COMEDIAN Shazia Mirza says she believes Islam will eventually be able to laugh at itself.

The Muslim stand-up said she understood why people were offended by the Charlie Hebdo cartoons, including the front cover of the "survivors" edition.

However, she said the cover "depicted the prophet in a very forgiving, very kind, very compassionate way".

"As a comedian it's my right to offend people and their right to be offended," she said.

"It is offensive to Muslims. It's not something I would have drawn or what I would have done. It's not outrageous. To Muslims it's blasphemous.

"As the Jews and Christians will tell you, it does get better. They've been on this journey, they've been laughed at, they're very good at laughing at themselves.

"As a result they have evolved and come a long way. Muslims are at the beginning of this journey and it's something they have to go through.

"It's not unique to Islam, every religion has been through this, and it's our turn."

Tommy Sheppard, director of The Stand Comedy Club, said the Charlie Hebdo team had to draw the prophet for its latest edition or else "the terrorists would have won". He said: "I think the way in which they did it was actually quite skilful and sympathetic."

"The portrayal - is it Muhammad or is it some archetypical Middle Eastern figure? From what I've seen it isn't in any way malicious or even hateful or frightful. It's actually presented in a very soft and sympathetic manner. The 'all is forgiven' tag is an act of incredibly magnanimity."

Sheppard said he did not believe in "no go" areas for comedy, adding: "I think anything can and should be a legitimate target for humour. Satire can be used to lampoon institutions or powerful organisations. And world religions are right up there in the premier league of powerful organisations.

"I think it's absolutely correct to satirise Christianity, Islam, Judaism. There's no reason they should be excluded from a satirist's targets. We've all got to get a hold of ourselves and realise you could be offended and you can offend without people taking AK47s and slicing each other to bits."

Terry Anderson, co-ordinator of the Scottish Cartoon Art Studio in Glasgow, said the Charlie Hebdo team did the "best they could do in the circumstances".

He said: "If they did a wildly offensive one along the lines of some of the previous ones - pornographic poses - they would be seen as reckless. Any cartoon of [Muhammad] is going to potentially offend. He is at least expressing something sweet and positive and from their point of view as a magazine it doesn't seem to come from a place of anger."

He added: "If you're knowingly causing offence you better have a pretty solid rationale for doing it and you'd better be confident that whatever the consequences of that offence are, [they] will come to your door and not harm or otherwise make miserable anybody else collaterally."