Sakdiyah Ma'ruf and waging a comedy jihad

Domestic violence, arranged marriage and fundamentalists' secret obsession with porn are just the beginning when it comes to the controversial jokes from Sakdiyah Ma'ruf.

She's one of the world's first female Muslim stand-ups and her gags are explosive.

Fans describe her as a gun loaded with laughter, but the Muslim extremists she mocks want to shut her down.

Fearless and really funny, Sakdiyah is on fire and putting her life on the line to wage a comedy jihad on the world.

"I think in the eyes of many Muslim extremists, especially men, anyone with breasts will be dangerous," she says.

"I mean, we talk about that a lot behind that the curtain.

"Girls in our community have a lot of jokes about the dick of Arab men... it's so big it's almost like a third leg."

Indonesia - where Sakdiyah is from - has the largest population of Muslims in the world and fundamentalism is rampant.
Comedy
Source: The Feed
Many extremists have said she has a death wish and she's no stranger to threats on her life. But even that's not stopping her.

"A couple of years ago, a business man tried to publish Playboy magazine in Indonesia," she recalls.

"There's 200+ million people in Indonesia and none of them had every heard of Playboy magazine until this Islamic extremist group rallied against the publication of Playboy.

"They're not supposed to know about this stuff, they're supposed to study the Quran.

"They probably have these specific divisions within their organisations filled with men with the best jobs on Earth watching porn as part of their devotion to Allah."
"I think in the eyes of many Muslim extremists, especially men, anyone with breasts will be dangerous"
Sakdiyah says she knows that "life is scary" but when it comes to being afraid of the consequences her work may have, she's not scared - she's accustomed to being scared of her dad.

"Seeing him hitting my mum, it's very difficult to talk about that, but I think being out there as a stand-up comic, I'm doing what I think my mum would do if she had a chance, I guess.

"So this is me doing it mostly for my mum. I just want something better for her."

Stand up comedy has become an outlet for Sakdiyah in a way so few things are and she says it has changed her outlook on not only life, but the person she can be.

"I'm feeling like a totally different person when I'm on stage," she says.

"I'm feeling very much alive, I'm feeling I can finally be free.

"It's my catharsis."
Comedy Muslim
Source: The Feed
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Through award winning storytelling, The Feed continues to break new ground with its compelling mix of current affairs, comedy, profiles and investigations. See Different. Know Better. Laugh Harder. Read more about The Feed
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Through award winning storytelling, The Feed continues to break new ground with its compelling mix of current affairs, comedy, profiles and investigations. See Different. Know Better. Laugh Harder.
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Published 31 October 2016 4:38pm
Updated 31 October 2016 7:25pm
By Patrick Abboud
Source: The Feed

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