Striking a balance between comedy and faith

Zarqa Nawaz explores what would happen to a mosque if the imam believed passionately in gender equality in her television series “Little Mosque on the Prairie”. It is the first-ever Western sitcom about Muslims that’s made her a darling of TV critics and the scorn of her community. “Little Mosque”, which premiered on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in 2007 for six seasons, used Islam as a framework to challenge traditional notions of gender. The hit television series angered some in Nawaz’s own community. She was accused of insulting Islam and “selling out the Muslim community to make money”. She tackles it all in her memoir, “Laughing All the Way to the Mosque”.

From Al Jazeera