Over the past few decades, the portrayal of Islam and Muslims in Western media has been
mostly grim. Violent reactions, such as those that followed the Danish cartoons of Muhammad in 2005 and the Charlie Hebdo magazine’s slurs in 2015, reinforce the lay assumption that Islam generates a sobersided culture. This lecture probes the place of humour and laughter within Islam as religion and culture past and present. It reconstructs Islam’s view on humour, traces its development as a literary genre, and shows how Muslims always found ways to bypass religious restraints and legal restrictions with a sprinkle of humour. Mourad Laabdi is a Lecturer in the Religion program, College of the Humanities. His research centres on Muslim law and society with a special focus on questions of multiplicity and conflict of legal opinion.