Citizen Khan (pictured above) is a family-based British sitcom produced by the BBC and created by Adil Ray. It is set in Sparkhill, Birmingham, described by its lead character a Pakistani Muslim Mr Khan (Adil Ray) as “the capital of British Pakistan.” Citizen Khan follows the trials and tribulations of Mr Khan, a loud-mouthed, patriarchal, self-appointed community leader, and his long suffering wife (played by Shobu Kapoor) and daughters Shazia (Maya Sondhi) and Alia (Bhavna Limbachia) …
… and yes, that name is of course a hat tip to Citizen Kane.
OK, let’s be specific, because rather a lot of people appear to be taking it far too seriously …
- It’s not real, but is instead a comedy TV show designed to entertain
… and yet rather a lot of highly religious people are rather upset that the above picture was posted on the Citizen Khan Facebook page, for example …
(Side note: I’m not blacking out names, these folks posted the above in a public forum that has 365,000 followers, and that is far more readers than my blog might ever get, also, please don’t go out of your way to hassle them, I’m simply highlighting what they are saying).
OK, so some deeply religious people are a tad sensitive to religion being mixed with humour.
If there is indeed a concern that a belief is being undermined by a TV show then I can only suggest that if the belief cannot withstand some quite frankly gentle humour it must indeed be a very fragile belief indeed, or perhaps those that find it offensive are simply insecure.
I should also perhaps make the rather obvious point that the number one source of all anti-islamic propaganda is not a TV show such as this, nor does it come from outside Islam, but rather comes from within. It is the actions of so many variations of Islam that reveals gross intolerance, misogyney, homophobia, violence and murder that tells the world all about the reality of Islam.
So here is what Adil (the lead actor and also a Muslim himself) posted …
He gets it, and so does most of his viewing audience, the original posting already has 6,599 likes and 515 shares, so most within the Islamic community do appear to have a good sense of humour and can laugh at themselves (just as most Catholics laugh at Father Ted).
Now that’s a good sign of progress towards a better more tolerant world.
If you live in the UK, then you can find details for next episode here.
Who has the right to tell me I can only laugh at certain jokes? Why am I being punished because certain sections of society have no sense of humour?
It has long been a tradition in England, to take the rip out of each other, it got us through the hard times, when there was no one over here to offend. Is this yet another of our traditions we have to lose?
the
Now, if you’re quite happy to take the benefits. literally. the UK give you, is it too much to ask, to crack a smile?
After all, I don’t remember anyone knocking on my door and asking if I wanted my heritage and customs destroyed by people who have been invited to live here.