Joha (جحا) is a famous character in Arabic popular literature. Joha is known for being a funny character that has sometimes behaves in very strange, hilarious, or even ridiculous ways. He is famous in different cultures, and the character has been adapted to different settings and different ages, e.g. however there are many similarities between the characters in each culture. The character of Joha has a distinctive image with special hat, clothes and footwear which bears many similarities in different cultures.

Joha is often depicted with his donkey (حمار جحا) that can sometimes takes part in his stories in different ways. He is also presented as married with a son. His wife and son sometimes take part in his stories.

Here are a couple of stories about Joha:

Once Joha was riding on his donkey  and passing by some people. One person wanted to tease Joha and said to him: “Joha, I recognised your donkey, but I did not recognise you.” Joha replied to him by saying: “Naturally, donkeys easily recognise each other!”

When Joha’s donkey was missing, Joha kept saying: “thank God!” People asked him, why he thanked God when he had lost his donkey. Joha replied: “I thank God for not being on the donkey when it went missing, otherwise I would have become missing as well.”

The stories of Joha were recently adapted to a modern setting, and presented in a cartoon called () which became popular in the Arab world.