Canadian television sitcom
Little Mosque on the Prairie is a Canadian television sitcom created by Zarqa Nawaz and produced by WestWind Pictures, originally broadcast from 2007 to 2012 on CBC. Filmed in Toronto, Ontario, and Indian Head, Saskatchewan, the series was showcased at the Dawn Breakers International Film Festival. After the series finale aired in April 2012, Hulu announced it would begin offering the series under the name "Little Mosque" that summer. The series made its U.S. premiere on Pivot in August 2013.
Plot.
The series focuses on the Muslim community in the fictional prairie town of Mercy, Saskatchewan (population 14,000). The primary institutions of the community are the local mosque, presided over by imam Amaar Rashid and located in the rented parish hall of the town's Anglican church, and Fatima's Café, a downtown diner run by Fatima Dinssa. The community patriarchs are Yasir Hamoudi, a construction contractor who initially fronted the money to establish the mosque under the pretense that he was renting office space for his business, and Baber Siddiqui, a college economics professor who served as the mosque's temporary imam until Amaar was hired.
The town of Mercy is governed by Mayor Ann Popowicz. Sarah Hamoudi, Yasir's wife, who is white, works as a public relations officer in Popowicz's office. However, after Yasir had to leave Mercy and go to Lebanon in season 4 (episode 10), Sarah managed his contracting company. Sarah converted to Islam, but was originally a member of the same Anglican Church whose parish hall the mosque is run from.
The title is a play on the name of the classic traditional book and television drama series, "Little House on the Prairie". The two series are unrelated aside from the modified version of the title logo, which was used for early seasons.
Production.
Although the show is set in Saskatchewan, the actual production is split between Saskatchewan and Ontario. Episodes 1-2 were filmed in Regina, but the rest of season 1 was filmed in the Toronto area. Indian Head, where a set has been built for the exterior of the mosque, doubles for the show's exteriors. Film Rescue International's building exterior stands in for the town hall and Certified Plumbing and Heating as the local used car dealership. The Novia Cafe, the front of which is used in the show as a stand-in for Fatima's, was located in Regina. It closed in the early Summer 2011.
Actors Zaib Shaikh and Aliza Vellani are Muslims. Sitara Hewitt (Rayyan) is also of partial Pakistani Muslim descent, but was raised Christian as both of her parents are Anglican Christians. Manoj Sood (Baber) is a Hindu Punjabi.
Zarqa Nawaz based much of the show on her personal experiences. Many of the characters are partially inspired by her family and friends. The episode "The Barrier" is based on a true happening at Nawaz's mosque when incoming conservative Muslims pressured the imam to put up a barrier separating men and women. The pilot episode also contained a satire of Maher Arar's 2002 detainment.
In the episode "The Archdeacon Cometh", the archdeacon mentions having to "shut down a church in Dog River", referencing another Canadian sitcom "Corner Gas" on rival network CTV. Carlo Rota and Sheila McCarthy, in character as Yasir and Sarah, also later appeared in a crossover with Brent (Brent Butt) and Hank (Fred Ewanuick) from "Corner Gas" on the sketch comedy series "Royal Canadian Air Farce", debating the location of Mercy and Dog River (both fictional towns) in relation to each other after Yasir and Sarah bought the gas station and fired Brent.
Guest actors who have appeared on the show include Colin Mochrie, Dan Redican, Samantha Bee, Dave Foley, Maria Vacratsis, Sam Kalilieh, Peter Wildman, Sugith Varughese, Hrant Alianak, Jennifer Robertson, Kathryn Winslow, Jayne Eastwood, Patrick McKenna and Tom Jackson, as well as hockey player Darcy Tucker, curler Glenn Howard, and sportscaster Ron MacLean.
Production staff.
The show's executive producers are Mary Darling and Clark Donnelly, owners of WestWind Pictures, and Allan Magee. Producers are Colin Brunton and Michael Snook while the show's associate producer is Shane Corkery, along with Jason Belleville, Dan Redican and Zarqa Nawaz as consulting producers.
The writing staff includes or has included Susan Alexander, Cole Bastedo, Jason Belleville, Andrew Carr, Andrew De Angelis, Claire Ross Dunn, Sadiya Durrani, Greg Eckler, Anthony Q. Farrell, Josh Gal, Sarah Glinski, Barbara Haynes, Karen Hill, Paul Mather, Jackie May, Zarqa Nawaz, Paul Pogue, Al Rae, Dan Redican, Sam Ruano, Vera Santamaria, Rebecca Schechter, Rob Sheridan, Miles G. Smith and Ron Sparks. Carr, Mather, and Sheridan were previously writers for "Corner Gas".
The directors for the first four seasons include Michael Kennedy (33 episodes including the pilot and entire first season), Brian Roberts (14), Jim Allodi (6), Steve Wright (4), Jeff Beesley (4), Paul Fox (4), and Zarqa Nawaz (1).
Faisal Kutty, a Toronto-based lawyer, academic and writer served as the first Islamic culture and practice content consultant for the show. He was responsible to provide advice and feedback on accuracy in terms of the portrayal of Islamic norms and practices. He also provided input to producers and writers.
Themes.
The show derives some of its humour from exploring the interactions of the Muslims with the non-Muslim townspeople of Mercy, and the contrast of conservative Islamic views (held primarily by the characters of Baber and Fatima) with more liberal interpretations of Islam (as represented by Amaar and Rayyan.) The show is essentially a traditional sitcom whose most unusual trait is being set among a Muslim community in small town Canada. Nawaz herself has stated that the show's primary agenda is to be funny, not to be a political platform. She has also stated that she views comedy as one of the most valuable and powerful ways to break down barriers and to encourage dialogue and understanding between cultures.
This is represented by the show's promotional tagline, "Small town Canada with a little Muslim twist": the religious angle, while always present, is largely tied to and sometimes even secondary to standard and universal sitcom themes such as family, friends and the humour in everyday life. For example, while the show sometimes tackles storylines with a political edge, such as a character claiming to be unable to attend a conference in the United States because he says he was wrongly placed on a no-fly list (when in fact he is simply afraid of flying) or the mosque being raided by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, even these situations are explored as much for their humour as their politics. The show much more commonly explores purely comedic issues such as whether a Muslim woman still has to cover her hair if the only man who can see her is gay, whether Muslims can curl, whether to haggle with the carpet salesman when buying a prayer rug, or whether a Muslim woman's head scarf is enough to mitigate a bad hair day. Television critics have also credited this very combination of an attention-grabbing premise with conventional and familiar sitcom themes as one of the primary reasons that the show successfully retained an audience after its debut.
The series also sidesteps issues of stereotyping by having characters in both the Muslim and non-Muslim communities who cross the entire spectrum of political opinion. Baber and Fatima, who represent conservative views within Islam, are balanced by conservative radio host Fred Tupper among the non-Muslims, while Amaar and Rayyan, who represent Islamic liberalism, are balanced by the liberal Anglican Rev. Magee. The more moderate Yasir and Sarah, who try to be good Muslims but aren't particularly strongly defined by their faith, are balanced among the non-Muslims by Mayor Popowicz, who doesn't care what anybody's religious beliefs are as long as they vote for her on election day.
Hewitt's character of Rayyan Hamoudi, in particular, has been singled out in the media as a strong and unique role model for young Muslim women—both for her ability to reconcile a commitment to her Muslim faith with a modern, feminist-inspired Western lifestyle and career, and as a fashion icon who dresses in clothes that are religiously appropriate yet stylish, professional and contemporary.
International telecast and home media releases.
On May 8, 2007, WestWind Pictures announced that the show would be airing in France, Switzerland, and Francophone Africa beginning in July on French subscription channel Canal+.
On September 26, 2007, WestWind Pictures announced that the show would soon air in Israel, United Arab Emirates, Turkey (Middle East) and Finland . On October 2, 2007, Al Jazeera English confirmed that the United Arab Emirates and Finland had signed deals to begin airing the series in 2008.
From June 12, 2008, Télévision de Radio-Canada, CBC Television's French-language counterpart, aired a French-language dub of the series titled "La Petite Mosquée dans la Prairie".
The series began airing under the name "Little Mosque" on Hulu in June 2012.
The series made its U.S. television debut on Pivot in August 2013 under the name "Little Mosque."
Entertainment One has released all six seasons of "Little Mosque on the Prairie" on DVD in Region 1 (Canada only). Season 6 was released on 23 October 2012.
The series' logo used for the cover art of the DVD releases does not use the mosque imagery of the televised version, thus rendering it similar to that used by "Little House on the Prairie" except for the use of the word "Mosque" instead of "House".
As of 2023, the series is currently streaming on both services: The Roku Channel and Tubi.
Reception.
Unusual for a Canadian television series, "Little Mosque" received extensive advance publicity in international media, with stories appearing in "The New York Times", the "Washington Times" and the Texan "Houston Chronicle", as well as on CNN, NPR and the BBC.
The show premiered on January 9, 2007, at 8:30 p.m. The pilot then re-aired on January 15 in the show's regular timeslot, and the series subsequently aired Mondays at 8:00 p.m. (all times half an hour later in Newfoundland).
The series premiere drew an audience of 2.1 million, an exceptionally strong rating for domestic programming in the Canadian television market, and on par with Canadian ratings for popular U.S. series. It was, in fact, the largest audience the CBC had achieved in a decade for an entertainment program. By comparison, "Corner Gas", one of the highest-rated Canadian TV shows, attracts just under one and a half million viewers for a typical episode. The second episode, airing against the second night of the much-anticipated season premiere of "American Idol" in most markets, had 1.2 million viewers, a sharp drop but still a high rating for a Canadian sitcom, and very high for CBC Television, which has had trouble garnering large audiences for its scripted programming in recent years.
At the end of the show's season on March 7, 2007, the show attracted 1.1 million viewers, or an average of 1.2 million for the season. CBC Television renewed the show for a second season consisting of 20 episodes, which started airing on October 3, 2007, and continued to attract an average of one million viewers per episode.
CBC renewed the show for a third season on March 7, 2008. The third season premiered on CBC Television on October 1, 2008. In its third season ratings declined and as of December 2008 it was attracting a quarter of its initial audience. In its fourth season ratings declined further and as of December 2009 it was drawing 420,000 viewers a week, or twenty percent of its original audience.
On February 11, 2011, it was announced that CBC had renewed the series for a sixth and final season. This season began airing on CBC on January 9, 2012 and concluded on April 2, 2012.
Critical reception.
Canadian writer and producer Ken Finkleman, who is best known for his CBC series "The Newsroom", criticized the show's sunny outlook. "There’s deep confusion and racism about the place of Islam in the Western world and it’s the thing that’s broiling up under everything in the world, and the show presents this world where everything is happy."
The "Los Angeles Times" wrote: "'Mosque' was conceived in the wake of the 2005 Danish Muhammad cartoon crisis by producer Mary Darling, her husband, Clark Donnelly, and writer Zarqa Nawaz when they met at the Banff Television Festival. The basic premise was: What would it look like if a Muslim born and raised in Canada became an imam?"
In regards to the program's initially never been shown in the U.S., the "Los Angeles Times" stated: "The genius of 'Mosque' is