Yaser M. Haddara

Al-hamdulillah, Little Mosque on the Prairie (hereafter LM) seems to be doing rather well. I haven’t been able to find a site that gives updated viewership or ratings for Canadian shows, but from the various reviews it appears that the show has settled in at about a million viewers regularly. The comparison is made with the benchmark Canadian show, Corner Gas, which gets a little less than 1.5 million viewers regularly. So the numbers seem to be healthy al-hamdulillah.

A number of Muslims are still very upset with the show, which I suppose is fine. I would have preferred to see our community in general simply accepting that comedy is largely a matter of taste and that we could agree that some of us will laugh while others will simply switch the channel. Unfortunately the bulk of the criticism seems to come at it from the “let’s all follow the Quran and sunnah” perspective, a perspective I personally find rather annoying since I take it for granted that in fact most of us are trying to follow the Quran and sunnah. I know I had promised a post (or maybe two) about humor in classical sources and I am almost ready to put that up so stay tuned inshaa Allah. I also received an email recently that’s been doing the rounds that summarizes the arguments against, so inshaa Allah I’ll take that up in a series of posts. All of this I intend to do in rapid succession if God wills, so if you’re interested in this please do stay tuned over the next two weeks.

Meanwhile, two things are “comforting” for those of us that have been enjoying the show. The first is all the right-wing rants against the show. Michael Coren bares his islamophobic teeth in this piece. (A short digression: I recorded an episode on the Michael Coren show a couple of months ago and the man was positively charming. I thought he was even-handed and quite fair in the way he ran the show. Off air he was respectful, friendly, and I would even say generous. This editorial seems to be written by a different person! Ironic how we can be so more vicious with each other when we’re not actually talking to a living breathing human being :( ). Another collection of hyperventilating rednecks may be found on this blog. The common theme in all these is their feeling that the show portrays all the Muslim characters in a good light (they are all lovable even if a little eccentric) whereas it does the opposite with the “white” townsfolk, especially the radio broadcaster. I disagree with their reading of how the non-Muslim folks are portrayed but therein lies the bulk of the irony: their perception is almost a mirror image of the Muslims that have reacted negatively to the show.

The second “comforting” thing was this online Q&A with the show’s creator Zarqa Nawaz. I had hoped to speak with her directly before blogging on this subject again but unfortunately did not get the chance. But this Q&A gives you a feel for what she likes and doesn’t like about the show. It should have been clear from the outset (and I had said this to a number of people verbally but didn’t put it in my previous review b/c I didn’t want to be distracted from the central messages there) that a show like this does not go on the air with one person entirely in control of the writing. So some things are gonna make it through that no one likes. Nonetheless, even some of the scenes that Zarqa found questionable I actually didn’t, which I suppose puts me in the extreme minority :) — so what else is new?

I’ve put comforting in quotes in the above two cases b/c in each case it’s a mixed blessing: on the one hand the perception of the show by hyperventilating rednecks tells you something about its positive impact and on the other hand we’re not necessarily seeking such a negative reaction; and on the one hand it helps to know that there is room for improving the show as Zarqa is better able to educate the rest of the writing team and on the other hand it’s not super great that this didn’t happen from the outset.

There are also things that are comforting, without the need for quotation marks. That the show seems to be successful al-hamduillah is a good sign. I hope it’s here to stay. The show has been getting funnier. And I believe (I don’t have scientific data here, just anecdotal evidence) that even among some of its critics the show has started to gain more acceptance. It’s also given us as a community the opportunity to discuss more of these issues.

So I’ve made a number of promises here that I’ll have to try and keep inshaa Allah. Over the next two weeks I will inshaa Allah blog about (roughly in this order):

1. Humor in classic texts
2. My personal review of episodes 3-6
3. The larger issues surrounding LM (some of these will be identified in the reviews; others come from the email I talked about earlier)

Until then, don’t worry, be happy! And please remember: Peace.