Hours after it came to light that Qatar has invited Indian fugitive, Dr Zakir Naik, to preach Islam to football fans, a video of the ‘preacher’ converting four men to Islam went viral on social media.
On Sunday (November 20), a popular Twitter user (@KawuGarba) posted a video of Naik proselytising on stage and directing the new converts to recite the Kalma.
“They come to watch the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. After listening to the call of Allah, they converted to Islam. Allahu Akhbar!” the user tweeted. At the time of writing, the tweet by Kawu Garba had over 3.3K likes and 850+ retweets.
They come to watch the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. After listening to the call of Allah, they converted to Islam. Allahu Akhbar! pic.twitter.com/ldqA9w0QR5
— Kawu Garba (@KawuGarba) November 20, 2022
The Source of the Video
The video drew contempt from netizens and football fans, who were enraged at the thought of Qatar using an international tournament to convert non-Muslims to Islam. However, Opindia found that the video in question is not recent but has been doing the rounds on the internet since 2016.
In a tweet in May 2016, the Editor-in-Chief of the Qatari newspaper Al Sharq, Jaber Al Harami wrote, “4 people declare their allegiance to Islam after a lecture by Dr Zakir Naik in Qatar.”
4 أشخاص يعلنون إسلامهم بعد محاضرة د.ذاكر نايك في #كتارا ..#قطر pic.twitter.com/nUYUWZxbwp
— جابر الحرمي (@jaberalharmi) May 27, 2016
We also found two additional videos of the event on Youtube, which were shot from different angles. One Meer Mohammed Yehya claimed that the conversion took place on May 26, 2016, in the cultural village of Katara in Doha city of Qatar.
“4 people accepting Islam after clarifying their doubts about Islam…Allahu Akbar…Ma sha Allah”, he wrote in the caption.
Another video of the event, shot on a mobile and from a wider angle, also pointed out the video was shot on May 26 of that year.
Hence, it can be safely concluded that the 4 people, who converted to Islam, were not visitors who came to watch the 2022 edition of the FIFA World Cup.
It must be pointed out that Zakir Naik had on multiple occasions coerced his non-Muslim audience members to convert to Islam after responding to their queries about the religion.
Zakir Naik’s Islamist preachings and their violent consequences
Zakir Naik has been avoiding Indian authorities ever since his name started cropping up in terror-related cases. In 2016, terrorists involved in the Dhaka blast case admitted that they were influenced by the preacher’s speeches.
In 2019, Zakir was banned from giving speeches in Malaysia after he made racist comments against Hindus and Chinese Malaysians. He was interrogated for hours in connection to the same.
Zakir Naik is wanted in India in cases involving money laundering. The government of India had taken his channel, Peace TV, off the air for peddling hate propaganda.
