Shabana Rehman Gaarder (Urdu: شبانہ رحمان; 14 July 1976 – 29 December 2022) was a Pakistani-born Norwegian stand-up comedian, writer, and columnist.
Using her sense of shocking humour on stage and in newspaper columns, she was a controversial voice in discussions on immigration and integration of Muslims in Norway, which has resulted in her persona becoming a subject in itself, which was often referred to as the "Shabana debate".
Since the early 2000s in general, she urged Muslim immigrants to embrace Western progressive values such as human rights and individual freedom, and that especially women should have the choice to be whoever they want to be, and to do with their own bodies as they please.
[2] Anthropologist Marianne Gullestad accused Rehman of reinforcing stereotypes about Muslims, and making Norwegians think it's ok to discriminate against immigrants.
[5] Rehman married writer Dagfinn Nordbø in 2003, the two having initially met on the stand-up circuit in 1999.