UC Santa Barbara’s ‘Serious Conversation’ Highlights Muslim Comedy Community

Preacher Moss, Yasmin Elhady, Moses The Comic, and Omar Regan have all made names for themselves on the international comedy stage. They’ve toured stand-up routines, starred in movies and on TV, but on June 6 they made their way to UCSB, virtually.

UCSB’s Capps Center, Center for Middle East Studies, and the Hani Sadek Fund for Islamic Studies co-sponsored the Zoom event “American Muslim Comedy: A Serious Conversation,” and the four Muslim comedians were joined by Sherman Jackson, USC professor of Islamic Thought and Culture, and Morgane Thonnart, PhD candidate in Religious Studies at UCSB.

Thonnart’s first question for the panelists was prompted by comedian Mo Amer’s assertion that “there’s no such thing as ‘Muslim comedy.’”

Moss, who knows Amer well from their time in the comedy trio Allah Made Me Funny, started the conversation off by arguing that “Muslim comedy” does exist, especially when considering the activist tradition of many Muslims before them.

“No offense to Mo, I love him, that’s my brother — but he wasn’t in the fight,” Moss said. “A lot of ‘Muslim comedy’ is not inclusive of being in the fight and is … more a push towards main[stream] entertainment.”

Jackson brought his academic expertise to the conversation, pointing out that comedy, like all forms of entertainment, has serious implications.

“I don’t think that this kind of thing can be just left haphazardly to, ‘well, I’m just gonna make them laugh,’” Jackson said. “I think it’s important what they laugh at, how they laugh, how hard they laugh, and what that laughter really entails in terms of the universe of values and meanings that people carry around with them.”

More than just being a comedian who happens to be Muslim, the comedians make sure their work is halal by following the laws of the Qur’an. To Regan, halal comedy means thinking about intention and making sure jokes are family-friendly, to induce what Preacher Moss calls “permissible laughter.” But as Jackson added, the constructs of halal are somewhat malleable and the boundaries can be pushed, especially in comedy.

Despite being a “serious conversation,” all the panelists naturally approached the conversation with their quick wit, swapping stories and bantering with one another. Regan spoke of a man he met at a Halalywood Comedy Special.

“[He was influenced by] all the indoctrination that we think we know about someone else because they say they’re Muslim. We think that they’re rigid, uptight,” Regan said. “He just really couldn’t believe that, in his words, ‘y’all Muslims be laughing?’”

The four comedians’ friendship with one another was apparent as they riffed off each other.

“We’re each other’s biggest fans,” Moses The Comic said.

“Comedy is about connection,” Elhady said. “I’m not just like you, but maybe you can see yourself in me. And you can take a peek into my life and maybe I am a little bit better than you. I do a joke about that.”

Thonnart then asked the panelists what role community plays in their comedy practice. Three of the four comedian panelists were Black Muslims, which Moses the Comic said he felt was important to highlight.

“I want to see Black Muslims on mainstream television and movies … and I want to be able to use that platform right now …  I’m trying to bring justice to my communities,” he said.

Elhady, the only non-Black and only woman comedian on the panel, thanked the other panelists for welcoming her. She reiterated the range of the Muslim experience and expressed a desire for others to find their place in the comedy world.

“The whole idea of the community … is to create just space. Just a possibility, a thought, an idea of what could be, of something you could strive to do,” she said. “I don’t want to be the only, I want to be one of many.”