Azhar Usman<\/em><\/div>\nUsman is the co-founder of the \u201cAllah Made Me Funny,\u201d a Muslim comedy tour that has traveled to more than 20 countries. He has been featured on \u201cCBS Sunday Morning\u201d as well as ABC\u2019s \u201cNightline.\u201d Although Usman now has a successful career as a comedian, the Chicago native didn\u2019t start out as one. He earned degrees in communications and law before founding an Internet startup, then practicing law, and eventually found his way into the world of comedy.<\/p>\n
Usman talked with the Beacon about \u201cLaugh in Peace,\u201d his comedic philosophy, and the politics of being an American Muslim today. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n
Beacon: How did you get into comedy? Did you always know you wanted to focus on religion?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong>[box_light]<\/p>\nUsman: <\/strong>I basically never really thought about getting into stand-up. I was always a comedy fan, I was never hardcore into it but I knew I liked comedy. When I was a very young person I remember seeing comedy on TV, particularly Latino comics and black comics. These people were saying things that resonated with people, things that nobody says, and making people laugh. Particularly about race \u2014 America is a very racialized country.<\/p>\nI never imagined becoming a comic as a possibility for my life. I didn\u2019t know anybody who was a comic or making a living as an artist. Having said that, I had this interest, and my interest began to grow. \u2026 My friend was an amateur comic and he would take me to this comedy club in Minneapolis. People say that people get inspired by two things: greatness and mediocrity. I saw a lot of mediocrity and thought \u2018I could do that,\u2019 so it inspired me to write an act in 2000. For a while it was just a hobby, an interest never meant to become a career, but then I started getting booked. Then in 2004 I had enough bookings to make a run at it.<\/p>\n
[\/box_light]<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
With \u201cLaugh in Peace,\u201d the idea is that you\u2019re bringing three religions together in a comedy show. Often people get very sensitive about making fun of religion \u2014 how do you transcend that?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong>[box_light]<\/p>\nUsman: <\/strong>We don\u2019t really talk about religion, nobody\u2019s material is about religion. It\u2019s just the fact that the three comics are followers of these religions, and so their lives inform their comedy. Every comedian has beliefs that inform their comedy. That\u2019s going to find its way into their comedy only in so far as their beliefs inform their worldviews.<\/p>\nI don\u2019t think any of the comics talk about content from the religions but are more offering their own perspective that\u2019s going to be unique. It\u2019s not really confrontational or explicit, we\u2019re not preaching. It\u2019s not like we\u2019re telling people to do anything. It\u2019s just that we happen to believe x, y and z that and that informs our view of the world.<\/p>\n
[\/box_light]<\/p>\n
Many comedians talk about shock value and offending audiences, but I know in your Allah Made Me Funny tour you avoided sexual references and profanity. How do you balance your religion and comedy? Are there boundaries you\u2019re careful not to cross?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n[box_light]<\/p>\n
Usman: <\/strong>There was a time where I would think more about that, or I would feel more like I wanted to stay true to a certain core set of principals and I didn\u2019t want to be thoughtless about offending people. There was a time when I would be much more deliberate and careful because I didn\u2019t want to have a bad result.<\/p>\nThe comic\u2019s material is a reflection of our perspective. Shock comedy, people who get laughs by offending people, that\u2019s a choice \u2026 that stems from a comic\u2019s life. I think, though, I\u2019ve gone through a maturing process. There\u2019s a whole other comic philosophy and that\u2019s the one I use.<\/p>\n
There are thoughts that we all have at the conscious level and the subconscious level. And what a good comic does is reach into the subconscious mind and say things that people are thinking about but no one says. So when people are shocked it\u2019s because no one\u2019s ever thought about that. It doesn\u2019t necessarily have to do with something taboo or whatever. I\u2019m going to make you laugh by saying things that other people don\u2019t want to say, by forcing you to deal with things you don\u2019t want to deal with, and that\u2019s what gets the response. [Offending people has] become less and less of a concern because that\u2019s not the kind of comedy I\u2019m interested in.<\/p>\n
[\/box_light]<\/p>\n
<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
How was performing Allah Made Me Funny all over the world different from performing in America, as you\u2019re doing now?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n[box_light]<\/p>\n
Usman:<\/strong> Every city and every country has a personality. It\u2019s almost hard to talk about it because it gets into energy and the feel of a place. The way the same joke will be received in a different environment will be \u2014 in an extreme case \u2014 the difference between laughter and no laughter, or it can be laughed at for different reasons.<\/p>\nPeople are kind of in awe of the United States, so people are jealous or sometimes the jealousy will produce negative feelings. Here\u2019s an example.<\/p>\n
Say I\u2019m in America and\u00a0I tell this joke: \u201cSo I was recently in Amsterdam and that\u2019s a very different environment than it is here. When I\u2019m in America people look at me differently because I\u2019m a Muslim, so when I\u2019m there it\u2019s nice that people just hate me \u2018cause I\u2019m American.\u201d And people laugh because they know people do hate us around the world.<\/p>\n
\n
Then when I\u2019m in Amsterdam and I tell the same joke, I say: \u201cIt\u2019s nice to be in Amsterdam, it\u2019s a whole different environment than America. When I\u2019m there people hate me \u2018cause I\u2019m Muslim, but here people just hate me \u2018cause I\u2019m American.\u201d And they laugh, but because they know they don\u2019t hate Muslims but they do hate Americans.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
So it\u2019s different, and yet the same joke can often play across the world and appeal to all people.<\/p>\n
[\/box_light]<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When you first started touring, 9\/11 was pretty fresh in people\u2019s minds. Do you think Americans\u2019 attitudes toward Muslims have changed in the past decade?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong>[box_light]<\/p>\nUsman:<\/strong> The relationship between Islam as a great global religion and a faith tradition and the United States of America as a nation state that\u2019s engaged in empire building is a complex relationship even before 9\/11. The reason that\u2019s important to keep in my mind is because whatever attitude 9\/11 produced in people\u2019s minds, there\u2019ve always been groups and people that have an interest in fueling the flames of anti-Muslim hate. All 9\/11 did was provide those people with a huge amount of ammunition to fuel those flames.<\/p>\nWe tend to be na\u00efve about the world and not be able to see past the mass media. Americans are worse about this than the rest of the world because we don\u2019t look past CNN or Fox News to be informed. This conversation that has already existed for decades and centuries just became much more important.<\/p>\n
Throughout the history of the United States, there\u2019s always been a global enemy. It was the Japanese, then the Commies, now we find and replace Russians or Communists with Muslims. The words might be different but the ideas are the same. So what does that produce? People are scared and people don\u2019t ask questions about why are we spending more money on defense than the rest of the world combined.<\/p>\n
The way that plays out for everyday life for someone like me in America just fans the flame and makes that relationship more complex. I believe in my core that human beings are human beings and are all made up of the same things. And the comedy that I want to do as an artist is to transcend our perceived differences and get around that. That\u2019s what good art does, it gets around that. That\u2019s what I\u2019m aspiring toward.<\/p>\n
[\/box_light]<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
[divider]<\/p>\n
Source<\/strong>: Beacon<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Aug. 30, the audience at The Pageant sat down to a unique experience. The \u201cLaugh in Peace\u201d comedy tour brings together a rabbi, a minister and a Muslim comedian in a show that aims to unite people through laughter. \u201cWe bring audiences together that would never sit in the same theater,\u201d Azhar Usman, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,54],"tags":[2022,2023,2025,10,422,2026,2024,2027,2028],"class_list":["post-3716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features-buzzwords","category-audio-video","tag-allah-made-me-funny","tag-azhar-usman","tag-comedy","tag-featured","tag-interview","tag-islamic-comedy","tag-laugh-in-peace","tag-muslim-comedian","tag-muslim-comedy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/simplyislam.sg\/muslimbuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/simplyislam.sg\/muslimbuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/simplyislam.sg\/muslimbuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simplyislam.sg\/muslimbuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simplyislam.sg\/muslimbuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3716"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/simplyislam.sg\/muslimbuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3719,"href":"https:\/\/simplyislam.sg\/muslimbuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3716\/revisions\/3719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simplyislam.sg\/muslimbuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/simplyislam.sg\/muslimbuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simplyislam.sg\/muslimbuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simplyislam.sg\/muslimbuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.stlbeacon.org\/lantern\/public\/resources\/content\/26578\/images\/awod-logo-for-web_10325.20.jpeg\"){kind=logo}
<\/div>\n![\"Usman\"](\"https:\/\/www.stlbeacon.org\/lantern\/public\/resources\/content\/26578\/images\/AzharUsman_10326.30.jpg\")
<\/div>\n