explicit desire to produce social commentary. Using Michael Billig’s work on critical humour theory, the chapter examines how comedy promotes particular readings of the series while repressing others, which has a direct impact on how Muslim communities were portrayed during the series. Last, I offer insight into how having a new view on the relationship between Little Mosque and comedy provides an improved understanding of how other intersections of Muslim communities and comedy work elsewhere.

The origins of Little Mosque When Little Mosque creator, Zarqa Nawaz, went to her first ‘pitch meeting’ with network executives, her idea for a TV comedy with a Muslim cast was not enthusiastically received. While audience reception is always at the forefront of media executives’ minds, this was especially true in the aftermath of 9/​11 when storylines that featured Muslim characters were being considered. Nawaz’s pitch occurred in this cultural landscape; the trepidation of executives had a significant impact on the direction her series ultimately took. Nawaz, an established documentary filmmaker, had an idea for a script about a Muslim actor –​that is, the protagonist of the show was a Muslim actor presumably also played by a Muslim –​who is put in an uncomfortable position when auditioning for a new role as a terrorist. 246

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Despite not wanting to reinforce negative stereotypes, he considers taking a role where he would play a paid hijacker so that he can afford an engagement ring for his fiancée. Comedy often comes from uncomfortable situations and the incongruity between expectations and outcome. On the one hand, the actor wants to resist playing to racist stereotypes, while, on the other hand, he recognizes that, as a struggling actor, he needs to collect a pay cheque. Despite putting a comedic spin on the script, Nawaz’s first show idea went nowhere: ‘This is the single worst pitch I’ve heard in my entire career’, the executive admonished Nawaz. ‘You have written the one script that is not producible in the seeing world. You can’t make a comedy about a Muslim hijacking a plane!’ (Nawaz, 2014: 178). While using a bit of hyperbole, the executive’s underlying sentiment was nonetheless revealing. The network’s hesitancy about making Muslims a focus for a series speaks to their concerns about whether audiences would find the characters and storylines relatable and whether there would be a backlash from Muslim viewers who would object to how their community was represented. There was a general wariness about political correctness or taboo topics for comedy. Undeterred by the early rejection, Nawaz adapted her approach and created one of the most recognizable and influential examples of Muslim-​centred comedy in the Western world, the sitcom Little Mosque. Appreciating the differences between Canada and other nations contributes to an understanding of why the series was produced in Canada rather than in other, bigger TV markets. What notably differentiates Canada from other contexts, particularly the United States, is its formal commitment to multiculturism as a cornerstone for many national policy decisions. However, a survey conducted in 2006 by The Environics Institute2 revealed that around the time of Little Mosque’s first airing, it remained doubtful whether non-​Muslim Canadians extended their multicultural beliefs to the Muslim community. Non-​Muslim Canadians, the survey found, viewed Muslims with suspicion: ‘When it comes to the Muslim population in particular, the data show that most Canadians believe that Muslims wish to remain separate from the society at large –​even though most Canadian Muslims say that Muslims are interested in integrating into Canadian society’ (The Environics Institute, 2006: 61). Crucially, these findings speak to the heart of Little Mosque’s producer’s intentions, namely, finding ways for the Muslim community to feel more integrated into the broader Canadian society and, of course, for these feelings to be reciprocated. Ultimately, the report showed cracks in the façade of the country’s professed multiculturalism and illustrated that ‘the Canadian context, with its loudly touted multicultural policies, is not perfect –​but it is unique’ (2006: 61). These survey results underscore a subtle yet valuable distinction between the Canadian context and other countries, especially the United States. For example, in the latter country, cultural attitudes tend to privilege assimilation, 247

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in other words, shifting one’s beliefs and practices until they fuse with the broader American culture. This attitude is popularly referred to as the American melting pot. In contrast, Canadian multicultural policies are most often referred to as a cultural mosaic, where groups keep their distinctiveness while functioning as a part of the collective whole. Concerning the production of Little Mosque, this distinction suggests that the series showed how Muslims had an unenviable and distinctive place in the Canadian mosaic. In contrast, if hypothetical American producers created the series, it would be far more likely to show how the characters became more ‘American’ (see, for example, the upcoming discussion of Aliens in America [2007–​2008]). But notwithstanding such sociocultural differences between the two countries, it is the very form of the sitcom genre itself that was crucial in shaping the development of the series. In this context, I examine how Little Mosque utilized sitcom humour as a medium to strengthen social integration and acceptance of Muslims in the audiences’ local communities; I also analyze the advantages and pitfalls of such an approach. Early in the series, episode four ‘Swimming Upstream’ helped set the tone for Little Mosque and will also help orient many of the ideas in this chapter. In the episode, the Nigerian café owner, Fatima, suffers a sprained ankle and is told to attend aquacise classes as physiotherapy. Unfortunately for Fatima, the instructor is a man and Fatima informs him that because of her religious beliefs, he cannot see her in a bathing suit. After a few failed attempts to have a new instructor hired, Fatima finds another solution. She arrives to class wearing a distinctive bathing suit that exposes only her face, hands, and feet. With a look of concern on her face, Fatima worries about whether she will feel welcome. She greets the instructor, who is selecting the music; he begins solemnly, ‘Girl, about that getup.’ The camera pans to Fatima’s concerned face, and then back to the instructor, who smiles pleasantly, imitating Tim Gunn of Project Runway fame: ‘You make that work’ (Kennedy, 2007a). Fatima laughs, relieved that all’s well that ends well, and the scene concludes with all the women entering the pool and dancing to lively salsa music. The episode brings forward some key ideas as a focus for this chapter. The first concerns genre and form. It is consequential that the episode follows a traditional sitcom structure: set-up (the ankle), an issue (inability to access the pool), and a happy ending (the bathing suit is well received). Following these genre conventions created comedic expectations for audiences; the process established that what was happening in the series was good-​natured, inoffensive, and unlikely to change the fictional world the audience was watching in any dramatic sort of way. This last point was crucial, as it allowed producers to pursue their goal of addressing religious topics in an unthreatening, approachable way. The research of Mahmoud Eid and Sarah Khan speaks to this view, and underscores how the humour of the series 248

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helped draw needed attention to the representation of Muslims and did so in a way that fostered equality and multiculturalism: By understanding that each member of society is different, Canadian society can accept Muslims who are as different as everyone else, and thus, consider them a part of society. … This show highlights the idiosyncratic practices of all groups and cultures, implying that members of all cultures are foreigners; therefore, nobody is a foreigner. (Eid and Khan, 2011: 201) However, others challenge the benefits of such representations. Humour, particularly sitcom humour, has its own logic and culture that impacts the messaging. In the swimming pool example, representing complex ideas through humour can flatten the nuance and offer an inadequate representation of Muslims, especially when a joke treats Muslims as though they are a part of a single, monolithic culture. Fatima, who uses her faith as her motivation for choosing her bathing suit, illustrates a criticism of the series made by communication scholar Faiza Hirji: ‘The decision to depict the characters’ acts as inspired by Islam, not by their interpretation of Islam, seals off the boundaries of any discursive space and renders other interpretations irrelevant’ (2011: 41). While there may be no objectively correct position to take, I argue that a closer examination of how humour impacts these sorts of debates is a needed element to the discourse. Rather than garnering laughs by pushing the limits through controversial events such as plane hijackings or pool attire, Nawaz changed her initial ideas, downplaying and minimizing the controversial topics in her first pitch and choosing instead to produce Little Mosque as a traditional, mild-​ mannered sitcom, a familiar genre for North American audiences. The television situational comedy –​called the sitcom since a 1964 Life Magazine article –​evolved from radio programmes when TV networks were beginning to need more content to fill the airwaves (Marc, 2005: 16). Compared to today, there were very few stations to watch any programming. Moreover, it was rare for a household to have more than one TV, which meant that primetime TV had to appeal to as many people in a home as possible. This requirement meant that sitcom humour tended to be relatively broad and easy to follow (no need to exclude anyone) and to be relatable for the largest possible audience (which is why so often in early sitcoms the characters were white, middle-​class families). Over time, this became a ‘formula’, which sitcom writer Noah Charney outlines as follows: ‘There is a highly-​specific, minute-​by-​minute recipe used to write the vast majority of sitcoms out there. And once you know the formula, it makes it much easier to write them, and much harder to watch them without seeing that formula –​the “sitcom code” –​everywhere you look’ (2014). 249

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Familiarity with the conventions of sitcom TV is not just important to writers, but also to audiences. Recognizing the formula or, as Charney calls it, the ‘code’, helps set audience expectations, an essential element of this chapter’s argument. It is worth noting that the genre is known for its stability and resistance to change: One of the distinguishing characteristics of sitcoms, as opposed to other forms of television, is that the main protagonist(s) barely change from one episode to the next, let alone from season to season (Maggie Simpson has been sucking on a pacifier for nearly thirty years). Therefore, whatever happens in the episode, the situation must end largely where it began. (Charney, 2014) Resistance to change and maintenance of the status quo by avoiding edgy, subversive humour, acted as qualities fundamental to the early success of Little Mosque. Like other genres, the sitcom is evolving with new ways of delivering content –​online streaming comes to mind –​which changes the landscape of who can watch what, and when. Genre hybridity, the idea that over time different genres are blended and create new ones, has undoubtedly changed the types of comedy on TV (Thompson, 2007). This hybridity further distinguishes contemporary shows such as Transparent (2014–​2019), The Marvelous Mrs Maisel (2017–​present), or After Life (2019–​present), which are called comedy-​dramas or simply television comedies, from the traditional sitcom, which tends to be around 22 minutes in length and that avoids many of the intricate dramatic twists of the newer styles. Little Mosque steered clear of the avant-​garde trends of its era, and its producers were rather conservative in their creative decisions, deliberately choosing to avoid newer production styles. Michael Kennedy, the director of many of the series’ episodes, affirmed this when Kyle Conway interviewed him: It was my belief, and the network executives’ strong recommendation, that the show would benefit best by being shot in a very clean and simple, straightforward manner, deliberately without any trendy contemporary stylish aspects such as handheld camera, etc. They wanted it to look very much like ‘a traditional sitcom.’ It would be a traditional sitcom, with a very edgy topic. If it had been possible, I am sure they would have shot it with 3 or 4 cameras in front of a live audience, like many successful [past] American sitcoms. (cited in Conway, 2012b) Especially important is that the feel of a traditional sitcom was used to make the unfamiliar –​a comedy featuring Muslin characters and storylines –​feel 250

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both familiar and comfortable. The comment also sheds light on why Little Mosque succeeded in becoming the first Muslim sitcom in the Western world. Kennedy emphasizes how there was a deliberate effort to take the edge off Little Mosque. The topic was ‘edgy’ enough without exacerbating that issue with an abrasive style of comedy. Using the expectations of the sitcom audience, writers created storylines that had a certain Trojan horse quality, ‘sneaking’ the novelty of a Muslim comedy into the media landscape through a medium that had a long track record of delivering relatively innocuous family entertainment. Using a traditional sitcom format tells audiences that, even with a cast of Muslim characters, the social realities they are familiar and comfortable with remain more or less unchanged.

The influence of the sitcom genre Despite its popularity, the traditional sitcom has faced many detractors for how it fails to engage meaningfully with societal issues on any complex level. TV scholar Brett Mills contends that the repeated prioritization of commercial entertainment over subversive humour has, practically speaking, ‘neutered’ the genre’s power for sustained social commentary (2009: 135). More than most genres, the sitcom is based on generating feelings of domestic familiarity, comfort, and, in the vast majority of cases, a happy ending for each episode (Mintz, 1985: 115). And while perhaps enjoyable, these characteristics mean that the genre is poorly situated for the delivery of social commentary meant to spur cultural change, a point that Mills stresses in his research: ‘This focus on the domestic and the individual has been one of the reasons for the criticism of sitcoms’ failure to interrogate and undermine dominant ideologies comically. [The] sitcom has been a reflection of social changes, rather than an intervention into them’ (Mills, 2005: 45). Mills is generally accurate in his assessment of sitcom TV, although there is a slight amendment possible. His critique assumes that social change is perhaps more drastic than it could be. For example, Mills mentions shows, such as Roseanne (1988–​1997; 2018), The Cosby Show (1984–​1992), or Will & Grace (1998–​2006; 2018–​2020), as falling short of their progressive aspirations. Little Mosque, I argue, was aiming for something much more modest. It did not aspire to fundamentally alter the audience’s notion of what was ‘normal’ in society; instead, it wanted audiences to maintain their existing worldviews, but have Muslim characters imperceptibly blend into this view. Humour played a significant role in how Muslim storylines were presented in the series. Little Mosque differs from the above-​mentioned shows, like Aliens and Citizen Khan, by being clear with its intention not to aggressively test societal boundaries. Having a cast made up of primarily Muslim characters, the show attempted to downplay its novelty and rely on tropes of familiarity and nostalgia like other traditional sitcoms, to 251

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appeal to what journalist Mike Hale elsewhere called sitcom’s ‘warm-​bath appeal’ (Hale, 2018). When compared to Nawaz’s initial pitch, adopting a more familiar-​feeling traditional sitcom style, that shied away from controversy, proved to be vital for commercial success. Not only was the series given the go-​ahead for production, but it exceeded expectations by becoming an international hit in more than 90 countries, and the first to have a cast comprised mostly of Muslim characters (Conway, 2012b). It became what many people called the first Muslim sitcom in the West (for example, MacFarquhar, 2006; Carter, 2007). By most measures, the series was a resounding success; Little Mosque premiered to 2.1 million viewers in Canada (Conway, 2014: 653), which, for a country of 32 million people, was significant. There are two influential factors related to why Little Mosque found a home on Canadian airwaves instead of elsewhere. The first factor has to do with the country’s national public broadcaster, the CBC. In the 1991 Broadcasting Act, Canada’s government mandated various goals for TV programming, which included reflecting ‘Canada and its regions to national and regional audiences’ as well as ‘the multicultural and multiracial nature of Canada’ (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 2020). As Conway points out, reflecting both the Canadian Prairies and an underrepresented minority, Muslims, made the series an attractive proposition for CBC, ‘intertwining the dual national meta-​narratives of multiculturalism and regionalism’ (Conway, 2012a). While he notes that producers did not create the series to fulfil the mandate –​they had creative aspirations outside Canadian broadcasting policy –​the governmental mandates certainly benefited the series through increased funding opportunities and promotion, because the CBC regularly touted the series as a prime example of its multicultural programming (Conway, 2014: 657–​658). Both these features stand in contrast to the media landscape in the United States that, for the most part, makes programming decisions based on viewership and profitability. Of course, Little Mosque also enjoyed popular success and profitability in Canada, so its reception cannot be boiled down exclusively to broadcasting policy. The Canadian sense of humour also played a significant role. Canadian comedy writer, Andrew Clark, investigated what characterized this sense of humour, and he concluded that the country’s complex history as second fiddle to both Britain and the United States gives the country a wide-​ranging comic fluency and, perhaps more importantly, the ability to tolerate unfamiliar comic territory: Canada’s status as the official observer of the American experience arms Canadian comedians with the ironic distance needed to mock America until it laughs. Canadian comedians also have the British connection. They have grown up influenced by the likes of Monty 252

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Python. This added dimension gives Canadian comedy its dark irony. We can handle grey. (1997: 257) This ability to ‘handle grey’ becomes especially relevant when a show like Little Mosque attempts to break new comedic ground. This grey sense of humour factors into a sense of national identity, which TV critic John Doyle observed when first reviewing the series. In his article, Doyle recounted a conversation with an American who had said: ‘I see no humour in Little Mosque on the Prairie. I see a Muslim, and I think 9/​11. This country has been without mosques since it began, and yes, I see the religion in a negative light. I feel threatened by mosques being built in our country’ (cited in Doyle, 2007). For his part, Doyle positioned the Canadian viewing audience counter to this American example, commenting with sarcastic undertones, Right. But this is Canada and we pride ourselves on being more tolerant here. We roll our eyes at the paranoia and ignorance of Americans, and believe it’s legitimate to strengthen our tolerance by poking gentle fun at those who are intolerant, and even by poking fun at Muslims. After all, they are kinda wacky, like the rest of us. Doyle touches on a relevant point, namely, that Little Mosque was given a chance in Canada precisely because it was not American, despite drawing on issues that would be topical in both places. In his review of the series, entertainment columnist Vinay Menon offered a commonly expressed opinion on Little Mosque. He suggested that the most notable aspect of the series was not the jokes; those were the commonplace fare one would expect when tuning into any similarly styled sitcom. The logic, as he points out, was to reinforce the message that, despite some superficial differences, those differences were just that: superficial. As Menon sums up, ‘[the characters] were just struggling to get through the day. They were, in a word, “normal” ’ (2012: E1). This emphasis on normality was not accidental on the part of the writers. In the way Menon uses the term, normality refers to the idea that those depicted are unexceptional and integrated into the social fabric of the community. This focus was upheld by Nawaz, who noted, ‘I want the broader society to look at us as normal, with the same issues and concerns as anyone else’ (cited in Mason, 2007). The feelings expressed by Menon and Nawaz are reinforced by research conducted just before Little Mosque’s debut. In 2006, The Environics Institute conducted a poll on Muslims in Canada, and asked the following: ‘Do you think most Muslims coming to our country today want to adopt Canadian customs and way of life or do you think that they want to be distinct from the larger Canadian society?’ A majority of surveyed Canadians (57 per cent) 253

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responded that they believed that Muslims wanted to remain distinct from the rest of Canadian society; in comparison, only 23 per cent of Canadian Muslims surveyed provided the same response (The Environics Institute, 2006: 84). In this context, Nawaz’s comedic vision for the series presented an alternate view to those 57 per cent of non-​Muslim Canadians who thought that Muslims wanted to be distinct, using comedy as a vehicle to dispel these beliefs. The Little Mosque episode ‘The Convert’ is a fitting illustration of how the traditional sitcom strategy was used to portray Muslims as ‘normal’ and fundamentally similar to mainstream society. The CBC’s synopsis for the episode reads like a perfectly templated, traditional sitcom. The summary introduces a single episode character, Marlon, as he attempts to join the congregation: Marlon, a new white convert, has the entire mosque in a tizzy. Marlon’s zealous embrace of Islam wins an immediate friend in Baber, but he soon alienates everyone by passing judgment on virtually everything the Muslims do. Meanwhile, Sarah, never too devout, decides it’s time to become serious about Islam. But her passion soon wanes, even as Marlon’s intensifies. Soon the entire mosque is cooking up hare-​brained schemes to dampen Marlon’s zeal. (CBC Staff, 2007) Earlier, Charney’s notion of the sitcom code was introduced, and it is particularly evident here. As a reminder, he observed that one of the main qualities in the sitcom was that, despite an apparently serious obstacle the protagonists must face in each episode, a comic resolution means that things never really change. While hot-​tempered and nearly always ranting about how others are too liberal in their ways, Baber is regularly the butt of the joke and ultimately comes across as harmless. Despite at first appearing to be the culturally disruptive force opposing anything he deems un-​Islamic, these are merely comic set-ups that never fully materialize. (For instance, he rallies against Halloween, that is until he learns that people think that his everyday clothing is a costume and his tune changes when he begins to get compliments as well as candy.) So, in ‘The Convert’ when Baber seems to finally have someone else who will support his conservative views as passionately as he does, the harmony of the town appears threatened. But, of course, the series is a sitcom, and the expectation that ‘all’s well that ends well’ does not fail. Initially there seems to be friendship developing between Baber and the new convert, Marlon, but the relationship soon sours because Marlon represents the danger of actual change to Baber. This is best seen during a scene where Marlon is visiting Baber’s home when the latter’s daughter, Layla, enters the living room. Noticing that 254

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she is not wearing a hijab, Marlon makes a few critical remarks about her impropriety, which causes Baber to squirm. While Baber would prefer Layla to wear one (much to the chagrin of his daughter), an ongoing storyline in the series is Baber’s conflict between ideals and reality when challenged by his more progressive daughter, whom he cherishes above all else. Expectedly, Marlon has a different parenting suggestion: ‘Have you tried beating her? It worked for the Taliban.’ The comment takes Baber aback and makes him uncharacteristically uncomfortable and abashed. He warily responds, ‘I suggest you find a role model a little bit closer to home’ (Kennedy, 2007b). What the above interaction between Marlon and Baber demonstrates is a crucial undertone for the series as a whole: ultimately, cultural disagreements should defer to those norms ‘a little bit closer to home’. The episode illustrates this sentiment further when Baber, lacking some self-​awareness about how he is usually perceived in the community, complains to the rest of the Muslim townsfolk, ‘You can’t talk to fundamentalists!’ which is met by those listening rolling their eyes. The prevailing message offered to the audiences, then, is that there are serious and more frivolous ways to hold fundamentalist views that challenge the community norms, held by Marlon and Baber respectively. While Baber’s opinions on social issues at first seem extreme and counter to the show’s message of tolerance and multiculturalism, these views generally become fodder for gentle, joking mockery and they rarely (if ever) have meaningful, long-​term impacts on others. Perhaps more crucially, Baber effectively always concedes (whether consciously or not) and moves toward more moderate norms. This balancing act was a conscious strategy to undermine the notion of Muslim communities being any more moderate or extreme than any other community. In an interview, Nawaz mused: ‘I wanted to balance the show, so if there was a right-​wing non-​ Muslim, there was a right-​wing Muslim, and they were equally as racist and extremist, so … there wasn’t the sense that I was picking on one community more than the other’ (cited in Conway, 2017). Within the context of the sitcom genre, these standard concessions serve to maintain the equilibrium of the series and provide that light-​hearted feeling the genre is known to possess. Unlike many dramas, for instance, it does not matter how far Baber might stray from the town’s mores; in the end, a comedic resolution will ensure that any threat of severe social change is quelled. The subtext of the episode demonstrates that the producers of the show wanted to depict a Muslim community that, when ideologically examined, falls in line with the norms and multicultural views of the broader Canadian (and eventually, even more diverse international) audience. Making jokes at Baber’s expense is one way of highlighting these views, either by making him the butt of the joke or, as in the case above, putting him in humorous situations that show hypocrisy, something comedy is apt to reveal. 255

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Making the familiar alien: contrasting two sitcom strategies The successful comedic strategies employed by Little Mosque become more noticeable when contrasted against another sitcom of its time that tried to push a similar pedagogical message. In 2007, Aliens in America debuted on TV, also focusing on a Muslim main character but with many different results. Airing on the CW network and produced by CBS Paramount, Aliens had the financial and corporate backing to be a success. Initially, the reviews were generally favourable and the noted New York Times critic Edward Wyatt was optimistic about the series’ potential: ‘There are countless ways for a new television comedy to fail … Aliens in America, a new sitcom scheduled to have its premiere on the CW network in the fall, has dodged most of these bullets’ (Wyatt, 2007). The series was based on a recognizably common ‘fish out of water’ narrative. Raja, a 16-​year-​old Muslim boy, hailing from Pakistan, arrives as an exchange student at the home of the Tolchucks, a typical middle-​class family living in suburban Wisconsin. The Tolchucks expected a ‘cultured’ European student who would raise their cultural capital in the community; Raja defied these expectations. An exceptionally kind-​hearted and well-​meaning student, his devout attention to ethics and morality often made him an outsider and, more importantly for a sitcom, served as comic fodder for most of the series’ storylines. Ironically, what is perhaps most notable about Raja is how he embodied a quintessentially ‘American’ quality that the other characters lacked: rugged individualism. In contrast to his American host family, who were often depicted as devoted followers of consumerism and popular trends, Raja always forged his own path. In this sense, Aliens was perhaps even more subversive than it is given credit for by showing how a clichéd devoted Muslim might exude more stereotypical American traits than his surrounding cast. Journalist Neil Murray looked back on the series nearly ten years after its debut and remarked that the show uniquely resisted the pull toward American homogenization. ‘It would’ve been very easy for Aliens in America to coast on the elements of the show that were non-​threatening, and to move as quickly as possible to “normalise” Raja’, said Murray (2016). Aliens defied the sitcom genre’s tendencies Mills described. ‘Aliens in America is an unexpectedly poignant and complex exploration of the virtues of individuality versus conformity. The episodes did not always come down squarely in favour of the former’ (Murray, 2016). And yet, as is often the case, there was a divide between critical and popular reception. Aliens was a commercial failure, lasting only one season. Comparing episodes from Little Mosque and Aliens illustrates the above distinction. In season one, episode five of Aliens, ‘Help Wanted’, Raja decides to help his host family by getting a part-​time job. Initially, he struggles to 256

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find work until he applies at the local convenience store (a knowing nod to the stereotype that South Asian men often work in corner stores). Although the job starts well, it soon devolves into conflict. Raja, steadfast in his morals, refuses to sell his underaged high school classmates alcohol and cigarettes, much to his classmates’ chagrin. Expecting to gain support from his boss, Raja is further dismayed to find that even his employer, who himself is a South Asian immigrant, is upset at Raja’s actions; it’s a lost sale, and Raja ends up being fired. The Tolchucks, seeing Raja downtrodden after his job loss, sympathize with him. What is underscored in this episode is that, at his core, Raja is an admirable person that the other characters aspire to emulate; it’s a morality tale. Murray (2016) writes about how this message was not well received by audiences, who likely expected a more playful, sitcom-​like outcome: Maybe potential viewers were scared away by the premise, fearing a weekly lecture or some kind of Muslim minstrelsy (or both). … If the politics of today have taught us anything, it’s that American citizens will sometimes reject a perfectly pleasant piece of pop culture just because they’re sure it’s making a statement that they’d rather not support. Every straw has become the last straw. The assertion that ‘every straw has become the last straw’ might be overstated. The simpler, more accurate explanation about why the episode failed to resonate with audiences is that it betrayed the most basic of expectations when it comes to the sitcom genre: despite upheaval in every episode, fundamentally, the audience expects the fictional world created in the series to remain the same: it is the sitcom code. By betraying this code, it becomes appreciable why Aliens failed despite otherwise strong writing and funny episodes.

The paradox of novel representations in a conservative medium What this chapter has so far described is a paradox, that is, a progressive show about Muslim communities, insofar as it was the first to have a full cast of Muslim characters without stereotyping them or their religion, within a medium that is generally known as resistant to change and inhospitable to difference. So far, the argument has been made that Little Mosque cleverly found its footing by adopting the sitcom’s mild-​mannered reputation and, by doing so, made an implicit (and often explicit, when producers spoke about the show) claim that Muslims were, to borrow from the show’s creator, ‘normal’ people just like everyone else. Given this paradox, progressiveness through normality, there is considerable debate about the ‘true’ quality of 257

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the commentary about Muslims in society that Little Mosque produced. In one camp, many people have found that Little Mosque transformed the political and cultural landscape of North America into a more inclusive space (Vukasovich, 2008; Albański, 2010; Eid and Khan, 2011). By providing a space where Muslim characters were the protagonists and, more importantly, funny, affable, and relatable, the case can be made that the series achieved its ambitions. However, others argue that the social commentary the series offers lacks substance and is mostly superficial (Cañas, 2008; Doyle, 2012; Osborne, 2012). This group argues that the show fails to recognize nuances within Muslim communities and often glosses over more truly progressive commentary by relying too heavily on jokes that audiences might not take seriously enough to meaningfully change their perceptions of the religion (for example, Hussain, 2010; Eid and Khan, 2011; Hirji, 2011). The central concerns in both approaches are based on the ‘accuracy’ of the series’ depictions of fundamental tenets of Islam. By way of example, Kassam offered a damning review of the series: Despite its [commercial] success, longevity and desire to be quasi-​ educational, Little Mosque on the Prairie does not deliver on its considerable potential to articulate a more nuanced politics of representation. The sitcom, in my view, reaffirms key norms, engages in politics of authenticity, and reinforces hegemonic messages both within Muslim communities and Canadian society. (2015: 623) Yet the show’s producers knew this about sitcom humour going into the series. Is there perhaps a more meaningful way to think about what the comedy of Little Mosque reveals about Muslim communities in Canada other than the binary of success versus failure? The answer comes by way of more thoughtfully considering the intersection of religion and comedy, and how the former often shapes our understanding of the latter.

Finding the meaning of laughter both loud and silent Not all topics are equally accessible as the basis for jokes and punchlines. In the mid-​2000s, the mere mention of a comedy portraying Muslim characters was enough to garner news coverage. Little Mosque came on the heels of the Jyllands-​Posten Prophet Muḥammed cartoon controversy and therefore encountered the underlying stereotype that Muslims cannot take a joke and lack humour (Weaver, 2013; Bloomer and Ismail, 2017). Paula Zahn, a news anchor for CNN, featured Little Mosque when the series debuted, illustrating precisely the types of questions that existed about the series. Transitioning into the segment, Zahn (2007) opened with a monologue:

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‘A little while earlier on, we showed you how angry passions come out in the open when some people feel threatened by their Muslim neighbours. But can intolerance like that ever be funny? Well, one Muslim filmmaker says, “Yes it can”, and she actually wants to put the “fun” back into fundamentalism.’ The premise behind the segment –​asking the question, can Muslims be funny? –​is misleading. It’s not the right question to be asking because there are numerous examples of funny Muslims in this show. Instead, both the segment and the series debut help set the stage for several questions, including, most notably, is the series going to use comedy effectively to deliver a progressive representation of Muslims within the broader society? Embedded in this question are several smaller yet crucial sub-​questions. For instance, it is needed to distinguish what is meant by the subjective notion of progressive representation. One must also consider the efficacy of said progressive viewpoints through a particular medium. As such, the question that Zahn is actually posing when she asks, ‘Can intolerance like that ever be funny?’ is more along the lines of asking the following: is light-​hearted comedy a good tool for offering a progressive representation of Muslims? This focus on whether or not the series offered a progressive viewpoint is not merely an either/​or proposition. Rather than adjudicating one position or another, it is more valuable to consider a perspective on the series that has been so far under-​theorized; namely, the role of comedy. Sandra Cañas’ work on the series identifies this gap. Her analysis concluded on a point that I intend to develop further and explain: Perhaps this [left out complexity] is the political limitation of the professed multiculturalism of the series: the form of the cultural text –​a television comedy –​can only use satire, parody, and mimicry in comedic ways that, while challenging the Orientalist discourse of the Muslim Other, produces its own silences. (Cañas, 2008: 209, emphasis added) For present purposes, what is especially relevant is her final observation, that comedy produces silences. Understanding the origin and impact of these silences is vital in furthering our understanding of Little Mosque’s representation of Muslims and comedic social commentary. When it comes to understanding comedy, the silence that Cañas points out is best understood through the work of social theorist Michael Billig, who identified a contemporary trend in cultural attitudes about humour that champions its virtues. Speaking out against ideas like ‘laughter is the best medicine’, he makes the case that the dominant cultural role humour holds today is to make people feel better, which has some unexpected and 259

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unfortunate side-​effects. When read in conjunction with Cañas, there are similar ideas about silences, this time framed as textual repression: ‘The argument will be that an ideological pattern can be detected across these [social science and humanities] genres. … The less pleasant faces of humour –​its so-​called negatives –​tend to be pushed aside. In some cases, this neglect is so striking one might even talk of textual repression’ (Billig, 2005: 10). Does this mean that certain readings of a text have people actively repressing the less savoury interpretations of comedy, making those objectionable faces of humour somehow inaccessible? Of course not. However, it suggests that humour is often given the benefit of the doubt. Billig argues that because there is a fairly common desire to think of humour as a positive, uplifting force, humour that hurts or ridicules is thought of less critically than more direct forms of discriminatory discourse. If an attempted joke goes too far, past the subjective bounds of good taste, he argues, many would rather call it unfunny than tarnish the reputation of humour. This is why a salacious joke can be told, eliciting laughter from some (in other words, those who find it humorous), while others who are offended will often retort, ‘That’s not funny!’ Since humour is generally considered to be a positive social force, ‘successful’ comedies are those that do not stray too far beyond established societal norms around a topic. While counterintuitive to the typical portrayal of comedy as edgy, boundary-​ pushing, and uncomfortable, what Billig argues is that those dynamics might not be as progressive as one might think. When Cañas and Billig talk of silences and repression in comedy, what they are also referring to is the notion of comic failure. ‘Lighten up, it’s just a joke.’ This familiar phrase, given a reading through critical comedy theory, is indicative of people’s propensity to look for the ‘good-​natured’ aspects of humour. This is not to say that comedy should not delve into taboo topics. However, it suggests that if, to use comic parlance, a joke ‘bombs’, it is deemed somehow outside of the realm of comedy. Sociologists Lockyer and Pickering, who developed empirical studies to test Billig’s work, concluded that comedy is repressed in large part because of cultural expectations about humour. For them, understanding subversive humour is about appreciating the balance between ethics and aesthetics. When crafted cleverly and delivered deftly, the aesthetic aspects of humour can mask underlying ethical complexities; however, if a joke is deemed racist, sexist, or similar, these instances of ‘failed’ humour become excluded from ‘proper’ humour (Lockyer and Pickering, 2008: 811). Comedy theorist Mostafa Abedinifard sums up this perspective well by noting that it assumes that ‘the insensitive, irresponsible, cruel, or morally and politically problematic instances of humour are only unfortunate negative appendages to the essentially good entity of humour’ (2015: 13). 260

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Two excellent examples of this predicament are evident in Muslim comedies. The first was Citizen Khan (2012–​2016), a British sitcom that debuted in 2012. This show had a decidedly harder edge than Little Mosque; its jokes emphasized laughing at (as opposed to laughing with) the Pakistani Muslim father, the titular Mr Khan, prompting more than 200 official complaints after its first episode. The broadcaster’s defence of the series proves Lockyer and Pickering’s point concerning the shifting of focus away from social issues and more toward comedic failure. In an attempt to defuse the complaints, one spokesperson said, ‘New comedy always provokes differing reactions from the audience. The characters are comic creations and not meant to be representative of the community as a whole’ (cited in Revoir, 2012). Rupa Huq, a British member of parliament, offered more criticism of the series. Again, the substance of the complaint was contingent on style, implicitly arguing that the comedy failed to meet the more thoughtful or innovative comedy aesthetic: ‘The show’s parading of borderline racist stereotypes is stuck in a 70s groove. The style of humour belongs several aeons ago. It’s cut from the same comedy cloth as Jim Davidson, Mind Your Language and Mixed Blessings –​all my worst televisual nightmares rolled into one’3 (Huq, 2016). Australia’s Here Come the Habibs (2016–​2017), offers another example. The show revolved around two warring neighbours, one of which, the Habibs, is a Lebanese-​Muslim family. Like the previous example, the series was decried by many as a bad example of Muslim comedy. Candy Royalle, in her article ‘A Thousand Stereotypes and Zero Laughs’, went to great lengths not to characterize the show as a Muslim comedy because of its poor taste and failed comedy, ‘But here’s the problem with humour that’s driven by stereotypes –​it marginalises people. … So it’s not a laughing matter for the targets of these gags –​we’re being laughed at, not with’ (Royalle, 2016). Another newspaper reviewer insisted that the jokes offered no redeeming qualities for any of the Muslim characters, calling it a ‘fascinating experiment in omni-​directional stupidity’ (Pobjie, 2017). Each description hardly seems conducive to the thoughtful consideration of social issues. Little Mosque was a counterexample to Aliens, Here Come the Habibs, and Citizen Khan and accomplished the delicate balancing act that a successful Muslim-​centred comedy was required to perform. On the one hand, Little Mosque had to reach a broad audience and make them feel comfortable, at ease with the jokes told and the people telling them. For persons critical of the series, this tact was a concession, limiting the range of themes and issues the series could have tackled (for example, Cañas, 2008; Doyle, 2012; Osborne, 2012). However, on the other hand, those shows that tried to break new ground (Aliens) or push the limits (Here Come the Habibs and Citizen Khan) faced a different problem. Instead of offering a fertile opportunity for 261

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the thoughtful consideration of multicultural spaces and the experiences of Muslims in society, the broader discourse around the show became about what constituted ‘proper’ comedy in the first place. Earlier in this chapter, Davies’ work on cross-​cultural joking was briefly mentioned. By taking a historical view of the use of humour across the world, his work found significant trends in the effects of humour shaping communities. For present purposes, Davies’ research helps clarify the cultural dynamics of Little Mosque because he sheds light on the question of whether jokes significantly change public opinion and affect society. Most insightfully, he argued that despite intentions and popular belief, humour does much more to reveal social structures than it does to revolutionize them: Jokes are an important part of the lives of individuals, particularly in face-​to-​face or email communication, but it is wrong to deduce from this that jokes have any impact on society. It is illicit to move between levels in this way. Jokes are a thermometer, not a thermostat; they provide an indication of what is happening in society, but they do not feed back into and change or reinforce the social processes that generated them in any important way. (Davies, 2011: 248, emphasis added) Following this logic, appreciating the social commentary of Little Mosque becomes less about looking inward, dissecting the nuances of each joke, and more about looking outward to find out something about the culture that consumes and approves of the comedy. By being a thermometer rather than a thermostat, it becomes clearer that Little Mosque’s comedic importance lies in what it reveals about the community in which it is embedded because, of course, a culture’s sense of humour indicates what may otherwise remain hidden. One of the most contentious topics of joking that Little Mosque could have pursued would have been Muslims and air travel. In an episode of season two, ‘No Fly List’, one of the main characters, Baber (an economics professor), finds himself unable to travel to a conference in the United States because he has been mistakenly included on the no-​fly list. And, while the episode indirectly deals with the fallout of 9/​11 and the stereotypes that afflict Muslims, the jokes were rarely explicitly about the broader Islamophobic context. While providing a backdrop, the real focus of the episode was the small, situational humorous incidents revolving around individual characters and their predicaments. Take, for example, a joke made by another character, the town’s imam, Amaar, at Baber’s expense. ‘People shouldn’t hate Baber because he’s Muslim’, argues Amaar, to which another character, Rayyan agrees. Amaar continues with a sarcastic jab at Baber’s expense, ‘They should get to know him first’ (Fox, 2007). The structure of the joke, shifting away from more complex social issues and toward Baber’s unpleasant personality, 262

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is a fitting metaphor for the series as a whole. Using the backdrop of an intractable social problem, the show does not address the issue in a disturbing or confrontational way. So, while the social commentary is evident, the potent kernel of critique is mostly repressed in favour of light-​hearted laughter, in the manner Billig described more generally: Would any researcher wish to gain a reputation for trying to show that the humour in general has negative effects? Imagine the case of a researcher who is professionally devoted to demonstrating the Positive Life Benefits that can accrue from enjoying the humour of ridicule. The invitations to address international symposia would soon dry up. Suspicions of sexism, homophobia and racism would circulate. It is much safer to be positive about positive humour. (2005: 23–​24) Benefiting from hindsight and attention to the field of humour studies, one might be critical of those who had high hopes for Little Mosque to revolutionize the cultural landscape. Such an outcome was unlikely; the sitcom is not a genre set up to push boundaries, and there is a strong case to be made that comedy is, as Davies argued, more of a thermostat than a thermometer. However, this is not meant to devalue humour or Little Mosque. On the contrary, Davies makes this observation so that cultural critiques can more usefully focus attention on what comedy does reveal about societies. For jokes to be successful, shared experiences and understandings are required. Watching Little Mosque allows a glimpse into the cultural construction of Muslim communities through the lens of a mainstream sitcom product. Noting that the difference between Shiites and Sunnis is never once mentioned in the series reveals just how much –​or rather how little –​cultural learning was transmitted through the show. In this view, Litte Mosque was never well suited to change the cultural climate concerning Canadian Muslims; its truer function was as a thermometer to show where audience sensitivities and acceptance existed through comedy. Little Mosque reflects a specific cultural time and place. This chapter stresses that understanding cultural attitudes toward humour is a vital piece of context that is as necessary as a close examination of the jokes themselves. Little Mosque was, and continues to be, a reflection of society’s mainstream views –​how the series is discussed provides a glimpse into the attitudes that act as a subtext for those views. The series found a place in post-​9/​11 pop culture due to its light-​hearted jokes. In 2017, MacLean’s Magazine published a feature, ‘What Little Mosque on the Prairie would be like today’. In the piece, Ishani Nath interviews Nawaz and reflects on what has happened since the show left the airwaves. While noting the series’ continued relevance today, Nawaz adds, ‘It’s just if I was going to make a show today I would have to take into consideration everything that’s happened since then and 263

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I would definitely have a show with a different tone and sense of comedy’ (cited in Nath, 2017). As a comedy writer, she recognizes that not all topics are equally ripe for joking and that sensitives and comedic tastes shift with time. ‘If I was to do it again, it would have to be much more cutting, much more deliberate … I would have to deal with overt racism in a much more direct fashion’ (cited in Nath, 2017).

What next? A valuable place to end is often on the question ‘what next?’ Although Little Mosque was by any measure a commercial success, comedies regularly featuring issues that Muslims face as a central plot are rare. While series like Aziz Ansari’s Master of None (2015–​2017) and characters like Abed in Community (2009–​2015) dedicate particular episodes and storylines to depictions of Muslim communities, they are aberrations from those comedies’ main themes; they are TV comedies featuring Muslims, as opposed to Muslim TV comedies. To this point, the 2019 Hulu series Ramy (2019–​present) is still promoted as the ‘first’ Muslim-​American comedy (which is perhaps true enough, since Little Mosque was Canadian, despite having large American audiences). Coming a decade after Little Mosque’s debut, there are at least two notable features of Ramy’s emergence. The first has been mentioned; it is still a painfully slow process getting Muslim representation in mainstream TV comedy. The second, perhaps more salient point, is that Ramy will be subjected to many of the same criticisms about what it means to provide the ‘whole story’ and what it means to be Muslim. In an op-​ed written by the show’s creator, Ramy Youssef, he tells the story of meeting a man on the street who recognizes him and tells him to make the Muslim community proud. In a way that feels not unlike what Nawaz experienced, Youssef talks about the struggles he faces undertaking the task of balancing comedy and social advocacy. He writes: I don’t know what the man in the mosque thinks of my show, if he’s seen it. He probably thinks it has too much sex or that I didn’t show the right kind of Muslim. But here’s what I’d tell him: When we first tested our pilot, audiences thought it was a story about terrorism –​ because it started in a mosque with people speaking Arabic. People were used to seeing a mosque and then seeing something explode. On my show, you see a mosque, and then I do something really stupid on a date. (Youssef, 2019) He continues, with a poignant, single-​sentence paragraph, ‘That’s a first’ (Youssef, 2019). It is beside the point that the notion of doing something foolish on a date is not new territory because many of Little Mosque’s 264

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storylines used the same tropes as comedic fodder. What is more important is learning from Little Mosque’s example, to develop better critiques of shows like Ramy. For example, the criticisms of Muslim comedy made in Shamira Ibrahim’s (2019) ‘What Ramy Gets Wrong about Muslim Women’ and Jacob Oller’s ‘Ramy Season 2 Burns Its Bridges, Loses Its Laughs, and Doesn’t Look Back’ are entirely reminiscent of those levelled against Little Mosque in the past. Oller, for instance, makes a familiar criticism about lack of depth in cultural nuance, insisting that ‘Ramy’s disingenuous religious devotion is sold as complex’. Then he comments on the sitcom format: That (season story) arc attempts to be like if Lena Dunham, Louis C.K., or another sitcom oversharer decided to become an ascetic on their way to rock bottom. What if a show’s comic neurosis wasn’t focused around day-​to-​day minutiae because of a general post-​modern attitude towards slicing up life, but because of an inability to grasp the bigger things life has to offer? (Oller, 2020) All things considered, what Ramy’s present run reinforces is the continued need to remain mindful of the intersection of Muslim characters’ identities, sitcom humour, and social commentary. It also reaffirms the need to continually offer a reminder that there is more to understanding a Muslim comedy than merely identifying the themes present in it. This chapter has made the case that a better appreciation of the sitcom genre’s implicit ideological tendency toward the therapeutic and good-​natured features of humour in contemporary society is crucial for appreciating how comedy influences social commentary. Moreover, one needs to recognize that these aspects of the show both allow and restrict the messages conveyed. The series illustrates the paradox of a conservative medium expressing progressive representations and, due to this paradox, the interpretations of the series are complicated and complex. The tagline for Little Mosque was ‘Small town Canada with a little Muslim twist’. While it is a catchy line to attract audiences, it is also an unintentional yet telling comment about the series itself. Although the series was described as the first Muslim sitcom, it is perhaps more apt to describe the series as the first sitcom to prominently feature Muslims. The distinction is this: rather than developing a style of humour that was distinctly ‘Muslim’, the series instead demonstrated that Muslims can be humorous in an established, recognizable genre. As a point of contrast, there are many regional, ethnic, and cultural identities that have well-​ known characteristics that are uniquely their own. Jewish humour is generally thought of as ironic, satirical, and often-​times self-​deprecating (Dauber, 2017) and there is a long list of successful series that are noted 265

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for their Jewish roots, including The Goldbergs (1949–​1956), Seinfeld (1989–​1998), and Broad City (2014–​2019), to name a few. Something similar might also be said for Black comedies (Scott, 2014) such as Amos ’n’ Andy (1951–​1953), The Jeffersons (1985–​1975), and Black-​ish (2014–​ present), or regionalized humour like that in the Canadian show Corner Gas (2004–​2009; 2018–​present) or British humour in the series Peep Show (2003–​2015). But if something similar cannot be said for Little Mosque –​if it does not demonstrate a Muslim sense of humour or, for that matter, a Muslim sitcom –​what can we learn from the series? It should be noted that by the time Little Mosque debuted, the sitcom genre was already mostly well defined. As some of the previous examples illustrate, cultural identities had already been woven into the fabric of the genre for decades. By using familiar styles of comedy, Little Mosque built on these traditions. Ironically, one could make the case that the ‘fish out of water’ trope found in Jewish comedy (Cooper, 2003; Fraiman, 2017) means that looking exclusively at the style of jokes in the series, Little Mosque was more Jewish than anything else. In any case, the well-​defined genre did not leave space to reimagine or define what Muslim humour might be. This, in and of itself, is not a failure or shortcoming; far from it. The representation of Muslim communities in a well-​received sitcom does convey another important message, namely, that Muslims can, of course, be funny, affable, and give and take a joke. It does provide a place to continue to think further about where a Muslim sense of humour might be more easily identified in the Western context. Presumably, if the sitcom genre was too established and conservative to properly articulate a Muslim sense of humour, it stands to reason that creating a cultural identity in humour is most likely in an evolving medium that Muslim comics can play a formative role in developing. In her 2018 assessment of contemporary Muslim comedy, religious scholar Jaclyn Michael does a formidable job identifying themes, issues, and topics that Muslim comics regularly use in their humour, but she is nonetheless unable to find a particular style of delivering humour that can be said to be uniquely Muslim (Michael, 2011, 2013). Again, this is not a failure or an oversight but speaks to the fact that Muslim comics have not yet played a prominent role in the formation of new styles of comedy popular in the Western world. It is also highly possible that this process is already in motion, and the genre hybridity between comedy, drama, and long-​form storytelling in a series like Ramy might, upon closer inspection, be part of this development. However, when this step is made, it will certainly be true that Little Mosque will have played a crucial part. It allowed audiences to watch Muslim characters in comedy precisely by leveraging the familiar-​feeling comedy style of the sitcom. In doing so, Little Mosque became a starting point for whatever the future of Muslim comedy holds. 266

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Notes 1

2

3

The term Muslim comedy is, admittedly, open to a wide range of interpretations. In this chapter, it is meant in the sense that key protagonists identify as Muslim and many of the topics discussed relate to Islam. It does not mean that a particular version of Islam or attitude toward Muslim people is promoted, although one might argue that these sorts of views are inherent, even if they are downplayed. In 2006, the Environics Institute for Survey Research conducted a national survey of Muslims in Canada, which, at the time, was a first in Canada. The survey focused on the experiences of Muslims in Canada and how non-​Muslim Canadians viewed them and then compared these experiences from similar surveys conducted in other countries. In 2016, the institute completed a follow-​up survey that examined what had changed over the ten years and concluded that although Canada has a reputation for multicultural equality, Muslims were unique in some fundamental ways. Notably, they continued to be unfairly characterized as terrorist threats, despite showing some of the highest levels of participation in activities such as voting and multicultural events. Huq is referencing Jim Davidson, a controversial British comedian known for his jokes about minorities, as well as two TV series, that are generally understood to lack much in the way of social sensitivities.

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Hussain, A. (2010) ‘(Re)Presenting: Muslims on North American television’, Contemporary Islam 4(1): 55–​75. Ibrahim, S. (2019) ‘What ‘Ramy’ gets wrong about Muslim women’, The Atlantic, [online] 24 April. Available from: www.theatlantic.com/​ entertainment/ ​ a rchive/ ​ 2 019/ ​ 0 4/ ​ h ulus- ​ r amy-​ m isses-​ m ark-​ muslim-​ women/​587722 Kassam, S. (2015). ‘Settling the multicultural nation-state: Little Mosque on the Prairie, and the figure of the moderate Muslim’, Social Identities 21(6): 606–626. Kennedy, M. (2007a) ‘Swimming Upstream’, Little Mosque on the Prairie [TV broadcast], 6 February, Toronto: CBC. Kennedy, M. (2007b) ‘The Convert’, Little Mosque on the Prairie [TV broadcast], 14 February, Toronto: CBC. Lockyer, S. and Pickering, M. (2008) ‘You must be joking: the sociological critique of humour and comic media’, Sociology Compass 2(3): 808–​820. Marc, D. (2005) ‘Origins of the genre: in search of the radio sitcom’, in M.M. Dalton and L.R. Linder (eds) The Sitcom Reader: America Viewed and Skewed, Albany, NY: SUNY Press, pp 15–​24. Mason, C. (2007) ‘ “Little Mosque” defuses hate with humor’, The New York Times, [online] 16 January. Available from: www.nytimes.com/​2007/​01/​ 16/​world/​americas/​16canada.html Menon, V. (2012) ‘Little show, big concept nears end’, Toronto Star [newspaper], 25 March, p E1. Michael, J. (2011) ‘American Muslims stand up and speak out: trajectories of humor in Muslim American stand-​up comedy’, Contemporary Islam 7(2): 129–​153. Michael, J. (2018) ‘Contemporary Muslim comedy’, in R.Lukens-​Bull and M. Woodward (eds) Handbook of Contemporary Islam and Muslim Lives, Dordrecht: Springer, pp 1–​13. Mills, B. (2005) Television Sitcom, London: BFI. Mills, B. (2009) The Sitcom, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Mintz, L.E. (1985) ‘Situation comedy’, in B. Rose (ed) TV Genres, Westport, CT: Greenwood, pp 105–​129. Murray, N. (2016) ‘For one sweet season, aliens in America found comedy in a conflict between faiths’, AV Club, [online] 2 May. Available from: www.avclub.com/ ​ a rticle/ ​ o ne- ​ sweet- ​ s eason- ​ a liens​america-​found-​comedy-​confl-​235967 Nath, I. (2017) ‘What Little Mosque on the Prairie would be like today’, MacLean’s, [online] 15 June. Available from: www.macleans.ca/​culture/​ what-​little-​mosque-​on-​the-​prairie-​would-​be-​like-​today Nawaz, Z. (2014) Laughing All the Way to the Mosque, Toronto: Collins Canada. 269

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Oller, J. (2020) ‘Ramy Season 2 burns its bridges, loses its laughs, and doesn’t look back’, Paste Magazine, [online] 28 May. Available from: www. pastemagazine.com/​tv/​hulu/​ramy-​season-​2-​review Osborne, L. (2012) ‘Believing, belonging, and laughing in Little Mosque on the Prairie’, University of Chicago Divinity School, [blog] 15 March. Available from: https://​divinity.uchicago.edu/​sightings/​ believing-​belonging-​and-​laughing-​little-​mosque-p​ rairie-l​ auren-e​ -o ​ sborne Pobjie, B. (2017) ‘Culture-​clash sitcom: Here Come The Habibs falls flat on second outing’, Sydney Morning Herald, [online] 29 May. Available from: www.smh.com.au/e​ ntertainment/t​ v-a​ nd-r​ adio/c​ ultureclash-s​ itcom-​ here-​come-​the-​habibs-​falls-​flat-​on-​second-​outing-​20170529-​gwfi7c.html Revoir, P. (2012) ‘BBC accused of insulting Muslims with new sitcom Citizen Khan as 200 complain about first episode’, The Daily Mail, [online] 28 August. Available from: www.dailymail.co.uk/​news/​article-​2194972/​ Citizen-K ​ han-​provokes-​200-​complaints-​BBC-​accused-​insulting-​Muslims. html Royalle, C. (2016) ‘A thousand stereotypes and zero laughs: a review of Here Come the Habibs’, SBS, [online] 10 February. Available from: www.sbs.com.au/​guide/​article/​2016/​02/​10/​thousand-​stereotypes-​and​zero-​laughs-​review-​here-​come-​habibs Scott, M. (2014) ‘From Blackface to Beulah: subtle subversion in early black sitcoms’, Journal of Contemporary History 49(4): 743–​769. The Environics Institute (2006) ‘Section three special theme: Muslims and multiculturalism in Canada’, in Focus Canada: The Pulse of Canadian Public Opinion, Ottawa: The Environics Institute for Survey Research, pp 59–​122. The Environics Institute (2016) ‘Survey of Muslims in Canada 2016: Final Report’, Ottawa: The Environics Institute for Survey Research. Thompson, E. (2007) ‘Comedy verité? The observational documentary meets the televisual sitcom’, The Velvet Light Trap 60(1): 63–​72. Vukasovich, C. (2008) ‘Cultural identity negotiated in cultural assimilation: an analysis of the television sitcom Little Mosque on the Prairie’, Conference Papers –​International Communication Association, pp 1–​22. Weaver, S. (2013) ‘A rhetorical discourse analysis of online anti-​Muslim and anti-​Semitic jokes’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36(3): 483–​499. Wyatt, E. (2007) ‘Did you order a Muslim? (yuk yuk)’, New York Times, [newspaper] 1 July, p 2.24. Youssef, R. (2019) ‘Ramy’ star-​creator on why Muslim-​American comedy comes with baggage’, Hollywood Reporter, [online] 20 June. Available from: www.hollywoodreporter.com/​news/​ramy-​star-​creator-​why-​muslim-​ american-​comedy-​comes-​baggage-​1219249 Zahn, P. (2007) ‘Barriers broken in Congress: Muslims in America’, Paula Zahn Now [tv broadcast], 4 January, New York: CNN.

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Conclusion Bernard Schweizer and Lina Molokotos-Liederman The contributions in this volume explore a wide variety of humour practices related to Islamic/​Muslim contexts. Egyptian TV satire in the wake of the Arab Spring is the subject of Moutaz Alkheder’s chapter on Bassem Youssef. Chourouq Nasri explores cartooning as a popular comical artform in the Arab world, examining how cartoonists navigate boundaries on comical licence. Ethnic joke cycles in Iran are documented in Fatemeh Nasr Esfahani’s chapter, addressing both their conventional ethnic thematic and their religious subversiveness. The Qur’an, too, provides material for smiles, and Yasmin Amin discusses a plethora of deliberate appropriations (and misappropriations) of Qur’anic verses and passages (so-​called iqtibās) for humorous effect. Joking as an anti-​fundamentalist weapon –​especially aimed against ISIS –​is employed from both within the Arab world and from the West, as illustrated in Mona Abdel-​Fadil’s chapter. Joseph Alagha explores roles played by levity in Hizbullah’s cultural programme, noting Hizbullah-​internal disagreements about the status of humour. Shifting from humour expressions in the Muslim world to comedy by Muslims in North America, Jaclyn Michael explores the boldly uninhibited female Muslim stand-​up acts in America, analyzing their take on gender, sexuality, and race. Jay Friesen looks closely at the successful Canadian TV series Little Mosque on the Prairie, finding that conventional comical sitcom strategies take precedence over any putative Muslim comical sensibilities. These two ­chapters –​on Muslim comedians and Muslim-​themed humour in North America –​point out that some differences do exist in the ways humour is presented and appreciated in Islamicate contexts as compared to non-​Muslim-​majority societies, where comedy by Muslims is found to be as uninhibited and irreverent as the larger sociocultural context would allow it to be. The first part of this book traces the roots of such observed differences. The three chapters by Mostafa Abedinifard, Georg Leube, and Walid Ghali delve into the historical, scriptural, and theological 271

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foundations for certain characteristic ways in which humour operates in Islamicate contexts. Abedinifard links Islamic bans on deprecatory, sarcastic, and mocking kinds of humour to the religion founders’ experience of ridicule as a powerful oppositional strategy employed by enemies of the incipient Muslim community. Georg Leube explores the challenge posed to Islamic exegetes by the Prophet’s outbursts of laughter, which caused some commentators to carefully edit and frame Muḥammad’s expressions of mirth so as to preserve a proper sense of prophetic gravitas. Walid Ghali, finally, elucidates the pervasive role played by humour in Arabic language and in Islamic scriptures, while tracing the influence of conservative jurists and Sufi scholars who, following al-​Ghazālī, promoted a view of joking as only permissible if it was truthful, good-​natured, and pious. Thus, while our volume affirms that laughter and comedy are present in many forms in Arabic Muslim societies, the book also acknowledges that certain cultural, religious, and societal differences and sensibilities play a role in the way humour is practised, enjoyed, and at times, resisted. Because of the latter, that is, prescriptions aimed at moderating or curbing certain types and expressions of humour, Western observers tend to think that Islamic societies go a wholly different route compared to the Western emphasis on freedom, individualism, and unfettered expression. This view of contrasting humour attitudes is in need of readjustment. What often goes unnoticed is that the West, too, has evolved standards intended to curb certain kinds of comedy and to discourage inappropriate or offensive joking. One significant example of this is the Christian theology of laughter, which has become a minor tradition of theological thought within the last 50 years. The main exponents of this movement, such as Karl-​Joseph Kuschel, Conrad Hyers, Harvey Cox, Richard Cote, James Martin, and Gerald Arbuckle, all endeavour to rehabilitate levity and to remove the old Christian stigma placed on laughter as somehow satanic in nature and tending toward frivolity and impiety. At the same time, these pro-​laughter theologians have developed a programme outlining proper Christian attitudes to humour that is almost exactly congruent with the Islamic endorsement of non-​offensive, clean humour, and halal joking. In this spirit, James Martin insists that ‘l‌aughter can be positive or negative’ (Martin, 2011: 18), and he elaborates: There is humor that builds up and humor that tears down, a humor that exposes cant and hypocrisy and a humor that belittles the defenseless and marginalized. Good humor and bad humor … ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ depends not only on a moral sense, but on how the humor deepens or cheapens the relationship with God. (2011: 23) In a similar vein, Karl-​Joseph Kuschel (1994) developed a strictly dichotomous view of laughter: ‘There is joyful, comfortable, playful and 272

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contented laughter, and there is mocking, malicious, desperate and cynical laughter’ (1994: xvi). This is essentially in line with sura 49 in the Qur’an, which proscribes mocking, scornful, negative laughter.1 Gerald Arbuckle follows the same basic logic: We need to distinguish negative and positive humor so that it can be viewed in terms of a continuum. At one pole of the continuum there is negative humor marked by bitterness, hostility, humiliation. … At the other pole of the continuum there is positive humor characterized by pleasantness, joy, happiness, and other qualities that energize the mind and heart. Negative humor is directed against others. Positive humour is about ‘laughing with’ others. (2008: 4) The similarities between the Christian theology of laughter and normative Islamic pronouncements on moderate laughter and harmless joking extend to their shared aversion to impious laugher. For instance, Richard Cote (1986) ‘distinguishes Christian laughter from ordinary profane laughter’ (1986: 76), concluding that ‘laughter can be a destructive force’ (1986: 14). For such Christian thinkers, wholesome joking is redolent of kindness, restraint, and piety. These guidelines with their preference for positive, good-​ natured, and pious forms of mirth over sarcastic, bitter, and blasphemous jokes are hardly distinguishable from al-​Ghazālī’s rules about moderate laughter and gentle joking, free from bitterness or irreverence (see Chapter 3 in this book). In light of this, any given religious framework –​Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and so on –​is unlikely to be the principal driver of dissimilarities between different humour cultures. At most, religious frameworks are contributing factors to differences in the practice and appreciation of humour styles. It stands to reason, though, that most Christian theological standards of humour regulation are merely non-​binding, non-​ enforceable recommendations or protestations of virtue, albeit with notable exceptions in countries where anti-​blasphemy laws are still in place.2 By contrast, rules on humour and comedy in parts of the Muslim world are indeed enforceable and have been enforced through various means of cultural and political control,3 including self-​censorship, censorship, and acts or threats of physical violence, especially around aspects of irreverence and blasphemy. This aspect, too, is addressed in this volume by Chourouq Nasri, Yasmin Amin, Joseph Alagha, Moutaz Alkheder, and others. Besides the Christian theology of laughter, another area of non-​Muslim attitudes to humour should be mentioned where an overlap with Islamic regulations against unchecked humour and malicious laughter can be observed. Even though the parallels between Muslim, non-​Muslim, and more broadly secular attitudes to humour are not the focus of this volume, this is an issue that does collectively emerge, at least implicitly, 273

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in the 11 chapters of this volume. It is a question of critical importance which makes this volume relevant beyond the topic at hand, because it raises questions in humour studies and beyond around the fraught issue of freedom of speech. Specifically, what has come to be known in the West as identity-​based ideologies (variously referred to as wokeness, political correctness, or cancel culture) appear to be rooted in fundamental precepts about moral purity, prescriptive normativity, and literalism that share some similarities with the religious and value-​driven frameworks evolved by both Islamic and Christian normative responses to irreverent humour, albeit in different social and cultural contexts. Whether religiously or ideologically motivated, these critiques of insensitive comedy share the basic premise that toxic or injurious language is equivalent to aggression or violence. The argument goes that even if the punchline in an offensive joke is not the same as a real punch, harmful words can be equivalent to harmful acts –​individually by causing subjective pain, or collectively by inspiring, enabling and perpetuating forms of bullying, abuse, systemic discrimination or oppression. According to this view, comedy too easily shades into hate speech, and ‘What is a joke to the teller, and maybe even its audience, is an act of aggression against the people it mocks’ (Gray, 2017). Because the dividing line between problematic words and immoral actions is being eroded, numerous Western comedians have recently been critiqued, shamed, berated, and on occasion fired for crossing certain lines, especially lines related to race, gender, sexuality, and religion. The examples are legion, but a few specific mentions shall suffice: In 2018, the conservative comedian Roseanne Barr earned opprobrium over a racist joke and promptly lost her TV show as a result (Schweizer, 2020: 174 ); Kevin Hart was blasted for the sexist overtones of his 2018 monologue on Saturday Night Live, with critics including Sami Schalk, a Gender and Women’s Studies professor, averring that it is impossible to draw the line between joking and real life, saying that ‘these worlds are not separable’ (Horn-​Muller, 2018); when Stephen Colbert ironically endorsed the ‘Ching-​Chong Ding-​Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals’ many Asian viewers were so offended that they called for the cancellation of the ‘Colbert Report’; in his comedy shows ‘Sticks and Stones’ and ‘The Closer’, Dave Chapelle was heavily criticized for taking aim at cancel culture and for making jokes about transgender people and homophobia; and the list goes on. Objections to potentially offensive comedy are particularly pronounced on college campuses, and many comedians are no longer willing to perform there after being heckled and booed for delivering unfettered comedic material, or they were asked to sign ‘behavioural agreements’ prior to performing.4 The famously unabashed Chris Rock stays away from college campuses as does Jerry Seinfeld, fearing to become targets for students’ virtue signalling.5 274

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Comedians operating in the West have thus come to understand that comedy is not a space where ‘anything goes’. In particular, superiority humour that is punching down –​varieties of racist, homophobic, sexist, ageist, ableist, and so on, humour –​has come under fire, and comedians cannot help self-​censoring or risk landing in hot water when using material deemed inappropriate and derogatory. While few comedians and comedy-​ lovers will call into question that comedy can indeed foster harmful stereotypes and that some jokes are hurtful and offensive to their intended targets, the ethical implications of comedy and laughter are highly complex and multi-​dimensional. All proponents of humour regulation, whether they are Islamic authorities, Christian theologians of laughter, or advocates of cultural sensitivity and political correctness, aim to protect vulnerable human beings and disadvantaged groups from the barbs of comical attacks and the painful lashes of laughter. Or, as Walid Ghali says in this volume with reference to Sufis, ‘They avoid engaging in any violations caused by humour, such as lying or harming anyone.’ The excuse ‘It was only a joke’ would be as invalid for Sufis in many situations as it is invalid for Western critics of abrasive comedy. But while few commentators would want to ban all forms of aggressive humour, the mood in the West appears to shift toward making increasingly unacceptable superiority humour at the expense of historically victimized groups and downtrodden ethnicities (Daley, 2017). Joking at their expense can indeed be an expression of moral failing (Benatar, 2014: 26). But the devil is in the detail, as usual, and banning, even selectively, disparaging humour that punches down may risk affecting humour culture across the board, with a chilling effect leading to self-​censorship and even outright censorship,6 both of which run counter to the inherently ambivalent and boundary-​crossing forces that animate comedy and laughter. Making the project of selectively removing a certain type of harmful humour from the comedic universe even harder is the fact that demands for protection are ever shifting while humour’s affinity for ambivalence makes it often difficult to say with certainty whether a given joke is reinforcing harmful stereotypes or whether it is mocking the stereotype itself. Moreover, humour and the comedic meaning of a joke are relative and contextual, varying from person to person and depending on both the setting and the situation in which a joke is told. What is joked about and by whom are as important as when, where, and how the joke goes down. Who is to arbitrate whether a joke was intended to be anti-​Semitic or, on the contrary, whether it was humorously castigating that stereotype? Jewish commentators themselves are often baffled about this aspect, as exemplified in Devorah Baum’s book The Jewish Joke (2018). In the context of our work at the intersection of comedy and religion, one might conclude that there’s only one clear and easy rule, namely stipulating that blasphemous humour should be considered haram, beyond 275

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the pale, verboten. Indeed, both Christian and Islamic proponents of humour regulation are in complete agreement over this basic principle. However, from a secular perspective, the discouraging or even outlawing of blasphemous humour is also problematic. David Benatar, an authority on the ethics of humour, concludes that ‘the non-​contextual moral critique of blasphemous humour is hard to defend’ (2014: 32), meaning that categorically proscribing humour simply because its subject matter is mockery of God (or any deities) cannot be conceptually or morally justified. Other secular thinkers promote a view of blasphemy as squarely falling under the protection of individual freedoms, arguing that people ridiculing a deity should not be subject to greater legal sanction than people ridiculing any other entity or person. Nigel Warburton put it bluntly thus: ‘The idea that religious beliefs but not others should receive special protection is bizarre: All types of belief should be open to scrutiny, criticism, parody, and potentially ridicule in a free society’ (2009: 50). Timothy Garton Ash concurs, and even goes one step further by saying that, if anything, ‘religion should enjoy less protection than an immutable characteristic such as colour or gender’ (2016: 255). Alain Bouldoires, finally, considers the right to blaspheme to be a human right.7 These voices also deserve to be heard. As we can see, a gap opens up here not only between Western and Muslim commentators on humour, but equally between advocates of unfettered comedy and those who, no matter their religious or secular affiliation, would like to limit the right to free expression if it crosses certain boundaries –​whether they are confessional or secular –​deemed too offensive. In the tension between these two divergent viewpoints, the crucial difference is one of idealism versus pragmatism. Regulating comical practices and restricting humorous expressions has the force of moral idealism behind them. This is meant quite literally, in a Platonic sense. In Philebus, Plato condemned laughter and mockery as mean-​spirited practices and expressions of excess and falsehood (Plato, 1972: 97). Islamic and Christian pronouncements against the anarchy of laughter can be inspired by a sense of God-​given order, with which raucous laughter and immoderate joking are tampering, to the discredit of the comedian and at the peril of the audience consuming such humour. Our volume contributes to these debates in an effort to open up spaces that bring into the conversations the dynamics between humour and religion, and more particularly between Muslims and mirth, but on a nuanced footing that goes beyond mere assumptions of binary humour attitudes. While doctrine defines religion and has an influence on the ways in which humour is created, appreciated, and resisted, dogma does not wholly shape the actions of those who claim to be its believers, especially in the area of culture, including humour and laughter. Going beyond the binary opposition between those who have a sense of humour and those who do not, as 276

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Nilüfer Göle pointedly commented, ‘the voices on the fringes of society, those of ordinary Muslims, their presence, their points of view, their sense of humor –​all remain unheard’ (2017: xii). We hope that in this volume such unnoticed voices can be heard a little more loudly. Notes 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

‘O you who believe! Let not some men among you laugh at others: It may be that the latter are better than the former: Nor let some women laugh at others: It may be that the latter are better than the former: Nor defame nor be sarcastic to each other, nor call each other by offensive nicknames: Ill-​seeming is a name connoting wickedness. … And those who do not desist are indeed doing wrong’ (Qur’an, 49th sura [Al-​Hujurat], verse #11). Within the Christian tradition, we can still observe attempts and acts to penalize cultural acts of blasphemy through censoring regulations and anti-​blasphemy laws. For more information on the tensions between blasphemy laws and the freedom of expression in Western liberal democracies see Temperman and Koltay, 2017. Notable examples of the regulation and censorship of cultural productions, including humour and comedy, popular culture, and the arts more generally, can be found in Orthodox-​Christian majority countries (for example, Russia and Greece). In Greece certain visual or performing arts productions and popular culture, including irreverent humour, have been banned based on the application of blasphemy laws that are still in place and used to protect the Orthodox (majority) community’s right not to be offended (Fokas, 2017). For similar cases in Russia see Wijermars and Lehtisaari (2019). For a comprehensive overview of Arab media systems, including historical roots, political and legal frameworks, and social factors, see Richter and Kozman (2021). Some notable examples include comedians who have either been banned outright from performing on university campuses due to complaints of racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, or otherwise offensive humour, or those have been invited to perform on the condition that they sign a ‘behavioural agreement’ asking them to refrain from tackling difficult topics on stage in ways that are disrespectful or abusive. For more on the question of humour in university campuses see Chapter 10 in this volume and: www.theguardian. com/ ​ c ulture/ ​ 2 018/ ​ d ec/ ​ 1 1/ ​ c omedians- ​ a sked- ​ t o- ​ s ign- ​ b ehavioural- ​ a greement-​ for-​soas-​g ig Caitlin Flanagan, ‘That’s not funny: today’s college students can’t seem to take a joke’, The Atlantic Monthly, September 2015. Available from: www.theatlantic.com/​magazine/​ archive/​2015/​09/​thats-​not-​funny/​399335/​ On the issue of arts censorship in liberal democracies see Julius (2019) and the forthcoming book by Anthony Julius, Shameless Authors (Oxford University Press, 2024). https://​freespeechdebate.com/​en/​media/​blasphemy-​laws-​in-​europe/​

References Arbuckle, G.A. (2008) Laughing With God: Humor, Culture and Transformation, Collegeville, NM: Liturgical Press. Baum, D. (2017) The Jewish Joke: An Essay With Examples, London: Profile Books. Benatar, D. (2014) ‘Taking humour (ethics) seriously, but not too seriously’, Journal of Practical Ethics 2(1): 24–​43.

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Cote, R.D. (1986) Holy Mirth: A Theology of Laughter. Whitinsville, MA: Affirmation Books. Daley, B. (2017) ‘What is the point of offensive humour?’ The Conversation, [online] 9 May. Available from: https://t​ heconversation.com/​ what-​is-​the-​point-​of-​offensive-​humour-​76889 Flanagan, C. (2015) ‘That’s not funny: today’s college students can’t seem to take a joke’, The Atlantic Monthly Online, [online] September 2015 issue. Available from: www.theatlantic.com/​magazine/​archive/​2015/​09/​thats-​ not-​funny/​399335/​ Fokas, E (2017) ‘God’s advocates: the multiple fronts of the war on blasphemy in Greece’, in J. Temperman and A. Koltay (eds) Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression: Comparative, Theoretical and Historical Reflections after the Charlie Hebdo Massacre, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 389–​410. https://​ssrn.com/​abstract=​3256730 Garton Ash, T. (2016) Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Göle, N. (2017) The Daily Lives of Muslims: Islam and Public Confrontation in Contemporary Europe, London: Zed Books. Gray, R. (2017) ‘Joking is not a valid excuse for hate speech’, Thebluebanner. net, [online] 6 March. Available from: http://​ t hebluebanner.net/​ joking-​hate-​speech/​ Horn-​Muller, A. (2018) ‘Is it finally time to hold Kevin Hart accountable?’ Miami New Times, [online] 11 October. Available from: www.miaminewtimes. com/​arts/​kevin-​harts-​sexist-​jokes-​dont-​land-​in-​2018-​10795184 Julius, A. (2019) ‘The fantasy of free speech’, Times Literary Supplement, [online] 25 January. Available from: www.the-​ t ls.co.uk/​ a rticles/​ the-​fantasy-​of-​free-​speech-​censorship/​ Kuschel, K.-​J. (1994) Laughter: A Theological Reflection, trans John Bowden, London: SCM Press. Martin, J. (2011) Between Heaven and Mirth, New York: Harper Collins. Plato (1972) Philebus, trans R. Hackford, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richter, C. and Kozman, C. (eds) (2021) Arab Media Systems, Cambridge: Open Book Publishers. https://​doi.org/​10.11647/​OBP.0238 Schweizer, B. (2020) Christianity and the Triumph of Humor: From Dante to David Javerbaum, New York, NY: Routledge. Temperman, J. and Koltay, A. (eds) (2017) Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression: Comparative, Theoretical and Historical Reflections after the Charlie Hebdo Massacre, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Warburton, N. (2009) Free Speech: A Very Short Introduction, New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Wijermars, M. and Lehtisaari, K. (eds) (2019) Freedom of Expression in Russia’s New Mediasphere, Abingdon; New York: Routledge. 278

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Gaspard, L. (2017) Don’t Panic, I’m Islamic, London: Saqi Books. Göle, N. (2017) The Daily Lives of Muslims: Islam and Public Confrontation in Contemporary Europe, London: Zed Books Ltd. Guidi, D. (2012) ‘Rire et Islam: aujourd’hui en France’, in D. Mameri-​ Chaambi (ed) L’Islam en France: Chroniques d’une histoire commune, Paris: Chroniques, pp 174–176. Guidi, D. (2015) ‘Artistic reactions to contemporary controversies related to Islam’, in E. Toğuşlu (ed) Everyday Life Practices of Muslims in Europe, Leuven: Leuven University Press, pp 165–174. Hassan, F. (forthcoming) ‘Humour and its ethics: reflections from the Early Islamic Era’, in R. Dijkstra and P. van der Velde (eds) Humour in the Beginning: Religion, Humour and Laughter at the Origins of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Press. Heidari, M.J. (1379/​2000) ‘Tanz dar Qur’an-​e Karim’, Sahifeh-​ye Mobin 23: 86–​97. Hirzalla, F. and van Zoonen, L. (2016) ‘“The Muslims are coming”: the enactment of morality in activist Muslim comedy’, Humor 29(2): 261–​278. Hirzalla, F., van Zoonen, L. and Müller, F. (2017) ‘Islam controversies and humour: responses to comedic vlogs on the YouTube battlefield’, in B. Becking, A.M. Korte and L. van Liere (eds) Contesting Religious Identities: Transformations, Disseminations and Mediations, Leiden: Brill, pp 136–​155. Holtzman, L. (2010) ‘Does God really laugh? Appropriate and inappropriate descriptions of God in Islamic traditionalist theology’, in A. Classen (ed) Laughter in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: Epistemology of a Fundamental Human Behavior, Its Meaning, and Consequences, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co., pp 165–​200. Hussain, B. (2015) ‘Muslims never bomb on stage: audience perceptions of Muslim standup comedy’. MA thesis. Available from: https://​ecommons. luc.edu/​luc_​theses/​3137 Irwin, R. (2021) ‘Old Arab jokes’, in Z. Sardar (ed) Critical Muslim (vol 38), London: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, pp 76–​86. Kesvani, H. (2021) ‘My sardonic Tweet’, in Z. Sardar (ed) Critical Muslim (vol 38), London: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, pp 122–​132. Klausen, J. (2009) The Cartoons That Shook the World, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kuipers, G. (2008) ‘The Muhammad cartoon controversy and the globalization of humor’, Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 21(1): 7–​11. Kuipers, G. (2011) ‘The politics of humor in the public sphere: cartoons, power and modernity in the first transnational humor scandal’, European Journal of Cultural Studies 14(1): 63–​80.

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Kushner, M. (2001) ‘Unleash USA’s secret weapon: humor’, USA Today, [online] 4 October. Available from: www.usatoday.com/​news/​opinion/​ 2001-​10-​05-​opline.htm Lawrence, B.B. (2021) ‘Sufi satire’, in Z. Sardar (ed) Critical Muslim (vol 38), London: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, pp 24–​36. Lewis, P. (2008) ‘The Muhammad cartoon conflict: implications for humor research and advocacy’, Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 21(1): 11–​16. Lockyer, S. (2005) ‘Breaking the mould: conversations with Omid Djalili and Shazia Mirza’, in S. Lockyer and M. Pickering (eds) Beyond a Joke: The Limits of Humour, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 98–​125. Maghen, Z. (2008) ‘The merry men of Medina: comedy and humanity in the early days of Islam’, Der Islam 83: 277–​340. Mahamdallie, H. (2021) ‘Introduction: we have no humour’, in Z. Sardar (ed) Critical Muslim (vol 38), London: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, pp 3–​14. Mansour, M.B. (2017) ‘Laughter in Islam’, booksandideas.net, [online] 20 March. Available from: https://b​ ooksandideas.net/L ​ aughter-i​ n-I​ slam.html Martin, R.A. (2008) ‘Thoughts on the Muhammad cartoon fiasco’, Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 21(1): 16–​21. Marzolph, U. (1992) Arabia ridens: Die humoristische Kurzprosa der frühen adab-​Literatur iminternationalen Traditionsgeflecht (vols 1 and 2), Frankfurt a.M: Klostermann. Marzolph, U. (2000) ‘The Qoran and jocular literature’, Arabica 47(3): 478–​487. Marzolph, U. (2012) ‘The Muslim sense of humor,’ in H. Geybels and W. Van Herck (eds) Humor and Religion: Challenges and Ambiguities, London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp 169–​187. Marzolph, U. (forthcoming) ‘Greek and Buddhist jokes and their corresponding versions in classical Arabic literature’, in R. Dijkstra and P. van der Velde (eds) Humour in the Beginning: Religion, Humour and Laughter at the Origins of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Press. Michael, J. (2013) ‘American Muslims stand up and speak out: trajectories of humor in Muslim American stand-​up comedy’, Contemporary Islam 7(2): 129–​153. Mir, M. (1991) ‘Humor in the Qur’an’, Muslim World 81: 179–​193. Mirza, S. (2021) ‘Laughing matter’, in Z. Sardar (ed) Critical Muslim (vol 38), London: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, pp 133–​144. Molokotos-​Liederman, L. (2018) ‘Breaking barriers, increasing under­ standing, one joke at a time’, International Association of Religion Journalists (IARJ) [online]. Available from: www.theiarj.org/​blog/​2018/​04/​09/​global-​ plus-​breaking-​barriers-​increasing-​understanding-​one-​joke-​at-​a-​time/​

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Molokotos-Liederman, L. (forthcoming 2023) ‘Muslim comedy: from social purpose to the consumption of culture’, in B. Krawietz and F. Gauthier (eds) Routledge International Handbook of Global Islam and Consumer Culture, London and New York: Routledge. Morreall, J. (1999) Comedy, Tragedy, and Religion, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Nickl, B. (2020) Turkish German Muslims and Comedy Entertainment: Settling into Mainstream Culture in the 21st Century, Leuven: Leuven University Press. Oring, E. (2008) ‘The Muhammad cartoon affair’, Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 21(1): 21–​26. Ormsby, E. (2015) ‘The Comedy of Reason: Strategies of Humour in al-Ghazālī’, in G. Tamer (ed) Islam and Rationality: The Impact of al-Ghazālī– Papers Collected on His 900th Anniversary, Leiden: Brill, pp 121–138. Pellat, C. (1963) ‘Seriousness and humour in early Islam (Al-​jidd wa’l-​hazl fī ṣadr al-​Islām)’, Islamic Studies 2(3): 353–​362. Perez, P.R. (2014) ‘Humour: A Change Agent in the Arab World’, Strategic Sectors: Culture and Society, IE Med, Mediterranean Yearbook 2014. Purcell, D., Scott Brown, M. and Gokmen, M. (2010) ‘Achmed the dead terrorist and humor in popular geopolitics’, GeoJournal 75(4): 373–​385. Ramsay, G. and Alkheder, M. (2020) Joking about Jihad: Comedy and Terror in the Arab World, London: Hurst & Co. Ramsay, G. and Alkheder, M. (2021) ‘ “Let him wear it himself ” ’, in Z. Sardar (ed) Critical Muslim (vol 38), London: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, pp 37–​62. Raskin, V. (2008) ‘On the political impotence of humor’, Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 21(1): 26–​30. Rosenthal, F. (1956) Humor in Early Islam, Leiden: E.J. Brill. Rowell, A. (2017) Vintage Humour: The Islamic Wine Poetry of Abu Nuwas, London: Hurst & Co. Sardar, Z. (2021) ‘Humour’, in Z. Sardar (ed) Critical Muslim (vol 38), London: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, pp 213–222. Schweizer, B. (2020) ‘Humor in other religious traditions—​“Islam”’, in Christianity and the Triumph of Humor: From Dante to David Javerbaum, Abingdon: Routledge, pp 192–​201. Schweizer, B. (2020) ‘The keys to irreverent comedy’, Free Inquiry 40(4): June /​July. Schweizer, B. and Ott, K.H. (2018) ‘Does religion shape people’s sense of humour? A comparative study of humour appreciation among members of different religions, and nonbelievers’, Journal of European Humor Research 6(1). Available from: www.europeanjournalofhumour.org/​ejhr/​article/​ view/​229/​pdf

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Schwell, A. (2015) ‘#MUSLIMRAGE: when western fears meet political humor’, Ethnologia Europaea: Journal of European Ethnology 45(2): 85–​101. Selim, Y.F. (2014) ‘Performing Arabness in Arab American stand-​up comedy’, American, British and Canadian Studies 23: 77–​92. Spielhaus, R. (2013) ‘Clichés are funny as long as they happen on stage: comedy as political criticism’, in J. Nielsen (ed) Muslim Political Participation in Europe, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp 322–​338. Tamer, G. (2009) ‘The Qur’an and humor’, in Georges Tamer (ed) Humor in Arabic Culture, Berlin: de Gruyter, pp 3–28. Tonkin, B. ‘War of the words’, in Z. Sardar (ed) Critical Muslim (vol 38), London: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, pp 63–​75. Trafas, M. (2017) ‘Religious humour and its discontents’, The Humanist, [online] 9 August. Available from: https://​thehumanist.com/​commentary/​ religious-​humor-​discontents van Gelder, G.J. (forthcoming) ‘Poetic parodies of Islamic discourses by Abū Nuwās’, in R. Dijkstra and P. van der Velde (eds) Humour in the Beginning: Religion, Humour and Laughter at the Origins of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Press. Walberg, E. (2021) ‘Muslim comedy in America’, in Z. Sardar (ed) Critical Muslim (vol 38), London: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, pp 87–​97. Weaver, S. (2013) ‘A rhetorical discourse analysis of online anti-​Muslim and anti-​Semitic jokes’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36(3): 483–​499. Webber, S. (2005) ‘Humor and religion: humor and Islam’, in L. Jones (ed) Encyclopedia of Religion (2nd edn) (vol 6), Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, pp 4210–4218. Zimbardo, Z. (2014) ‘Cultural politics of humor in (de)normalizing Islamophobic stereotypes’, Islamophobia Studies Journal 2(1): 59–​81.

283

Index References to tables appear in bold type. References to endnotes show both the page number and the note number (67n10). A Abbas, H.  163, 172 Abbasid dynasty  75, 85, 94, 107, 165 Abbas the Great  119 ʿAbd al-​Fattāḥ, M.M.  56, 61–​62, 63, 67n10, 67n11 ʿAbdallāh b. Rawāḥa  56–​57 Abedinifard, M.  33, 121, 131, 132, 260 Abu Afaq  40n26 Abū Ghudda, H.ʻ.a.-​G.  80–​81, 82 al-​Muzāḥ fī-​l-​Islām  71–​72 Abū Ḥanīfa  100 Abū Ḥayyān al-​Tawḥīdī, Kitāb al-​imtā ʻwa-​al-​muinvʻānasah  71 Abū Hurayra  109–​110 Abū Isḥāq al-​Ḥuṣrī, Jamʿ al-​jawāhir fi al-​mulaḥ wa al-​nawādir  71 Abū Isḥāq al-​Ṣābī  104 Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-​Ṭabarī  66n3 Abū l-​ʿAlāʾ al-​Maʿarrī  108 Abu ʾl-​ʿAtāhiya  106 Abū Nuwās  106, 112n15, 112n16 Abū Ṭālib al-​Makkī  78 Abu Zaid, N.H.  49 Achaemenid Empire  136–​137n6 adab (literature)  48, 66n2, 67n12, 94, 108 Adeeb, E.E.-​D.  153 ʿAdī b. Hātim  56 Afghanistan, protest against Danish cartoons of Prophet in  164 Ahmed, A.  219n9 Ahmed, S.  83, 241 What Is Islam?  83 Ahmed, T.  237, 238 Akhbar Alyawm (The Daily News)  169 Akhbar Souk (Market News)  168 al-​Ābī, A.  2, 3 Nathr al-​durr  2 al-​ʻAbidi, L.  38n3, 177 Alalam (The Flag)  168

Al Arab Al Yawm (Arabs Today)  170 al-​Aṣmāʾī  101–​102 al-​Baghdādī, al-​K.  96, 97, 100 al-​Behairy, I.  152, 153 Al-​Bernameg  10, 143–​157 al-​Bukhārī  72 ‘Bāb al-​Inbisāt ilā al-​Nās’  72 Ṣaḥīḥ of  12n1, 50, 61, 72, 82, 152, 197n5 Al-​Bukhari (ISIS leader)  219n11 al-​Dawsarī, F.b.M.b.K., al-​Maʾākhidh al-​ ʿaqdiyya ʿalā kitāb iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-​dīn li-​l-​Ghazālī  80 al-​Dirani, K.  185 al-​Ghazālī, ʿA  6, 9, 71, 78–​80, 84, 273 on criteria for al-​muzāḥmashrūʿ  79 Iḥyāʾ ʿulūn al-​dīn  6, 78, 80 on mockery and derision  73 perspectives on humour and joking/​ banter  78–​80, 272 and story of Junayd  79 use of tales and anecdotes by  78–​79 al-​Ghazzī, B.a.-​D.M.  81, 82 al-​Murāḥ fi al-​Mizāḥ  81 Alharthi, Y.  163, 170, 174n4 ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib  53–​54, 94, 110, 112n11 Al-​Ibshīhī, B.  3, 95–​96, 98–​99, 103 al-​Mustaṭraf fī kull fann mustaẓraf  2, 71 Aliens in America (series)  248, 251, 256–​257, 261 ʻAli (Imam)  181, 192 Ali, W.  191–​192, 193 al-​Jāḥiẓ  79 al-​Bukhalāʾ  71 Alkheder, M.  207, 208, 209, 210, 212, 214, 215 Allah, laughter of  see God allowed humour  see permissible (mubāh; ḥalāl) humour/​joking/​laughter al-​Mahdi, I.  183, 184 al-​Maʾmūn  75

284

Index

Al-​Masry Al-​Youm (Egypt Independent)  171 Almitraka (The Hammer)  167 al-​Mubkī (the bestower of weeping)  76 al-​Muḍḥik (the bestower of laughter)  76 Al Mudhik Al-​Mubki  167 (Āl) Mujāhid, M.ʻA.ʻU.  8–​9, 44, 47, 49, 59–​64, 66n5, 66n7, 67n10, 66n11 and al-​ʿUbaykān  66n5 contribution to online outlets  66n5 positionality of  49–​52 preliminary bibliography of  64–​66 structure of the ḥāḍītḥs selected by  52–​59 ‘Supplies Concerning Hadīths about Holy War’  51 and ‘Wahhābī’ financing operations  66n5 Wa-​ʻindaʾidhin Daḥika l-​Rasūl  50 see also This Beloved [PBUH] Smiling ((Āl) Mujāhid) al-​Mutanabbī  108 al-​nafs al-​muṭmaʾinna  78 al Nāshiʾ al-​Akbar  108 al-​Nawawī  81–​82 al-​Qalqashandī, S.  106 al-​Qaradawi, Y.  147 al-​Qushayrī  78 al-​Ṣafadī, K.b.A.  72 Al-​Shabab (newspaper)  167 al-​shawq ilā-​l-​janna (longing for paradise)  77 al-​Sisi, A.-​F.  144, 148 al-​Sistani, A.  186, 189–​191, 195 Altabari, M., When God and Muhammad Laugh  46–​47 Altankit Wa Altabkit (newspaper)  167 al-​Thaʻālibī, A.M.  72, 93, 98, 104 fiqh al-​Lugha  72 Kitāb al-​Iqtibās min al-​Qurʾān al-​Karīm  93 Althusser, L.  48 al-​Tirmidhī, M.i.I.  62, 70, 79 Al-​tunisi, B.  167 al-​Tuwaijri, A.  156 Amin, H.  167 Amin, Y.  2, 70, 72, 73, 83, 84–​85 Amman, L.  29, 32, 38n5, 38n7, 39n22, 46, 53 Amos ’n’ Andy (sitcom)  266 anecdotes  2, 9, 45, 47, 48, 66n2, 67n9, 70–​72, 75, 85, 112n8, 119, 121, 127–​128, 131, 136n3, 137n12 and ḥadīths  57–​58, 63, 64, 81 Qurʼān in  92–​93, 94–​104, 106–​108, 110 and Sufism  75–​79 transcultural intertextuality of  45 see also Luri jokes/​joke cycle aniconism  189, 191–​193 Ansari, A.  264 anti-​clerical humour  7, 132, 153, 157, 184 anti-​ecclesiastical humour  7 apostasy in Islam  36, 39n21, 49, 82

Arab countries  4, 11, 29, 91, 146, 154, 156, 162, 173, 178, 190, 202–​203, 209, 214, 238, 271, 272 cartoonists and religion in  10, 162–​175, 189 freedom of the press in  162–​163, 166–​169 journalists in  166–​167 and Muslim Brotherhood  146, 147 penal codes of  151 popular culture in  109 state censorship in  166, 168 Arabic language  4, 61–​63, 105, 111, 136n5, 146, 155, 170, 209, 210, 218–​219n4, 229, 241, 272 anecdotal stories in  2–​3, 9, 75 and Arabic-​Islamic scholarly traditions  2, 44, 45–​47, 49–​50, 52, 53, 57–​59, 63, 66n2 hijā (poetry)  21, 29, 32–​35, 40n26, 74 humorous literature of  71, 72, 109, 144 and iqtibās  see iqtibās ISIS parodies in  see ‘Daesh’ (skit); ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ and Qur’an  92 see also This Beloved [PBUH] Smiling ((Āl) Mujāhid) Arab Spring  10, 144, 147, 148, 166, 171, 178, 187, 219n13, 271 Arbuckle, G.A.  272, 273 Asad, T.  48 asbāb al-​nuzūl narratives  21, 38n8, 39n17, 39n19, 39n20 Asharq Al-​Awsat (newspaper)  189–​191, 198n23 ʻAṣma bint Marwān  40n26 ʿAtaʾi, M.R.  38n3 Audebert, C.F.  106 The Axis of Evil Comedy Show  218n1 ‘Ay Naqi!’ (‘Hey, Naghi!’) (song)  137n16 Azim, S.  238–​239 B Baboubi (website)  169, 170 Bahāʾ al-​Dīn Muḥammad al-​ʿĀmilī  127–​128 Mush-​o-​Gorbih  127–​128 Bahlūl Al-​Majnūn (a humour figure)  146 Bakchich  169 Bakhtiari, A.-​Q.K.  122 Barakat, A.  180, 181, 185, 194 Barr, R.  274 basama (to smile)  6, 52, 53 Bashshār b. Burd  106, 112n15, 112n16 basmala (invocation of God)  59, 60–​61, 62 see also bismillah Basmat Watan (comedy show)  186–​189 Basri, D.  168 Baum, D.  275 The Jewish Joke  275 beards, depictions of  152, 171, 208, 209

285

MUSLIMS AND HUMOUR

Bedouins  75, 95–​96, 98–​99, 101, 103, 107 Benatar, D.  275, 276 Benkirane, A.  169 Berlin, I.  190 Bilici, M.  229, 230, 240 Billig, M.  38n1, 38n4, 40n24, 246, 259–​261, 263 bismillah  136n2, 229 see also basmala (invocation of God) Black Comedies  186 Black comedies  266 black humour  208, 214, 227 see also dark humour Black-​ish (sitcom)  266 The Black Stone  98, 112n10 blasphemy/​blasphemous humour  7, 35, 37, 92, 110, 151–​153, 155, 174, 273, 276 and cartoonists  163, 174 and convictions  152–​153 and European law  151 as haram  275 laws related to  40n27, 151, 163, 273, 277n2 and Qur’an  35–​36, 109, 111 and ridicule  35–​36 satires against Islam and Muslims as  35–​36 and secularism  276 see also Luri jokes/​joke cycle bodily laughter  46, 47, 53 and normativities  67n12 of Prophet Muḥammad  44, 46, 47, 50–​51, 57, 59, 60, 61, 64 body, in stand-​up performances  226, 227, 237–​239, 240 Bohlul (Iranian comical character)  119 Bonebakker, S.A.  93 Bouhali, H.  168 Bouldoires, A.  276 Broad City (series)  266 Bunān  96–​97 Burckhardt, T.  191–​192 Butler, J.  227, 239 C call-​back technique  206–​207 Canada, Muslims and sitcoms in  11, 245, 246, 247–​248, 252–​255, 258, 263–​266, 267n2, 271 see also Little Mosque on the Prairie Cañas, S.  258, 259–​260, 261 Caricaturist(s)/​caricature(s)  13n4, 19, 167–​168, 170, 186, 189–​191, 194, 195 see also Cartoonist(s)/​cartoon(s) Cartooning for Peace  171, 174–​175n6 Cartoonist(s)/​cartoon(s)  10–​11, 19, 110, 133, 163, 177, 179, 180, 193–​194, 197n13, 271 of al-​Sistani  186, 189–​191, 195 in Arab countries  10, 162–​175, 189

and blasphemy law  163 cartoon of female circumcision  172 cartoon of Kaaba  172 cartoon of Prophet Muhammad by Jyllands-​ Posten  3, 8, 91, 109, 164, 191, 201, 217, 258 and censorship  163, 174 Charlie Hebdo controversy  3, 13n4, 19, 35, 40, 41, 43, 91, 164, 176, 201, 278 ‘Le Chat’  171, 174n5 in Egypt  165, 166, 171 and freedom of expression  173 and freedom of the press  166–​169 history of  167 history of Arabic  167–​168 and imprisonment  166–​167 in Morocco  162, 163, 165, 167–​170, 174n2 and power of symbolism  173 and self-​censoring  10, 173, 174n1, 273, 275 threat to  169–​172 and verbal satire or animal characters  163 Willis from Tunis  170–​171 CBC channel  144, 252, 254 censorship  10, 71, 80, 85, 133, 137n15, 163, 165, 173–​174, 273, 275, 277n2, 277n6 and Arab cartoonists  10, 163, 168, 174, 273, 168 and Egyptian cartoonists  166 self  10, 173, 174n1, 273, 275 state  166, 168 Chalghoumi, H.  13n4 Chapelle, D.  274 character comedy  7, 57 see also Luri jokes/​joke cycle Charlie Hebdo controversy  3, 13n4, 19, 35, 40, 41, 43, 91, 164, 176, 201, 278 Charney, N.  249, 250, 254 Cherradi, K.  163 China  83 internet-​censoring model  137n15 Chittick, W.  76, 84 Christian theology of laughter  1, 2, 3, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277n2 cisgendered male comics  226, 227, 228, 233 Citizen Khan (series)  251, 261 Clark, A.  252 coarseness theme, of Luri jokes  120, 123, 124, 129 in physical terms  124–​125, 128 in psychological terms  125–​126, 129, 132 The Colbert Report  207, 274 Colbert, S.  274 comedy  Arab  209, 214 The Axis of Evil Comedy Show  218n1 Basmat Watan  186–​189 Black  186, 266 character  7, 57

286

Index

Corner Gas  266 and Hizbullah  179, 194–​195 irreverent  see irreverence negative stereotypes of Muslims in  219n9, 219n14, 228, 247 and obligatory caution (ihtiyāt wujubi)  194 positions on acceptability and authority in  235–​236 and social advocacy, balancing  264 spirit of  195–​196 see also ‘Daesh’ (skit); extremism and Islam, in comedy; jokes/​joking; Little Mosque on the Prairie; Luri jokes/​joke cycle; Muslim women humourists; ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’; Resistance Art, Hizbullah’s; sitcoms comic failure  260 Community (series)  264 Conway, K.  250, 252, 255 Corbin, H.  76 Corner Gas (comedy show)  266 The Cosby Show  251 Cote, R.D.  272, 273 Cox, H.  272 cross-​cultural joking  7, 12, 129, 131, 262 cultural politics  135, 178, 179, 180, 247–​248 D ‘Daesh’ (skit)  11, 202, 203, 218, 219n5 absurd dialogue in  210–​212 humanizing segments of  212 and Khokha, name-​related jokes  210–​211 and ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’, compared  212–​218 and ridiculing ISIS  208–​212, 219n5 ‘takh takh’ usage in  210 ḍaḥaka (laugh)  6 Daher, ʻA.  180 daḥik (laughter)  4, 71 see also laughter ḍaḥika (to laugh)  49, 52–​53, 57–​58, 61, 67n8, 73 The Daily Show  143, 207 Dār al-​Kutub al-​ʻIlmiyya (publisher)  50 Dār al-​Manāra (publisher)  44, 50, 58, 62, 63, 67n12 Dār al-​Salām (publisher)  50 dark humour  202, 205, 208, 211, 214, 219n11, 219n13 see also black humour; ‘Daesh’ (skit) Davidson, J.  261, 267n3 Davies, C.  8n5, 33, 129, 131, 262, 263 Dawn (musical play)  183, 184, 185 debauchery  112n4, 179, 181, 194, 196 divine laughter  see God, laughter of Djalili, O.  201, 218n1 Donner, F.M.  21, 23, 24, 31, 37 Doyle, J.  253, 258, 261 duʿāba (prank)  see pranks

E Eagleton, T.  1, 45 Eddin, K.A.  148 Egypt  10, 49, 50, 143–​157, 162, 163, 165, 166, 167, 171–​172, 219n13, 271 blasphemy prosecutions in  151–​152 The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights  151 Egyptian Penal Code (EPC)  151 freedom of the press in  165, 166, 171–​172 media censorship in  166 political cartoons in  171 see also Muslim Brotherhood (MB) Eid, M.  248–​249, 258 El Adl, D.  171–​172 Elder-​Vass, D.  39n23 Ellwood, T.  146 El-​Menawy, A.L.  150 El-​Sherif, A.  148 Ennahda movement  148 enthymemes  153, 157n1 Esfahani jokes  120, 137n13 ethnic(ist) humour  10, 33, 82–​83, 118–​137, 265, 271, 275 see also Luri jokes/​joke cycle extremism and Islam, in comedy  11, 150, 201–​203 ‘Daesh’  208–​212 and decoding ISIS jokes  212–​218 ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’  203–​208 F Fadiman, R.  74–​75 Fadlallah, A.Al-​H.  194 Fadlallah, A.S.M.H.  183, 184–​185, 194, 195 fa-​sʾal al-​qaryata  96–​97 Fatima, A.  232, 233–​234, 239–​240 ‘Dirty Paki Lingerie’  232, 233, 242 Filali, M.  168 Fleischhammer, M.  105 Floyd, G.  239 forbidden humour  see prohibited (ḥarām) humour/​joking/​laughter Foucault, M.  48, 174 Frager, J.F.  74–​75 France  13n4, 35, 91, 164, 174n6 see also Charlie Hebdo controversy freedom of expression  129, 164, 166, 167–​168, 169, 173, 174n6, 187, 195, 276, 277n2 freedom of the press  129, 162, 166–​169 Freud, S.  190 fringe humour and mainstream humour, compared  33 frivolous iqtibās in anecdotes  94–​95 misquoting the Qurʼān  103–​104 quotations from numerous chapters  99–​103 quotations of a number of verses from a single chapter  98–​99

287

MUSLIMS AND HUMOUR

quotations of a verse fragment or a single verse  95–​98 see also iqtibās fukāha  see jests/​jesting (fukāha) G Garton Ash, T.  276 Geluck, P.  171, 174n5 ‘Le Chat’  171, 174n5 gender humour  33, 133, 225, 226, 227, 228, 230, 233–​240, 271, 274 see also Muslim women humourists genre hybridity  250, 266 gentle joking  211, 255, 273 Gilbert, J.R.  168, 232, 234, 236 God  belief and disbelief in  23 blasphemy against  see blasphemy/​ blasphemous humour image of  93–​94 laughter as attribute/​gift from  70, 76, 83, 84, 276 laughter of  2, 6, 12n1, 94 mockery of  20, 29, 276 ridiculing of  9, 24, 25–​28, 30, 36, 37, 38n5 strict and gentle  76 true love of  79 The Goldbergs (series)  266 Göle, N.  277 Grabar, O.  191 ‘The Great Departed’  219n11 Gueddar, K.  163, 169–​170 Gulf War, and freedom of the press  166 H ḥadīths  1, 2, 8, 21, 23, 29, 36, 37, 47, 70, 71, 81–​82, 84–​85, 177, 236 and anecdotes  57–​58, 63, 64, 81 Arabic-​English anthology of  44–​45, 50, 63–​64 forbiddance of laughter in  60 humour in  73–​74 smiling as a charity in  59 see also This Beloved [PBUH] Smiling ((Āl) Mujāhid) Ḥafeẓ  119 Haggins, B.  227 Hajjaj, O.  170 Hajj pilgrimage  98, 112n10, 126, 137n11, 172 Hajji  136n4 ḥalāl joking  see permissible (mubāh; ḥalāl) humour/​joking/​laughter Hale, M.  252 Hami, T.  230–​231, 234, 235–​236, 241 Hammoudi, A.  173 Hamouda  168 ḥarām humour  see prohibited (ḥarām) humour/​joking/​laughter Hārat Darb al-​Atrāk  50

harm principle  34, 72, 74, 82, 83, 154, 181, 190, 196 Hart, K.  274 Hassan, M.  149 hate speech  148, 274 Hattar, N.  164, 169 hazl (jocularity)  4, 71 see also jokes/​joking Hebrew Bible, laughter in  1–​2 Heidari, M.J.  38n5 Here Come the Habibs (sitcom)  261 hijā (invective poetry)  21, 29, 32–​35, 40n26, 74 hijab  12, 216, 230, 231–​232, 234, 236, 239–​240, 241, 255 Hijaz  21, 29, 34, 37 Hijazi, S.  155 Hizbullah  11, 146, 177–​198, 218n2, 271 and aniconism  192–​193 cultural productions of  180, 185, 194 divisions of  179 evolution of  180 and freedom of speech and expression  187 institutional centres of cultural productions  180 orchestra of  183 and political satire  179, 181–​182, 186, 194–​195 on popular culture  180 prohibitions related to jokes  181, 188 and purposeful art  179–​180, 182, 184, 185, 189, 194–​195 and spirit of comedy  196 see also Resistance Art, Hizbullah’s Hodgson, M.G.  39n9 Holtzman, L.  58, 93–​94 humour  anti-​clerical  7, 132, 153, 157, 184 anti-​ecclesiastical  7 anti-​religious  3, 7, 157 anti-​theistic  153 black/​dark  202, 205, 208, 211, 214, 219n11, 219n13, 227 blasphemous  see blasphemy/​ blasphemous humour cultural identity in  180, 265–​266, 273 detestable  82–​83, 93 ethnic(ist)  10, 33, 82–​83, 118–​137, 265, 271, 275 functions of  8, 40n25, 91–​92, 177, 219n11 and gender  33, 133, 225, 226, 227, 228, 230, 233–​240, 271, 274 irreverent  5–​11, 13n4, 92, 107, 109, 110, 111, 184, 186, 271, 273, 274, 277n2 Jewish  3, 97, 265–​266, 275 mainstream versus fringe  33 meta-​humour  204, 205–​206, 213, 214, 217 moderate  61, 79, 83, 181, 273, 276 moral limits of  38n3

288

Index

problematic  5–​6, 20, 36, 260, 276 in the prophetic tradition  74 recommended  81–​82, 93, 194 regulation of  5, 7, 9, 45, 71, 80–​84, 189, 273, 275, 276 and religion  see religion, and humour/​ comedy sacrilegious  3, 7, 9, 153 sarcastic  151, 170, 183, 253, 262, 272, 273, 277n1 self-​deprecating  9, 11–​12, 237, 265 sense of  38n4, 277 as a sin  29, 73–​74, 111 trans-​ideological nature of  227, 234 as universal phenomenon  3, 10, 70, 109 varied meaning of  275 as vice  82, 84–​85 as virtue  82, 84–​85 see also comedy; jokes/​joking; laughter; permissible (mubāh; ḥalāl) humour/​ joking/​laughter; political satire/​comedy/​ humour; prohibited (ḥarām) humour/​ joking/​laughter humourlessness  1, 3–​4, 91, 218n3 Huq, R.  261, 267n3 Husayn (Imam)  187, 197n7 Hutcheon, L.  227 Hyers, M.C.  107, 272 I Ibn al-​Athīr, Ḍ.  105 al-​Mathal al-​sāʾir  105 Ibn al-​Jawzī, A.  3, 97–​101 Akhbār al-​ḥamqā wa al-​mughaffalīn  71 Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ  108 Ibn al-​Muʿtazz, Ṭabaqāt al-​shuʿarāʾ al-​muḥdathīn  106 Ibn ʻĀṣim, M.  103–​104 Ibn Hajar  6 Ibn Ḥibbān, A.  101–​102 Rawḍat al-​ʿuqalāʾ wa-​nuzhat al-​fuḍalāʾ  101–​103 Ibn Ḥijja al-​Ḥamawī  93 Ibn Kathīr  62, 63 Ibn Khalaf al-​Kātib, ʻA.  106 Ibn Khaldūn  108 Ibn Manzūr, M.  4 Ibn Miskawayh  86n16 Tahdhīb al-​akhlāq  80, 86n16 Ibn Qayyim al-​Jawziyya  94 Ḥādī al-​arwāḥ ilā bilād al-​afrāḥ  93–​94 Ibn Taymiyya  62, 63 Ibn ʿUmar  59–​60 Ibrāhīm (Abraham), Prophet  24, 39n11, 73 Ibrahim, I.  151–​152 Ibrahim, S.  265 Ibrahimi, S.  191 imago dei  93–​94 Imam, A.  152

Imam Al-​Mahdi Scouts Association  185 impermissible humour  see prohibited (ḥarām) humour/​joking/​laughter inbisāṭ (enjoyment)  71, 72 ‘instruments of the Devil’  183, 197n5 internet censorship  137n15 intertextuality and jokes  45, 203, 204, 205–​208, 212–​213, 214, 215, 217, 218 iqtibās  9, 104, 111 and Arabic language and Arabization  105 categories of  93 and daily interaction with Qurʼān  104 definition and development of  93–​94 as deliberate decision of the writer  108 frivolous  see frivolous iqtibās in anecdotes in ‘frivolous’ works, reasons for  106–​109 and Qurʼānization of memory  105 shocking function of  109 and studying and memorizing Qurʼān  104 and virtue of the Qurʼān  105–​106 Iran/​Iranians  178, 191, 192, 197n1 culture of  118–​119, 127, 135 ethnic joke cycle in  118–​137, 271 folklore of  118, 119 and humour  9–​10, 118, 119, 121, 132–​134 modernization and Islamism in  135 see also Luri jokes/​joke cycle; Lurs Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (al-​Hashd al-​Shaʻbi)  189 irony  10, 39n11, 45, 98, 119, 163, 172, 227, 253 irreverence  5–​11, 13n4, 92, 107, 109, 110, 111, 184, 186, 271, 273, 274, 277n2 ISIS  11, 130, 189–​190, 201–​219, 271 see also ‘Daesh’ (skit); ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’ Islam  and ban on deprecatory, sarcastic, and mocking humour  9, 11, 74, 134, 173, 272 five pillars of  126, 137n11, 240 rationalist tradition of  164–​165 rebel tradition of  164, 165 ridicule of  see ridicule as way of life  84, 146 Islamicate societies  3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 12, 35, 39n9, 45, 48, 271, 272 Islamic humour studies  19–​21, 24, 33, 37 Islamic jurists  2, 6, 36, 71, 72, 75, 80–​85, 93–​94, 272 and ‘Bāb al-​Inbisāt ilā al-​Nās’  72 on blasphemy  36 condemnation of humour and joking  80 early jurists  83–​84 and regulation of humour  see humour see also permissible (mubāh; ḥalāl) humour/​ joking/​laughter; prohibited (ḥarām) humour/​joking/​laughter Islamic law  see Sharia (Islamic law)

289

MUSLIMS AND HUMOUR

Islamism  13n4, 110, 135, 144–​157, 187, 197n5 see also political Islam Islamophobia  13, 16, 226, 227, 228, 229, 234, 242, 243, 245, 262, 279, 283 istaḍḥaka  52, 66–​67n8 istiʿāra (borrowing)  93, 106, 205 J Jaʻfar al-​Sadiq  182 Jaradi, S.  180, 182–​183, 186, 194 The Jeffersons (sitcom)  266 jests/​jesting (fukāha)  2, 3, 4, 21, 70, 71, 72, 79, 80, 84, 85, 94, 110, 119 Jesus Christ  1, 63 Jewish humour  3, 97, 265–​266, 275 jihadi/​jihadis  11, 60, 77, 130, 146, 147, 179, 205, 206, 216–​217, 218n2, 238 see also extremism and Islam, in comedy Johnson, Z.  231, 238, 240–​241 joke cycle  120, 129, 271 see also Luri jokes/​joke cycle jokes/​joking  al-​Ghazālī on  78–​80, 272 about marriage  233–​234 as an anti-​fundamentalist weapon  271 cross-​cultural  7, 12, 129, 131, 262 and cultural humanism  188 drawing disgust in audience  208, 214–​215 on Esfahani people  120, 137n13 gentle  211, 255, 273 importance and attraction of  134 intended messages of  227 and intertextuality  45, 203, 204, 205–​208, 212–​213, 214, 215, 217, 218 irreverent  see irreverence name-​related  210–​211 on Pharaoh  97–​98, 156 physical coarseness  124–​125, 128 pile-​on  205 and popular protest and expression  187–​188 positions on acceptability and authority of  235–​236 psychological coarseness  125–​126, 129, 132 on Qazvinis  120, 132, 137n8 on Rashtis  120, 132, 137n8 religious jokes, in modern popular culture  109–​110 and sensibilities  112n9 trickster  3, 55–​57, 128, 132, 181 ultra-​conservative Muslims in  218–​219n4 used as a form of relief or therapy  82 varied meaning of  275 see also comedy; Luri jokes/​joke cycle; permissible (mubāh; ḥalāl) humour/​ joking/​laughter; prohibited (ḥarām) humour/​joking/​laughter

Jónsson, J.  72 Judaism  1, 3, 78 Juha (an Arabian trickster figure)  3 Junayd, story of  79 Jyllands-​Posten (Danish newspaper), cartoons of Prophet Muḥammad by  3, 8, 91, 109, 164, 191, 201, 217, 258 K Kaaba, cartoon on  172 Kaboli Box  119, 136n4 Kahhala, K.  167 Kannas Al-​Shawari (magazine)  167 Kassam, S.  258 Kawtharani, M.  182, 184, 194 Kennedy, M.  248, 250–​251, 255 Khalil, C.  187–​189, 197n12 Khamenei, A.H.  130, 133 Khaminaʼi, I.  180, 181, 184, 186, 192–​193, 195 Khan, S.  248–​249, 258 Khatami, M.  129 Khawārij/​Kharijites  99, 102, 112n11, 165 Khiari, N.  163, 170–​171 Khumayni, I.  186 Klages, M.  237 Knysh, A.  77 Krefting, R.  232 Kuipers, G.  38n4, 145, 202, 205, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 218 Kuschel, K.-​J.  2, 272–​273 L laghu/​lahu (foolish talk)  194 Late Night With Seth Meyers  231 laughter  bodily  46, 47, 53, 67n12 and bodily expressions of emotions by Muḥammad  44, 46, 47, 50–​51, 57, 59, 60, 61, 64 Christian theology of  1, 2, 3, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277n2 dichotomous view of  272–​273 divine names for  76 forbiddance in ḥadīths  60 of God  2, 6, 12n1, 94 as a God-​given attribute/​gift  70, 76, 83, 84, 276 in Hebrew Bible  1–​2 moderate attitude towards  61, 79, 83, 181, 273, 276 of Muḥammad  see Muḥammad, Prophet normativities pertaining to  67n12 positive and negative  272 in Qurʼān  2, 72, 73–​74, 84 as a relief or therapy form  82 see also permissible (mubāh; ḥalāl) humour/​ joking/​laughter; prohibited (ḥarām) humour/​joking/​laughter

290

Index

LBCI (TV channel)  186–​187 l-​Ḍaḥūk (he who laughs)  76 levity  1, 4, 6, 77, 271, 272 see also frivolous iqtibās in anecdotes Little Mosque on the Prairie  12, 245–​246, 266, 271 and Aliens in America, comparison between  256–​257 compared with other sitcoms  261 ‘The Convert’ episode  254–​255 cultural dynamics of  262 and cultural learning  263 early controversial topics in  249 finding the meaning of laughter in  258–​264 fostering equality and multiculturalism in  249 genre and form of  248–​249 genre hybridity of  250 learning from  264–​265 ‘No Fly List’ episode  262–​263 normality in  253 origins of  246–​251 paradox of novel representations in  257–​258 popular success and profitability of  252 production and airing in Canada  247–​248, 252–​254 silence in  259–​260 social commentary of  262–​263 and societal boundaries  251–​252 ‘Swimming Upstream’ episode  248, 249 tagline of  265 Lmhadi, I.  168 Lockyer, S.  7, 38n2, 260, 261 low-​brow art  179, 186, 188, 194 Luri jokes/​joke cycle  10, 118–​137 coarseness theme of  120, 123, 124–​126, 128, 129, 132 depicting confrontation with Islamic fundamentalist  130 dualistic nature of  119–​120 dual significance of  130–​132 first phase of  127–​128 on God and holy figures  120 on Iran’s Supreme Leader  120 irreligiosity theme of  126–​127 physical uncouthness of  124–​125, 128 psychological uncouthness of  125–​126, 129, 132 and ridicules  120 roots of  130–​131 during Safavid era  127, 131, 137n12 second phase  128–​129 stupidity theme of  123–​124, 137n7 third phase  129–​130, 132 Lurs  118, 120, 134–​135 description of  121–​122 irreligiosity, depiction of  10, 119, 123, 126–​127, 128, 129, 131, 132, 135

significance of  122 sociocultural transformation of  122 treatment of holy subjects by  129–​130 M MacDonald, D.B.  93 MacLean’s Magazine  263 madḥ (panegyric)  33 Maghen, Z.  24, 29, 38n5, 46, 94 Mahamdallie, H.  13n2 Mahmud of Ghazni  119 mainstream humour and fringe humour, compared  33 Majalat Alithnayn (magazine)  167 Majalat Almaghrib (magazine)  167 makrūh (detestable) humour  82–​83, 93 Malāmatiyya  77 mamnūʼ (banned humour)  80, 82–​83 see also prohibited (ḥarām) humour/​joking/​ laughter maqāmāt of al-​Harīrī  45 Maqsoud, M.A.  150 maraḥ (fun)  71 marriages  82, 95, 166, 203, 204, 226, 233–​234 Martin, J.  272 The Marvelous Mrs Maisel (drama)  250 Marzolph, U.  2–​3, 4, 8, 38n5, 45, 74, 108 maslaha (public interest)  81, 180, 182, 185, 186, 195, 196 Master of None (series)  264 MBC Masr  144 McGuire, M.  13n3 Mecca  21, 23–​24, 25–​28, 29–​30, 34, 37, 39n14, 39n17, 54, 73, 98, 126, 172 Medina  21, 23–​24, 25–​28, 29–​30, 34, 37, 94 Menon, V.  246, 253 Mernissi, F.  164, 165 Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World  164 meta-​humour  204, 205–​206, 213, 214, 217 Michael, J.  236, 240, 266 Mills, B.  251, 256 Mind Your Language (series)  261 Mir, M.  38n5, 45, 72 Mixed Blessings (series)  261 mizāḥ/​muzāḥ (joking)  4, 71–​72, 80 see also jokes/​joking Mobarak  136n4 mockery  8, 19–​20, 24, 25–​28, 29–​32, 72–​74, 83, 173, 272, 276 moderate laughter/​humour  61, 79, 83, 181, 273, 276 moral idealism  177, 276 Morocco  10, 162, 163, 165, 169–​170 cartooning in, history of  167–​168 defamation offences in  169 Penal Code of  174n2

291

MUSLIMS AND HUMOUR

Morsi, M.  144, 145, 147, 148, 150–​151, 153–​156 Moses  1, 3, 97, 99, 182 Moss, Preacher  240 Moussaoui, M.  19 Mozaffar ad-​Din Shah Qajar  122, 128, 135 mudāʿaba (pleasant banter)  4, 71 Muḥammad, Prophet  1, 2, 6, 8–​9, 20, 21, 23–​24, 25–​26, 31–​32, 34, 35, 37, 39n20, 74, 84–​85, 130, 164, 181, 182, 191, 193 allying with non-​believers (polytheists)  31 association with Mecca and Medina  23 benevolent and forgiving laughter of  54–​55 bodily expressed laughter by  44, 46, 47, 50, 60 bodily expression of emotions by  44, 46, 47, 50–​51, 57, 59, 60, 61, 64 cartoons of  see Cartoonist(s)/​cartoon(s) and hijā (invective poetry) composing  34, 74 on joking and truth  70, 80, 86n16 laughing about his companions  55–​57 laughter of  1, 2, 6, 9, 44–​64, 70, 84, 94, 272 not ridiculing  58 practical jokes on his family members and companions  70 pranks engineered by  47 production/​selling of images of  192–​193 representations of  191 sense of humour of  177, 181 Sunna  75, 81, 83, 84 and transcendental knowledge  54 see also ḥadīths Muhammad al-​Baqir  182 mujūn poetry  106, 112n14 mulāʿaba (playfulness)  4, 71 Mullah Nasruddin  3, 74, 75, 85n12, 136n3 see also Nasreddin Hodja Murray, N.  256, 257 Muslim Brotherhood (MB)  144–​151, 153–​157 Muslim women humourists, American 11–​12, 225–​242, 271 ability and race of  237–​239 addressing Islamophobic assumptions  230 “at-​the-​airport” jokes of  237–​238 and Black American Muslims  225–​226, 227, 228, 238–​239, 240–​241 and bodies  226, 227, 237–​239, 240 and charged humour  232 college campus performance of  235–​236 Fatima, A.  232, 233–​234, 239–​240, 242 gender in  226, 227, 228, 230, 233–​240 Hami, T.  230–​231, 234, 235–​236, 241 intended messages of  227 Islamic and Muslim representation by  228–​232

and Islamic traditions  239–​242 Johnson, Z.  231, 238, 240–​241 LGTBQ+​ performers  226 Noorbakhsh, Z.  225, 226, 229–​231, 239 race and racism in  238–​239 religious identities in  225–​228, 230, 231, 232–​233, 234, 239 and sexualities  232–​236 Sobh, M.  229–​230 Springer, T.  225, 226, 238 stereotyping of  235 use of public humour by  240 Muutazila  164–​165 muzāḥ (joking)  4, 71, 72, 80 see also jokes/​joking mysticism  74, 76, 79, 84, 105 see also Sufis/​Sufism N Nadrani, M.  168 Naḍr ibn al-​Ḥārith  39n17, 39n18 nafs  76–​77 Najafi, S.  137n16 Naoot, F.  152–​153 Naser al-​Din Shah Qajar  119 Nasr, S.H.  28, 39n14, 39n15, 39n17, 39n18, 39n20, 192 Nasrallah, S.H.  187 Nasreddin Hodja  119, 136n3 see also Mullah Nasruddin Nasser, G.A.  147 Nath, I.  263–​264 nawādir (witty anecdotes)  2–​3, 9, 72, 92, 94, 105, 108 Nawaz, Z.  246–​247, 249, 252, 253–​255, 263–​264 Nichane (magazine)  110 Nirāqī, A.  128 Noorbakhsh, Z.  225, 226, 229–​231, 239 norm circles  33, 39n23 Nour Party  147–​148 Nuʻaymān  55, 57 Nūr al-​ʻuyūn fī taslīyyat al-​maḥzūn  3 Nwyia, P.  105 O obligatory caution (ihtiyāt wujubi)  194 Oller, J.  265 Omar Khayyam  119 Oppliger, P.A.  215 Orientalism  3, 13n2, 228, 259 Ormsby, E.  75–​76, 78–​80 P Pahlavi, Reza Shah  122 Paradise Now (film)  219n7 patriarchy  234–​236 Peep Show  266 Pellat, C.  8, 38n1, 94, 112n14

292

Index

permissible (mubāh; ḥalāl) humour/​joking/​ laughter  5, 11, 79, 80–​82, 83, 84, 93, 132, 179, 181, 182, 184–​185, 186, 195, 196, 236, 272 Pharaoh joke  97–​98, 156 physical coarseness jokes  124–​125, 128 Pickering, M.  7, 260, 261 Pinxten, R.  180, 196 Plato, Philebus  276 poetic justice  100–​101 political Islam  11, 144–​149, 152, 153, 154, 156, 157, 164–​166 political satire/​comedy/​humour  10, 145–​ 146, 163, 179, 181, 183, 186–​191, 195, 202, 203, 209, 213, 214, 216, 217, 218 Basmat Watan  186–​189 see also extremism and Islam, in comedy Popa, D.  145 popular culture  13n3, 109–​110, 180, 209, 227, 239, 277n2 pranks  2, 3, 47, 57, 71, 74, 181, 210 problematic humour  5–​6, 20, 36, 260, 276 prohibited (ḥarām) humour/​joking/​ laughter  5, 10, 60, 73–​74, 79–​84, 133, 134, 174, 179, 181, 182 proper conduct, in Muslim societies  44, 47–​49 psychological coarseness jokes  125–​126, 129, 132 punchlines  9, 92, 108, 111, 127, 205, 206, 207, 209, 215–​216, 234, 258, 274 puns  6, 209 purposeful art  11, 179–​180, 182, 184, 185, 189, 194–​195, 196 Q qabas (firebrand) metaphor  93, 111 Qazvini jokes  120, 132, 137n8 queering religion  12, 226–​227, 228, 239, 241–​242 see also Muslim women humourists Qurʼān  allowed humour in  73, 81–​82 anecdotes in  92–​93, 94–​104, 106–​108, 110 and blasphemy  35–​36, 109, 111 comical dimension existence in  45 contextualist versus textualist approach to  22 faith-​based accounts of  24 on God’s laughter  see God on humour and sarcasm  32 on humour and sin  29, 73–​74, 111 humour in  73–​74 imitation and parody of  107–​108 in jocular literature  109–​110 interpretations of  22–​23 laughing as a gift from God in  70, 76, 83, 84, 276 laughter in  2, 72, 73–​74, 84

Meccan chapters’ relation to ridicule  29–​30 Medinan chapters’ relation to ridicule  29–​30 misquoting of  103–​104 on mockery/​derision  20, 24–​34, 25–​28, 32, 72, 73–​74, 83 non-​religious accounts of  29 and politics  29 Prophet Ibrāhīm’s (Abraham’s) ridiculing statement to the idols  24 ridicule in  8, 19–​37, 72–​74, 83, 104, 106 satires in  38n5, 39n11 sūrat Yūsuf  45 taxonomy of  25–​28 on virtue  105 see also frivolous iqtibās in anecdotes; iqtibās; permissible (mubāh; ḥalāl) humour/​ joking/​laughter; prohibited (ḥarām) humour/​joking/​laughter Qurʼānization of memory  105, 108 R Rābiʿa and al-​Ḥasan al-​Baṣrī anecdote  77 race and racism  122, 133, 134, 228, 263, 264, 271, 274 anti-​Black racism  228 in Black comics  238–​239 in Muslim women’s comedy  225–​226, 227, 228, 238–​239, 240–​241 Raʻd, H.M.  182 Radtke, B.  76 Rahman, F.  22, 23, 37 Rahman, J.  75, 77 Ramadan (fasting)  56, 126, 137n11 Ramsay, G.  207, 208, 209, 210, 212, 214, 215 Ramy (series)  264–​265, 266 Randall, V.  166 Rashti jokes  120, 132, 137n8 ‘The Real Housewives of ISIS’  11, 202–​203 and ‘Daesh’, compared  212–​218 intertextual references in  205–​208 ISIS recruitment of women in the West in  203–​208 recommended humour  81–​82, 93, 194 regionalized humour  266 religion  and humour/​comedy  1–​2, 6–​7, 9, 10, 12, 80, 110, 121, 144, 163, 173, 189, 258, 275, 276 politicization of  148–​151 and politics  165–​166 queering  12, 226–​227, 228, 239, 241–​242 as a social institution  166 religious bureaucracies  165–​166 religious humour  see religion, and humour/​ comedy Resistance Art, Hizbullah’s  11, 178–​180, 183, 194, 196 as comedy  179

293

MUSLIMS AND HUMOUR

as counter-​hegemonic art  180 Dawn (play)  183, 184, 185 limitations and borders of humour  186–​193 as political satire  181 propaganda role of  196 as revolutionary theatre  183–​186 sanction of humour in  179, 182 When Do We See You? (play)  183–​184, 185 ridicule  7, 58, 97–​98, 143–​144, 149, 151, 153, 154, 168–​169, 187, 219n11, 230, 235, 260, 263, 272, 276 in anecdotes  92, 96 and blasphemy  35–​36 of ISIS  201, 202, 203, 204, 207, 208–​ 215, 217 and Luri jokes  119–​120, 127, 132, 135 in the Qurʼān  see Qurʼān, ridicule in as a social control strategy in Qur’an  30, 32–​35, 37 taxonomy of, in Qur’an  25–​28 see also ‘Daesh’ (skit); Youseff, B. Rippin, A.  38n8, 39n20 Rock, C.  274 Roseanne (TV show)  251 Rosenthal, F.  8, 38n1, 45, 74, 98, 107, 177 Rotana network  202, 219n12 Royalle, C.  261 Ruhowzi  119, 136n4 Rumi  119 Masnavi  119 Rushdie, S.  20, 35 S Saad, M.  152 sabab narratives  38n8, 39n13, 39n16 Sabane, L.  167, 168 sacrilegious humour  3, 7, 9, 153 Saeed, A.  22, 35–​36, 39n10 Saint Chrysostom  1, 3 Salafi Call (Ad-​Daʼwa As-​Salafiya)  147–​148 Salafists/​Salafism  6, 130, 144, 146, 147–​149, 150, 154, 155, 156, 171, 193, 218n4 salah (daily prayers)  137n11 sanad  48, 64 Sannu, Y.  167 Sarah, laugh of  73 sarcasm  15, 32, 119, 120, 177 sarcastic humour  151, 170, 183, 253, 262, 272, 273, 277n1 satire  in Arab newspapers  168 and intersexuality  213 and iqtibās  106 mixed  119, 136n5 political  145–​146, 163, 179, 181, 183, 186, 189, 195, 213, 214, 218 religious  10, 75

satires against Islam and Muslims  5, 8, 37, 151–​156, 157 as blasphemy  35–​36 violent reactions to  19, 21, 23, 34–​35 Saudi Arabia  10, 50, 64, 66n5, 112n18, 126, 147, 162, 163, 165 see also Hajj pilgrimage; Mecca; Medina Schalk, S.  274 Schimmel, A.  76–​77, 108, 152 Schippert, C.  227 Schrode, P.  48 Schweizer, B.  3, 177, 189, 196, 274 Christianity and the Triumph of Humor  3 Scott, J.  168 ‘The 2nd-​of-​Khordad Movement’  129 secularism  129, 148, 150, 156 Seesemann, R.  48, 64 Seinfeld (sitcom)  266 Seinfeld, J.  274 self-​censoring  10, 173, 174n1, 273, 275 self-​control  76, 81 self-​deprecating humour  9, 11–​12, 237, 265 Semtex joke  206 Sensoy, O.  246 sexualities, in American Muslim women’s stand-​up comedy  232–​236 shahada (declaration of faith)  137n11, 170, 229 Shaqīq al-​Balkhī  77 Sharia (Islamic law)  36, 82, 83, 84, 146–​147, 148, 150, 170, 182 Maqāṣid al-​Shariʼa  82 ‘Sharia creep’  229, 230, 232 Sharif Kashani, H., Riyaz Al-​Hekayat  128 Shiʻa/​Shiʻite  35, 121, 126, 129, 130, 137n16, 184, 187, 194, 195, 196, 263, 271 attitudes toward aniconism  193 divine laughter in  2 jurisprudence of  181 plays in  197n7 religious authority of  179, 183, 189 and Resistance Art  see Resistance Art, Hizbullah’s see also Luri jokes/​joke cycle sīra  21, 23, 36, 39n20, 48 Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, queer nuns of  227 sitcoms  7, 12, 133, 183–​186, 245–​266, 271 audience expectations from  250, 251 code of  257 formula of  249 future of  264–​266 influence of  251–​255 and Muslims in Canada  11, 245, 246, 247–​ 248, 252–​255, 258, 263–​266, 267n2, 271 see also Little Mosque on the Prairie Sobh, M.  229–​230 social order, and ridicule  30, 32–​35, 37 Le Soir  174n5 Souleyman, O.  230

294

Index

Springer, T.  225, 226, 238 Sufis/​Sufism  9, 71, 72, 74–​81, 84–​85, 165, 272, 275 and anecdotes  75–​79 Malāmatiyya order  77 and self-​control  76, 81 story of Junayd  79 Sulaymān (Solomon)  110 Sunna  36, 75, 81, 83, 84 Sunni/​Sunnite  112n18, 120, 147, 187, 190, 191, 193, 263 cartoons created by  189 divine laughter in  2 and political Islam movements  146 prayer rituals of  210 see also Muslim Brotherhood (MB); Salafists/​Salafism T tabassama  52 taboos  3, 9, 91, 110, 133, 173–​174, 192, 194, 202, 205, 208, 215, 232, 247, 260 see also Cartoonist(s)/​cartoon(s) Takchab (newspaper)  168 takfīr  149–​150 Tamer, G.  24, 29, 32, 38n5, 39n11, 45, 73, 75, 76, 110 taqiyya (dissimulation)  98, 102 taṣliya (praise of Muḥammad)  59, 61, 62 Tays, M.  167 Taʻziya of ʻAshura  197n7 terrorism  164–​166, 178–​179, 191, 217, 218, 229, 232, 238, 246–​247, 264, 267n2 The Terrorists & Kebab  218n4 tertium comparationis  7, 13n6 Thielmann, J.  49 This Beloved [PBUH] Smiling ((Āl) Mujāhid)  8, 44, 50–​51, 52 preface by the author  59–​60 preface by the manager of the publisher (ʿUthmān)  62–​63 preface by the translator (ʿAbd al-​Fattāḥ)  61–​62 Tibi, B.  149 Tomsett, E.  237 transgressions  78, 163, 170, 173, 174, 188, 196, 202, 205, 207–​208, 214–​215, 218 trans-​ideology  227, 234 Transparent (comedy-​drama)  250 trickster jokes  3, 55–​57, 128, 132, 181 Tsakona, V.  145 ṭufaylīs (party-​crashers)  95, 96, 97, 107 Tunisia  10, 148, 162, 163, 167, 170–​171 ṭurfa (anecdote)  71 Turkey  85n12, 136n3, 166 U ‘Ulama’  190, 191 Union of Iraqi Artists  190–​191

unlaughter  5, 33, 36, 37, 40n24, 215 Usman, A.  236, 240 ʻUthmān (caliph)  53–​54 ʻUthmān, M.  62–​63 V van Gelder, G.J.  34, 109, 111, 112n16, 177 Verter, B.  48 W Waardenburg, J.  156 Wahhabism  110, 112n18 Warburton, N.  276 Watan ala Watar (satire show)  202, 214 Weaver, S.  132 Wensinck, A.J.  53 West, the  5, 7, 46, 167, 196, 203, 206, 252, 271, 272, 274–​275 Western comedians  274 When Do We See You? (play)  183–​184, 185 Wiktorowicz, Q.  147 Wilcox, M.  227 Will & Grace (sitcom)  251 ‘wise fool’  145–​146 wit  2, 3, 4, 72, 94, 97, 101, 146, 186 Wyatt, E.  256 Y Yacoub, S.M.  151 Youssef, B.  accused of ‘defaming religion’  152, 157 Al-​Bernameg show  10, 143–​145, 146, 148–​149, 271 ‘B+​ Show’  143 and CBC channel  144 and critique of MB  149, 150–​151, 156–​157 and critique of political Islam  146–​148 and critique of politicization of religion  148–​151 and critique of Salafists  149–​150 and MBC Masr  144 and passive/​defensive strategy to avoid defamation charges  152, 153–​154 political humour of  145–​146 and proactive/​defensive strategy to avoid defamation charges  152, 155–​156 scoring against political Islamists  157 and strategies for avoiding the charge of insulting Islam  151–​156 Youssef, R.  264 Z Zahn, P.  258–​259 zakat (charity)  137n11, 219n11 Zayid, M.  218n1, 233, 234–​235, 237–​238, 239 Zillman, D.  215 zuhd (ascetism)  74, 76, 77, 84

295

David Feltmate, Auburn University at Montgomery

“This collection is a welcome contribution to the study of humour in relation to Islam. It reveals that, contrary to popular belief, Islam is not hostile to humour and Muslims are as funny as non-Muslims.” Georges Tamer, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg

This thought-provoking collection offers a multi-disciplinary approach on the subject of humour, Muslims, and Islam.

Lina Molokotos-Liederman is Affiliated Researcher at the Woolf Institute and Scientific Collaborator at the University of Fribourg.

Beginning with theoretical perspectives and scriptural guidance on permissible and restricted humour, the volume presents a variety of case studies about Muslim comedic practices in various cultural, political, and religious contexts.

Yasmin Amin completed her doctoral studies at the University of Exeter.

This unprecedented scholarship sheds new light on common misconceptions about humour and laughter in Islam and deftly tackles sensitive themes from blasphemy to freedom of speech. Chapter 9 is available Open Access via OAPEN under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

E DI TE D BY BE RN ARD SCHWEIZER AND LIN A MOLOKOTOS -LIED ER M AN

Bernard Schweizer is Professor Emeritus of English at Long Island University.

MU SL I MS A ND HU MOU R

“We needed a volume that thinks critically about how Muslims create religious humour that is both interdisciplinary and covers different cultural contexts. Thankfully, we now have that volume.”

ISBN 978-1-5292-1467-3

9 781529 214673

B R I S TO L

@BrisUniPress BristolUniversityPress bristoluniversitypress.co.uk

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M US L I M S AN D HUM O UR E S S AY S ON COME DY, J OK I N G , AN D MI RT H I N CON T E MP ORARY I S L AMI C CON T E X T S

E D I TE D BY BE RN A RD S C HW E I Z E R A N D L I N A M O LO KOTO S - L I E D E RM A N W I TH YA S M I N A M I N