Mullah Piaz

Mullah Piaz is a fictional character based on the legendary Mullah Nasruddin and the American comic strip Dilbert. According to <span class='plainlinks'>web site - www.mullahpiaz.net</span>:
Many of his stories highlight the troubles with censorship and filtered websites faced by people in contemporary Iran. Some of the topics include how to circumvent blocked sites, how to use TOR, and phone tapping. In most stories, Mullah Piaz uses, or attempts to use some sort of technological device. Throughout all the stories, Mullah Piaz uses his own absurd sense of logic to explain the various situations he finds himself in.
Mullah Nasruddin Inspiration
Mullah Nasruddin is a legendary satirical Sufi figure who lived during the Middle Ages (around the 13th Century), in Anatolia (modern day Turkey), during the Seljuk dynasty. Over the centuries, many stories have been accredited to him and he became a popular folk figure in Turkish and Iranian culture, as well as some parts of the Arab world and Central Asia.
What adds even further to his uniqueness is the way he gets across his messages in an unconventional yet very effective methods in a profound simplicity, much in the same way Mullah Piaz does when faced with technologies he doesn’t fully understand.
Mullah Piaz’s name and way of thinking is inspired by Mullah Nasreddin and many of the latter’s stories. Some stories, such as The Skeptical Friend and The Demonstration are directly based on Nasreddin originals (The Good Friend, Halva). However, they all deal with modern communications technologies, social issues in contemporary Iran, and, in particular, censorship. The stories of Mullah Piaz often have him looking rather out of touch with a technology. Whereas, Mullah Nasreddin always seems a step ahead of everyone, but uses silly, typically, circular reasoning to put them in their place.
Dilbert Inspiration
Dilbert is an American comic known for its satirical office humor about a white-collar, micromanaged office featuring the engineer Dilbert as the title character.
The location of most of the action moved to Dilbert's workplace at a large technology company, and the strip started to satirize technology, workplace, and company issues. The comic strip's popular success is attributable to its workplace setting and themes, which are familiar to a large and appreciative audience.
Mullah Piaz, like Dilbert, faces many technology-related issues and points out many of its absurdities, while using folk-like wisdom reminiscent of Mullah Nasruddin.
List of Stories
Most Mullah Piaz stories are based around situations in which he is using some type of modern communication device, as well as software for circumvention and anonymity such as Tor. In addition, they usually touch upon certain issues in modern Iranian society such as internet censorship, women’s rights, arrests and interrogations, freedom of expression, computer viruses, use of a proxy server, human rights, phone tapping and government intrusion into public lives.
Below is a list of some strips with the technology and issues discussed:
* The Anti-Virus - computer virus and anti-virus software
* The Forgotten Word - web proxies, internet censorship, filtering, Tor software
* The Skeptical Friend - Balatarin, filtering, blocked web sites, censorship, Siemens
* The Demonstration - cell phone cameras, demonstrations, protests, government oppression, women’s rights, police brutality, societal unrest, human rights, cell phone reception, Youtube
* The Anonymous Surfer - filtering, circumvention software, TOR, online anonymity, internet censorship, online chatting
* The Anti-Proxy - proxies, BBC, Voice of America (VOA), Gmail censorship in Iran, Internet monitoring
Ultimately, the Mullah Piaz cartoon aims to raise awareness of censorship in Iran and to highlight the various means by which Iranians can combat it. It does all this in a lighthearted fashion that satirizes the dynamic mix of modern technology, censorship and traditional folk wisdom.

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