Does Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the elusive chief of the Islamic State, sport a spiky beard made of blood-stained knives? A cartoonist, whose illustration has been selected along with 280 other satirical works by Iran's House of Cartoons to portray the atrocities committed by the IS, seems to think so. Baghdadi's tormentor, the United States of America, has not been spared by the other illustrators either. A number of the contributors - 800 artists from 40 countries, including Brazil, Argentina and Indonesia, submitted their works - highlighted America's role in facilitating the rise of the IS.

There is nothing surprising about Shia Iran's decision to mock a Sunni militant outfit that is threatening its hegemony in the Middle East. But what is significant, in this instance, is Iran's choice of weapon - satire. At a time when much of the global campaign against the IS relies on the brute show of force, Iran has rediscovered the utility of satire as an effective medium to challenge the truths being disseminated by an orthodox regime. Therein lies the novelty of the cartoon contest whose works, it was decided by the organizers, would be displayed across several cultural centres in Tehran.

Caricature shares an uneasy relationship with totalitarian dispensations. Unsurprisingly, several of the foreign contributors who attended the contest chose to travel to Iran under borrowed identities because of security concerns. Satire, it is alleged not entirely without reason, is often chosen as the medium to offend the sensibilities of specific - usually marginalized - communities. Iran had earlier been criticized for organizing a similar contest that chose to make fun of the Holocaust. Yet, satire's importance lies in its efficacy as a tool for propaganda. Iran hopes that the cartoons, which aim to expose IS's double-facedness, would help mobilize public opinion against the militant group. Unsurprisingly, the exhibition is scheduled to travel to Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. Iran's tactic to employ satire in its battle against the IS also mirrors a shift in modern conflict. Wars are no longer fought and won only on the battlefield. The warring side that manages to win the battle of perception usually ends up vanquishing its opponent.

The cartoon competition in Iran also helps expose a carefully-crafted myth as a lie: that of the Islamic world's antipathy to free speech. The Charlie Hebdo killings, to cite just one example, have been used by commentators - especially in the West - to expunge the historical and prolific relationship between Middle-Eastern societies and satire. The Ottoman empire's first satirical magazine was named after Karagöz, a fictional character in the Turkish shadow play tradition who got the better of his genteel friend with his wit. In recent times, the success of people's uprisings in the Middle East - Iran's Green Movement, Turkey's Gezi Park awakening or the Arab Spring in Tunisia - can be attributed not only to their respective organizational apparatus. Satire, expressed through such diverse popular art forms as music, cartoons, graffiti and online posts, also played a decisive role in sustaining these expressions of dissent.

There is no doubt that Karagöz's legacy endures in the Islamic world. Unfortunately for the IS, it cannot even decapitate this fictional adversary.