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Can't they take a joke? That question came up after the Danish cartoon controversy about 10 years ago and now again after the massacres in Paris. The suspected killers reflect just a minority of extreme religious fanatics but the question made NPR's Neda Ulaby wonder about the role of satire in the Muslim world.

NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: First let's establish that saying the Muslim world is like saying the Christian world, or Africa. We're talking 1.5 billion people all over the globe - different races, ethnicities, languages, who believe different things. That said, I asked a religion professor, Bruce Lawrence at Duke University, about Muslim traditions of satire.

BRUCE LAWRENCE: I've been studying the Muslim world for I guess now almost half a century. And one of my heroes has always been a ninth-century literary figure called al-Jahiz.

ULABY: In a golden era for Islamic music, art and science, al-Jahiz studied everything from zoology to literary theory. He wrote merciless social satires. He was also famously ugly.

LAWRENCE: He could satire himself as somebody who was very unattractive, and yet he could make fun of the rock stars of his generation in Baghdad, which was the capital city of the Muslim world in that time.

ULABY: And al-Jahiz remains, says Lawrence, a beloved figure in Islamic literature.

LAWRENCE: It was not because he recorded the glories of Islam, it was he poked fun at contemporaries, at his coreligionists, at anybody who seemed to him to have too great a sense of self-importance, whatever their station in life.

ULABY: Which feels relevant to a Sunni stand-up comedian working in Chicago today. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

AZHAR USMAN: What's up with the Arabs these days? They don't say (speaking Arabic), they all say (speaking Arabic). This is not Arabic, by the way - this is Arabonics (ph).

(LAUGHTER)

ULABY: Azhar Usman, who comes from India, says his comedy heroes are Richard Pryor, George Carlin and a 13th-century Sufi saint named Mullah Nasreddin.[POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: The audio of this story incorrectly states that Azhar Usman is from India. In fact, Usman's family is from India. He was born and raised in the U.S.]

USMAN: He's almost like an Andy Kaufman type of personality.

ULABY: Usman says there's a famous story about a time Mullah Nasreddin led Friday prayers. He asked the congregation, how many of you know what I'm going to say?

USMAN: Nobody raised their hand. So he said, well, what can I say to a bunch of people who have no idea what I'm going to say? (Laughter). And he leaves.

ULABY: The people coax him to come back.

USMAN: So they say, oh, no, no, please, please, please - we promise we'll be more cooperative.

ULABY: So Mullah Nasreddin asks again, how many of you know what I'm going to say? This time everybody raises their hands.

USMAN: And he says, well, what am I supposed to say to group of people that already know what I'm going to say? (Laughter). And he leaves. So finally they coax him back - oh, please don't leave, you know, we want to hear your wisdom - whatever. So he finally gets up a third time and says, OK, how many of you know what I'm going to say?

ULABY: Half the crowd raises their hands. The other half doesn't.

USMAN: So he says, well, the half that know what I'm going to say should tell the half that don't know what I'm going to say. (Laughter).

ULABY: Satirizing yourself in your own community is a tradition in Muslim literature and arts, says scholar Bruce Lawrence. So is mocking people in power.

LAWRENCE: Political satirists are among the boldest people in the Arab and the Muslim world.

ULABY: People like Bassem Youssef. He's known as the Egyptian Jon Stewart.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

BASSEM YOUSSEF: (Speaking foreign language).

(LAUGHTER)

YOUSSEF: (Speaking foreign language).

(LAUGHTER)

ULABY: Youssef's satire took aim at politicians and the Muslim Brotherhood. His show lasted two years. Bruce Lawrence says there's also a strong tradition of political cartoonists in the Muslim world, like Syria's Ali Farzat. His hands were broken in retaliation for his cartoons mocking President Bashar al-Assad.

LAWRENCE: And then did a cartoon of himself in a hospital bed, showing that even with his hands bandaged he could still manage to say some things against the regime.

ULABY: Farzat was attacked for his politics, not religion. Lawrence says for devout Muslims, satirizing people is fine, but not religious figures seen as existing on a higher plane - God, Muhammad or anyone else who counts as a saint or prophet.

LAWRENCE: So you have 122,000 prophets.

ULABY: Including Adam, Moses and the Virgin Mary. Muslim comedian Azhar Usman says, sure, maintaining a bright line between what's holy and what's profane runs counter to a comedic credo that holds nothing sacred. I asked if it's also fundamentally oppositional to universal values that Westerners hold dear.

USMAN: I think that that is exactly right. I think that's the honest discourse that I wish we could have in the world.

ULABY: Usman says he greets offensive depictions of saints, prophets and God with forgiveness. And, he notes, if you harshly judge what counts as satire from a rigid cultural perspective, you've learned almost nothing from the Charlie Hebdo tragedy.