Capita

Rana, a then Ph.D. student at Purdue University, once said to I-MAG’s copyeditor Ibrahim Babelli “You Muslims have no mother Teresa.” Babelli answered “That’s right. We have Abdulrahman Alsumait [‘Abd Alra’hmaan Al’sumai’t] instead.”

The Kuwaiti doctor who quit a bright career in medicine in the beginning of the 1980s to help Africans to help themselves is considered a role model amongst many Muslim. Alsumait who is now 60 years old and diabetic won several prestigious awards, and what did he do with the money? Donated it to Africa of course, for benevolence is both his mission and passion.

Rama’daan is a very special time for Muslims worldwide, and this is also what a group of non-Muslim American students in Oman realized, who are here for a study-abroad semester as part of the School of International Training program.

I spoke with seven of these students as they personally experience Rama’daan for the first time in an Arab Muslim country and with their Omani homestay families. Jessica Hanlin, Kristen Nordin, Brandon Huffman, Daniel Pickens-Jones, Jillian Keenan, Monica Camacho, and Mickey Hubbard shared with us their experience and understanding of Rama’daan.

“I believe that if a man like him [Mu’hammad] were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it the much needed peace and happiness: I have prophesied about the faith of Mu'hammad that it would.”
George Bernard Shaw

In our time, where people know very little about the difference between the prevalent parody and the real comedy, come the three musketeers of humorsim. “Allah Made Me Funny” comedy tour members employ “the word instead of the sword" to make people laugh at the flaws and discrepancies of Muslims but not for the sake of entertainment only but, and most impotently, for the sake of enlightenment.

The message of the tour is “to make a comprehensive effort to provide effective, significant and appropriate comedy with an Islaamic perspective, which is both mainstream and cross-cultural”, but when it comes to the action, you will laugh until cheeks will hurt, as one of audience once said.

The stand-up comedy tour has three members: Azhar Usman, an American Muslim from an Indian descent. Azhar always says: “I'm not Osama Bin Laden's evil twin brother, I'm his cousin! You can just call me Bin Laughin!”

The other two comedians, Preacher Moss and Azeem are African-Americans. Preacher Moss actually says: “I'm African American and a Muslim which basically means that when I'm pulled over by the police, I get two tickets instead of one!” Azeem, who was once “so green about stand-up comedy” thinks that the challenge is to teach people without making them feel they are in a classroom.

I-MAG met the three talented comedians to learn more about their message and their efforts to vanquish cultural, religious and ethnical stereotypes and prejudices.