Against the backdrop of the alleged derogatory remarks made by former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma about the Prophet of Islam which caused a diplomatic stir for India, an alleged movie poster that appears to be on the life of Prophet Muhammad is viral on social media with various claims.
Twitter user @Narpats62770513 shared the poster with a caption in Hindi that reads, “When the trailer looks like this, imagine how will the movie be?”
जब ट्रेलर ऐसा है तो फिल्म कैसी होगी ? pic.twitter.com/iJ1crwfCTc
— ठाकुर साहब (@Narpats62770513) June 15, 2022
This poster is widely circulating on Twitter with various claims.
The poster is also viral on Facebook with similar claims.
Morphed
We started with a keyword search on Google based on the text that is visible on the poster. This led us to the IMDB page of the film ‘Muhammed’ (2015), directed by the acclaimed Iranian filmmaker, Majid Majidi. The real movie poster is completely different from the one that is viral on social media.
The film has met with widespread criticism from Sunni Muslim groups, who believe any depiction of the Prophet is blasphemous. Moreover, fatwas were also issued against Majidi as well as music composer AR Rahman for making the film. In 2020, Anil Deshmukh, then Home Minister of Maharashtra, had written to the Central Government, demanding a ban on the broadcast of the film.
Photo of the man with a child
We cropped the image and performed multiple Google reverse image searches which led us to an Instagram page of an Egyptian photographer named Omar ShEkoo. As per the caption, the photo was clicked during Eid prayers in 2019 at the Al-Tawheed Mosque in Cairo.
Rummaging through Omar’s Instagram page, we found another photo from the same event. It had the same caption as the previous image. This photo was posted four days after the first one. The child and the elderly man are visible in this image as well.
The earlier image was lifted from Instagram and shared out of context.
The viral poster is thus, morphed.
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