Were the Muslim Spice Girls! Shazia Mirza on striking box office gold with her halal comedy supergroup | Comedy

For years, Muslim women have been the butt of jokes. We have been described as looking like bank robbers and postboxes by Bernard Manning and Boris Johnson. And from Jack take off your straw veils to Donald Trump, who said at least we don't need to wear makeup, white men in power have continually attacked us for cheap laughs.

We couldn't fight back. We were the voiceless, faceless, humorless, powerless underdogs of society. While white women took on various roles as pop stars, models, news anchors and politicians, we were only seen baking cakes in burqas or becoming jihadi brides.

When I was little, no one on TV looked like me. My father always shouted: Hurry up, get down! Trevor is on TV. Because Trevor McDonald was the closest thing to an Asian woman at the time.

Race, religion and hijab have always preceded talent, spirit and achievement. Our hijabs were like Kylie's hotpants: they took on a life of their own. People's perception was that we were forced into marriage, controlled by men, oppressed and secretly changed into thongs and miniskirts in public toilets for a secret night at the Ritzy nightclub. The rich apparently spent all their days at Harrods buying red lace underwear to wear under our burqas, for our husbands' eyes only. For the rest of us, a day away consisted of a trip to the laser hair removal clinic, and even then we had to get permission from our dads.

In fact, I can tell you that for most of us, our greatest fear is not forced marriage or the burqa. It's the fear of marrying a man with a bigger mustache. I'm really competitive, he can't have one bigger than me.

It took years to change, even if only slightly, the conversation about Muslim women. There is a history of Jewish, black and Catholic comedians, but no history of Muslim comedians. It is being created right now in real time.

I was the only Muslim woman on the comedy circuit for many years until the next one came along. We weren't like buses; we were the rail replacement bus service. In addition to the obstacles that all women in business face – sexism, lack of opportunities, stereotypes and unequal pay – I have faced a whole host of additional obstacles.

There was racism disguised as criticism. White men who had never seen a Muslim actress before wrote: This is not funny. It's not good. Why does she always talk about being Muslim? Or: she doesn't talk enough about Muslims! Of all the things she could have talked about and she's talking about Primark? What a waste for a good Muslim.

To be honest, at the time I wasn't very good at it. The leather pants I wore on stage were so tight that they constantly disappeared into my butt. I had to send a search party for them every Friday. I haven't checked with my local imam, but I'm pretty sure it's not halal.

Nonetheless, I was expected to be a walking, talking explanation of all things Muslim. While my white comedian friends had the privilege of talking about airplane food, why women have so many shoes, and sniffing while laughing, I had to explain 9/11, the war in Afghanistan, and Shamima Begum. The tabloids deliberately misinterpreted my information and accused me of supporting Isis.

When I appeared on a popular daytime TV show, one of the presenters said to me: Your mother, I believe, when she's out and about, wears the full burqa. But as a modern Muslim woman, have you ever had a serious conversation with your mother, just to say: Why are you wearing that? My only armor was humor, and all I could do was laugh about it.

Fortunately, we now live in a different era, in which people could never get away with this type of ignorance and bullying. But at the time, as a Muslim, I felt tormented, castigated and unwelcome.

I was making autobiographical jokes when no one really knew much about the lives of Muslims, especially women. Something more complicated than all the women in my family wearing the burqa, which is great because we all use the same bus pass, it made people uncomfortable. Or not knowing if they could laugh or not.

Off stage, people couldn't place me. People stopped me at airports and asked: are you Malala? Mindy Kaling? Or worse yet, on a Caribbean beach: are you my general practitioner?

What made it even more difficult was that there was no sisterhood around me to support or encourage me. There were no other Muslim female comics and I didn't feel like white feminism included me. What some Western women might consider empowering, such as Shania Twain saying she found posing topless in a recent photo shoot liberating, would be the antithesis of feminine Islamic values. There are no OnlyFans in Islam, our version is OnlyFriends.

Fast forward to a month ago, when myself and five other Muslim comedians did a five-city tour of the UK, which sold out within hours, to a total of over 5,000 people . The show was halal, alcohol-free, and the audience was strictly women-only: mostly women wearing hijabs and niqabs, although all women were welcome. Lines stretched around the blocks of every venue, people were clamoring at the doors offering to pay for extra tickets, and white men were messaging me on social media saying, Why can't I I don't get a ticket?

A few months earlier, we six women Yasmin Elhady, of Egyptian-Libyan origin, Fatiha el-Ghorri (Moroccan), Ola Labib (Sudanese), Fathiya Saleh (Somali), Zain (Iraqi) and myself (Pakistani) had been contacted. by three Muslim brothers who run an events company called Twenty6. They had noticed the rise of Muslim comics in the mainstream and felt the need to create a new space in which comedy could be enjoyed while respecting Islamic principles. They wanted to arrange a tour for us.

None of us responded. We've all been there before: ripped off, treated unfairly, disrespected. Why would they want to do this for us? Would that really work? They contacted us again and again and finally, one by one, we responded to them.

Comedy Queens, the resulting show, featured a real variety of Muslim women. There was a range of political and observational material, one-liners and social commentary. Our culture, accents, languages, backgrounds, appearances, and experiences were all varied. We're the Muslim Spice Girls, with something for everyone.

But each act is above all a source of laughter. This is not a Ted Talk or a sermon. We are not on stage to transform Sharon Smith into Khadijah Shamila Abdul Rashid. It's not Belmarsh. Everyone has a different life story, so everyone's jokes are different. Some of us are married, some of us are divorced, some of us have been divorced twice and I have a husband who is funnier than me.

Being Muslim is just one small aspect of these women's lives. They enjoy watching Married at First Sight while eating a vegan Greggs bun, just like everyone else. You'll find these girls on the tour bus listening to Oasis while simultaneously watching videos of Mufti Menk on Instagram, a funny and friendly modern-day imam with over 8 million followers, who made religion cool and accessible to young people . This is Father Ralph from The Thorn Birds, the Hot Priest in Fleabag, the imam that Islam has been waiting for.

The women in our audience were wondering: Which one are you? For many of them, it was the first time they had seen themselves reflected. It was a big step from Trevor McDonald to Shazia Mirza. The laughter every evening was piercing. It wasn't polite laughter or chuckles; it was screaming, tearing, visceral, wet panties. It was a laugh that, for years, had had no outlet; the one that no one had cared about or taken care of.

The audience loved it when we pushed the boundaries. They haven't waited all these years for pedestrian information about shopping, losing weight, and reverse parking. If comedy is truth, this is the naked truth. As the tour expands and the audience grows, no topic will be off-limits, because every topic relates to these women, as it does to every other woman.

Today, due to public demand, we are on the verge of going global. We were playing in countries like South Africa, Canada and the United States. In the UK this year we will be playing at the London O2. These six bank robbers, mailboxes, ninjas, scary ghosts, blackout tents or simply outsiders, fight back. Roofs are not destroyed by bombs or guns, but by punchlines.