"Do not seek to put man in a cosmic dimension, but to humanize the cosmos, for there surely is laughter, and strength against tragedy" (Orfalea and Elmusa, p. 153). Thus the Arab American poet Eugene Paul Nasser neatly sums up the interdependency of religion and humor while acknowledging a certain inevitable tension between those of earnest and those of ironic inclination. Laughter, like music, dance, alcohol or drugs, love, and poetry, can be considered threatening to religion because of its powerful attraction. Although it can be co-opted, repressed, or embraced, it cannot be ignored. A Tunisian trickster tale was the author's introduction to the world of humor and Islam. Shared by an unlettered thirty-five-year-old North African mother of four over tea on a cold spring afternoon in 1967, the tale for some might humanize the cosmos a little too much, but for many over the centuries...