Little Mosque on the Prairie

eastcoast_bsc · Jan 26, 2011

I thought this was a joke when I heard of this Canadian sitcom. It is supposed to be satyr, but there seems to be an underlying message that potrays modern Islam as if they were the Huckstables on the Bill Cosby show.

The local talk show host of course is a bigot, but the Imams friend offers to do a gay wedding for him.

Hello earth !

Here are some of the characters and a little synopsis.

Amaar Rashid (Zaib Shaikh) A Toronto lawyer who answers an ad to become the imam at Mercy's mosque, much to the dismay of his family. He tends to support liberal movements within Islam, sometimes putting him in conflict with the more conservative Muslims in the community. Amaar tends to be sarcastic, which he blames on his work as a lawyer. His wealthy parents (Hrant Alianak and Veena Sood) are not religious at all, and continue to pressure Amaar to return to his much more lucrative law career. He tends to say "I am the imam!" to prove his point or to show that despite his age, he has authority. He usually uses this when other characters (particularly Rayyan and Baber) are fighting and won't listen to reason. Amaar is engaged to Rayyan.

Sarah Hamoudi (Sheila McCarthy) A former Anglican who works as a public relations agent in the mayor's office, Sarah converted to Islam to marry Yasir. Like her husband, she struggles with Muslim customs and regulations and is often shown up by their more pious daughter Rayyan. She wears the hijab when attending services at the mosque, but not day-to-day.

Rayyan Hamoudi (Sitara Hewitt) Yasir and Sarah's 25-year-old daughter, a doctor. She follows Islamic feminism, keeps the sartorial hijab, and takes her religion very seriously. Her Western medical treatments are met with disapproval by Fatima, who uses traditional Nigerian remedies. She is occasionally foiled by her own ambition; in one episode, she insists on being named as the mosque's representative to the local Interfaith Council as her price for letting go of an argument with Amaar, only to discover at her first meeting that the council is really little more than an interfaith bake sale committee. Rayyan has long had feelings for Amaar, but until relatively recently had to suppress them for a variety of reasons; they are currently engaged to be married.

Baber Siddiqui (Manoj Sood) A divorced college economics professor and the most conservative member of the Muslim community in Mercy, he acted as the imam prior to Amaar's arrival in the pilot episode; when Amaar briefly quits his job in Season 3, Baber again takes over as imam, and proves to be one of the reasons the community is so determined to get Amaar back. His conservatism often conflicts with the wishes of his teenage daughter Layla

Rev. Duncan Magee (Derek McGrath) The priest of the Anglican Church which also houses the mosque, he is a good friend of Amaar and the two religious leaders often turn to each other for advice. He is liberal, once offering to perform a gay marriage at the church, and is willing to stand up to the church hierarchy when he believes that it is acting inconsistently with the true message of Christianity. He often laments the sad state of his own church and congregation. He suddenly left the church after the events of season three, replaced by the ambitious younger and distinctly less accommodating Rev. Thorne, played by Brandon Firla, who feels it is his religious duty to compete with Amaar for the souls of the residents of Mercy.

Fred Tupper (Neil Crone) The local bigot and the host of a talk show on the local radio station, he often equates Muslims to terrorists who want to take over the country. However, at times he finds himself in the awkward position of siding with the Muslim community, as evidenced in the first season. A flashback episode revealed that his distrust of Muslims

Little Mosque on the Prairie - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Listen to Katie Couric here, it is embarrassing.

Canada's "Little Mosque on the Prairie" - CBS News Video

Michie · Jan 26, 2011

LOL! It's just getting more & more bizarre as time goes on.

eastcoast_bsc · Jan 26, 2011

Michie said:
LOL! It's just getting more & more bizarre as time goes on.

Watch the Katie Couric interview, she is convinced that it is just right wingers giving Islam a bad name. It is a bit surrealistic.

Michie · Jan 26, 2011

Couric is a dolt.

If she thinks this show gives an accurate view of Islam she has some research to do. Being a newswoman you'd think she'd know better.

Sphinx777 · Jan 26, 2011

Prairies are considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type. Temperate grassland regions include the Pampas of Argentina, and the steppes of Eurasia.

Lands typically referred to as "prairie" tend to be in North America. The term encompasses the area referred to as the Interior Lowlands of the United States, Canada and Mexico, which includes all of the Great Plains as well as the wetter, somewhat hillier land to the east. In the U.S., the area is constituted by most or all of the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma, and sizable parts of the states of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and western and southern Minnesota. The Central Valley of California is also a prairie. The Canadian Prairies occupy vast areas of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta.

Prairie - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

SolomonVII · Jan 26, 2011

It has been on the CBC for quite some time. I must admit, I haven't really watched it even one, though I do get a couple of minutes of it before my after work program (The Ghost Whisperer) comes on.

If the format is as presented in the OP, it is just as Mark Steyn predicted it would be in the weeks prior to the show hitting the air waves.
Cool smart brown Muslims. Dumb hillbilly whites as the brunt of the jokes.

Blackwater Babe · Jan 26, 2011

Michie said:
Couric is a dolt.

If she thinks this show gives an accurate view of Islam she has some research to do. Being a newswoman you'd think she'd know better.

How would you like to see Muslims in the West portrayed on TV?

Sphinx777 · Jan 26, 2011

Blackwater Babe said:
How would you like to see Muslims in the West portrayed on TV?

Kingdom of Heaven - What is Jerusalem worth?

Christian_Believer22 · Jan 26, 2011

eastcoast_bsc said:
The local talk show host of course is a bigot, but the Imams friend offers to do a gay wedding for him

Homosexuals are executed in countries with Islamic Sharia law. I think a show like this will serve to keep the public naive about the dangers of Islam, the world's most dangerous and intolerant ideology/religion.

eastcoast_bsc · Jan 27, 2011

Blackwater Babe said:
How would you like to see Muslims in the West portrayed on TV?

Lets see, the Muslim brotherhood has been behind two days of riots in Egypt in an attempt to overthrow the Mubarak government. Lebanon has fallen into the hands of Hizbullah as of this week,

A Chechen Islamic suicide bomber walked into Russia's Domodedovo airport and set off a suitcase bomb packed with nuts, bolts and ball bearings surrounded by 15 pounds of Semtex, which resulted in body parts blown all over the airport. 35 died and many were wounded. They found one of the bombers head at the scene.

On New Years Eve Islamic terrorist set off a car bomb outside a Coptic church in Alexandria Egypt which resulted in 21 worshipers being blown to pieces. Their crime was being Christian.

All this was in the last month, and I could go on.

So how would you describe Islam on a sitcom ?

Christian_Believer22 · Jan 27, 2011

Blackwater Babe said:
How would you like to see Muslims in the West portrayed on TV?

eastcoast_bsc said:
Lets see, the Muslim brotherhood has been behind two days of riots in Egypt in an attempt to overthrow the Mubarak government. Lebanon has fallen into the hands of Hizbullah as of this week,

A Chechen Islamic suicide bomber walked into Russia's Domodedovo airport and set off a suitcase bomb packed with nuts, bolts and ball bearings surrounded by 15 pounds of Semtex, which resulted in body parts blown all over the airport. 35 died and many were wounded. They found one of the bombers head at the scene.

On New Years Eve Islamic terrorist set off a car bomb outside a Coptic church in Alexandria Egypt which resulted in 21 worshipers being blown to pieces. Their crime was being Christian.

All this was in the last month, and I could go on.

So how would you describe Islam on a sitcom ?

My wife knows someone who is a devout Catholic who loves to visit the Holy Land. When my wife's friend made a stop in Turkey on her way to the Holy Land, they literally put a gun to her face at the airport because she was wearing a T-Shirt with a Christian symbol on it which is against Islamic law. They forced her to turn the T-shirt inside out so that the Christian symbol would not be visable. Like I said, Islam is the world's most intolerant religion.

semper_virens · Jan 27, 2011

Christian_Believer22 said:
My wife knows someone who is a devout Catholic who loves to visit the Holy Land. When my wife's friend took a trip to Turkey, they literally put a gun to her face at the airport because she was wearing a T-Shirt with a Christian symbol on it which is against Islamic law. They forced her to turn the T-shirt inside out so that the Christian symbol would not be visable. Like I said, Islam is the world's most intolerant religion.

But you're only focusing on the bad examples... at least, that's what my liberal friends told me.

Blackwater Babe · Jan 27, 2011

eastcoast_bsc said:
Lets see, the Muslim brotherhood has been behind two days of riots in Egypt in an attempt to overthrow the Mubarak government. Lebanon has fallen into the hands of Hizbullah as of this week,

A Chechen Islamic suicide bomber walked into Russia's Domodedovo airport and set off a suitcase bomb packed with nuts, bolts and ball bearings surrounded by 15 pounds of Semtex, which resulted in body parts blown all over the airport. 35 died and many were wounded. They found one of the bombers head at the scene.

On New Years Eve Islamic terrorist set off a car bomb outside a Coptic church in Alexandria Egypt which resulted in 21 worshipers being blown to pieces. Their crime was being Christian.

All this was in the last month, and I could go on.

So how would you describe Islam on a sitcom ?

Are these incidents indicative of most Muslims?

If I can find examples of Christians bombing stuff, does that mean Friends should have featured episodes like "the one where Joey screams "Dieu Lo Volt" and blows up the abortion clinic"?

SolomonVII · Jan 27, 2011

Well, if it was funded by Saudi Wahabi dollars, as many mosques are, for sure this fictional mosque would not be doing gay weddings.
Should have got Irshad Mnji to put in a guest appearance for that one.
The establishment white as buffoon is pretty standard fare for these kind of sit-com shows.
It is a sit-com, so probably the issue of terrorism is a little heavy and out of place. What are they going to do?
Blow up a granary with diesel and fertilizer? Farmers do that all the time anyways.

I wouldn't be surpised if they made a few episodes on arranged marriages and the like though.

Sphinx777 · Jan 27, 2011

M2TW Kingdoms Crusades Campaign - Great Mosque Build

new_wine · Jan 27, 2011

Anyone that believes all Muslims are extremists that want to kill anyone different than themselves must then believe that the KKK is a Christian group.

No one but the insane and the Klan believe they are good Christians. Which in my book is one and the same.

Andy Hardy · Jan 27, 2011

eastcoast_bsc said:
Lets see, the Muslim brotherhood has been behind two days of riots in Egypt in an attempt to overthrow the Mubarak government.

Um...

Egypt is a majority Muslim country and Mubarak is a corrupt dictator who has been in control of Egypt for 30 years.

Are you saying Muslim don't have a right to overthrow a corrupt dictator because they are Muslim ?

eastcoast_bsc · Jan 27, 2011

Andy Hardy said:
Um...

Egypt is a majority Muslim country and Mubarak is a corrupt dictator who has been in control of Egypt for 30 years.

Are you saying Muslim don't have a right to overthrow a corrupt dictator because they are Muslim ?

What I am saying is that the group behind the attempt to overthrow Mubarak is even worse. They are the Muslim Brotherhood and from a geopolitical stand point this is very alarming to the US.

Out of the Muslim brotherhood came Hizbullah and they have designs on destroying the two great Satan's, the US and Israel.

I am not defending Hosni Mubarak, but I am saying that we are about to enter a even more dangerous stage in world events.

The same happened today in Yemen, and Lebanon has fallen. Hold on folks, history is unfolding before our eyes.

Here is a good site: Stratfor, You will have to pay, but it is a Global Intelligence site and it is topnotch.

Don't depend on the nightly news, they are not going to give you the truth.

http://www.stratfor.com/

Blackwater Babe · Jan 27, 2011

The Muslim brotherhood IS pretty extreme, its true. However, when it comes to condemning other people for attempting to change their government by revolution, Americans would do well to remember they don't exactly have the most sinless history in this regard.

Sphinx777 · Jan 27, 2011

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