A Muslim comedy troupe performing here tomorrow hopes to do more than coax a few good laughs out of the crowd. It hopes to reveal — especially for the benefit of Muslims themselves — hard truths about their community in America.

Truths about internal dysfunction: about racism; about isolation; about not having it together, but needing to.

And truths about humor: about how laughter can be a good antidote to post-9/11 fears.

In so doing, the three-member troupe, Allah Made Me Funny, hopes to help define and create a distinct Muslim-American culture — one that's open, unapologetic and pluralistic.

"This is the first time where Muslims have really gone out to validate themselves," said 38-year-old Preacher Moss of Washington, D.C., who formed the troupe, which is performing tomorrow at Bellevue's Meydenbauer Center. "We're going to go out and express ourselves and say, 'This is who we are.' "

The three acknowledge that for some people — both within and outside the Muslim community — "the idea of Muslim and comedian don't really go together," Moss said. "The Muslims they see on TV are issuing fatwas."

And some Muslims objected to the idea of using Islam or their community as fodder for laughs.

"When I first started doing comedy, people were looking at me like I had four heads and two backs," said Moss, who has written comedy for the likes of George Lopez, Bill Maher and Damon Wayans.

Still, Moss thinks the number of Muslim comedians may be growing. In August, for example, comic Ahmed Ahmed performed in a three-person comedy show at The Arab Festival at Seattle Center.

Ahmed's message: Lighten up.

And loosen up, Moss might add. He tells the one about Muslims becoming so scared since 9/11 you don't dare tell them a knock-knock joke.

"You say: 'Knock knock.' "

"They say: 'Don't answer it!' "

"We're not going to be unnecessarily offensive or shout people down," said another member of the Allah troupe, Azhar Usman of Illinois, a 29-year-old lawyer-turned-stand-up-comedian who was born in the U.S. to parents from India.

"We're here to provide a better alternative, to show that the way things are being done are not necessarily the only way things could be done" within the Muslim community.

The third member of the troupe, who goes by the single name Azeem, is 33, from South Carolina, and, like Moss, African American. He has done stand-up in the club and college circuits.

When Moss brought the three together a year and a half ago, people would ask him whether it was in reaction to 9/11. No, he told them. It began before then. Because if the best comedy comes from woe, there was plenty of it to be had in the Muslim community even before the terrorist attacks.

"Contrary to popular belief, a lot of woes in the Muslim community were in some ways how we were dysfunctional," he says.

Take racism. Moss has heard fellow Muslims say to African-American Muslims: "You're a brother in this [prayer] line, but you can't marry my daughter."

He can — and does — joke about that now.

"When you look at Allah Made Me Funny, you look at the history of Islam in the United States. It's like we're the dream team" — two blacks and a third member born of immigrants, said Moss.

Which helps illustrate a point his troupe is making: that in America, especially before 9/11, "you had two Muslim communities: the African-American and the immigrant community. And they didn't really intersect," Moss said.

By working together, the three comedians hope to demonstrate that all Muslims can and need to come together "before you can be effective outside your community."

In a similar way, by their very existence and the work they do, they hope to show that there's a way for Muslim Americans to talk about their community, to remain rooted in it, while still pursuing mainstream success.

"The Muslim community in America has, by and large, been a very isolationist community," Usman said. "Part of that means we don't really have any models out there as to how people can become mainstream entertainers and still stay rooted in the Muslim community."

At the same time, Usman said, it's time for Muslims here to forge a distinct Muslim-American culture and identity — something he hopes Allah Made Me Funny does by unapologetically tackling tough internal issues or by finding the bitter, biting humor in post-9/11 America.

"That's the biggest task facing my community — the development of a healthy Muslim-American culture," Usman said. "I feel that's the calling of my generation and the next several generations in this country."

Wherever Islam has gone, it's taken on an indigenous flavor, so that Islam in Saudi Arabia doesn't look like Islam in India.

"So why shouldn't Islam in America be American?" Usman asks. "I think that's the light bulb that's going off."

Janet I. Tu: 206-464-2272 or jtu@seattletimes.com

IF YOU GO

If you go

Allah Made

Me Funny

Where

Meydenbauer Center, 11100 N.E. Sixth St., Bellevue

When

Two shows: 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. tomorrow

Tickets

$25 general admission, $40 for VIP section, through www.ticketwindowonline .com. Net proceeds will be donated to organizations helping victims of Hurricane Katrina, the famine in Niger and Iraqi orphans.

More information

www.allahmademefunny .com