Have you heard the one about the female Muslim comedian?

No? Well, don't worry about it - until a year ago neither had anyone else.

The comedian in question is Shazia Mirza, a 25-year-old former physics teacher, who has caused a bit of a stir since deciding to quit the classroom for the bright lights and smoky clubs of Britain's comedy circuit.

Within the space of 12 months the woman dubbed the world's first Muslim stand-up has experienced both the highs and lows of celebrity and courted more than her fair share of controversy.

Telling jokes about her life as a Muslim woman living in a western society, she has won the London Comedy Festival, been asked to appear on the Oprah Winfrey show in December and has an appearance on Have I Got News For You lined up this Friday.

She has also performed in front of 3,000 enthusiastic fans at the Palladium and last week received a young achiever's award from Downing Street for helping to break down racial stereotypes.

On the downside, her outspoken act has led to her being attacked by a gang of youths half-way through a routine for being "un-Islamic". The assault shook her so much she didn't return to the stage for a month.

Now the comedienne is to put her comic timing to the test in Yorkshire when she entertains Bradford's business leaders at the annual Asian Business Development Network Gala Dinner to be held at Leeds' Royal Armouries on Friday, November 9.

For Birmingham-born Mirza, comedy is not just a laughing matter but a means of telling people about her life and culture and challenging white audiences' preconceptions about Islam.

When we meet at Woolston House, in Tetley Street, the hub of Bradford's artistic fringe, the comic seems surprisingly subdued and not the type of person to tell gags about Afghanistani shoplifters. Apparently police are looking for a woman with brown eyes. Boom boom.

Other gems in Mirza's repertoire include: "I'm really looking forward to my wedding day. I can't wait to meet my husband." and "In Britain there are 420 branches of Weight Watchers. In Pakistan, there are none. We have our own slimming programme - Ramadan."

Post-September 11 the comedienne even opens her acts by saying "Hi. My name's Shazia Mirza, or at least that's what it says on my pilot's licence."

Bad taste maybe, but also part of Mirza's attempt to dispel what she describes as the West's belief that all Muslims are homicidal fundamentalists.

Mirza first thought of becoming a stand-up while working as a secondary school teacher in the tough London borough of Tower Hamlets. She quickly realised the only way to make her pupils pay attention to the laws of physics was to make them laugh. This soon blossomed from the occasional classroom quip into writing material in her spare time.

"I would be going to comedy clubs where I would see black comics and white comics but I would see very few women, even fewer Asian women, and no Muslim women at all," she said.

"I would see the same white lads all the time who were all talking about the same things; sex, drugs, and their girlfriends. It got a bit boring after a while.

"I thought I've got a lot to talk about that hasn't been heard before. I can talk about my life as a Muslim woman."

Her biggest obstacle has been a section within the Asian community who, she believes, are misinterpreting Islam to keep women in their place.

She says this problem is particularly acute in cities such as Bradford where the Muslim community rarely ventures beyond its cultural boundaries.

"In Islam there's nothing to say that I shouldn't be doing what I'm doing. I'm a committed Muslim. Islam is quite empowering to women but it's our culture that says I shouldn't be doing this."

Mirza, who was born in Birmingham to Pakistani parents, adds: "I represent young Muslim women in this country, who still have their beliefs and values but feel trapped within them.

"Western thought has presented the Muslim woman as necessarily oppressed, so now Muslim women believe that if they do not feel oppressed, they are not proper Muslims. That's rubbish.

"Comedy is my way of saying to women in places like Bradford that they don't have to live as they do."