There are just some things you don’t joke about, and local comedian Joey Rasdien learnt that the hard way this weekend.

A Muslim himself, Rasdien was invited by the Ilm Arts Festival to perform at the Sandton Convention Centre on Saturday.

Although his content attempted to make light of some aspects of the religion, the satire did not go down well with the festival’s audience, explains IOL:

“There is this other brah. This is going to be a bit controversial. I love Islam but there are certain things that make me wonder. That brah that wrote 40 000 hadiths in two years. there are 365 days in a year which makes it 740 days in two years,” he said at the festival.

The ‘brah’ that he referred to was one of the companions to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

“There’s 365 days in a year which makes it 740 days in two years which gives you 1440 minutes per day, plus you must sleep. How can you write forty thousand hadiths in two years?”

Shortly after that, Rasdien made remarks about women in the audience who were clearly offended by his comments, and soon he was booed and told to get off the stage.

Check out the audience’s reaction towards the end of the video – it all goes very south from around the 2:30 mark:

At a festival aimed to put Islam in a “good light and to showcase the religion’s beauty by providing a platform for some of the worlds leading Islamic scholars, performers and artists to unite,” it appears Rasdien was terribly off the mark.

He soon apologised, of course:

“As a Muslim comedian I hold myself to the same set of standards expected of a Muslim in any other walk of life. It is our character and behaviour that must be unimpeachable. And while humour is a necessary part of our humanity, I understand as well, that the best way for us to humour is to encourage better behaviour from all of us. I failed to do this,” he said in a statement.

Rasdien described the companions of the Prophet as extraordinary and then proceeded to quote the Quran.

The comedian has vowed to learn more about the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and his companions and to educate himself on the “significance to our understanding of Islam.”

He expressed deep regret and admitted that if he heard those comments from another comedian, he too would be upset.

“I am deeply disappointed in myself and endeavour to do better.”

“I humbly ask that you join me in beseeching the Most Merciful, to accept my repentance,” he added, before he sought forgiveness from Allah.

Rasdien is not the first comedian to get hell for mocking one thing or another, but could he have gone too far this time?

Perhaps there is a time and a place and this wasn’t it.

[source: iol]