By Anmol Alphonso
A poster of the 2015 Iranian movie 'Muhammad' on Prophet Mohammed has been morphed and being shared with derogatory claims while giving it a communal spin.
BOOM found that the viral poster is made of two photos, first the movie poster, and the second one is an unrelated photo of a man praying with a child around during Eid prayers at a mosque in Egypt in 2019, which have been morphed together.
This poster is being shared by several right-leaning accounts after anti-Prophet Mohammed remarks by suspended BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma. The suspension came after several Arab countries including Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia had registered protests with the Indian government over remarks made by former BJP spokespersons Sharma and Naveen Kumar Jindal against the Prophet Mohammad.
The morphed poster is being shared widely on Twitter with the caption, "This (movie) should be made a hit, what do you'll say friends"
(In Hindi - हिट कराना तो बनता है.. क्या कहते हो दोस्तों)
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the viral movie poster has been morphed and an unrelated photo of a man praying while a child playing around has been edited into the poster to make derogatory claims.
We ran a relevant keyword search which results showed that the original poster of the movie poster does not have any photo with a man and a child on it.
2015 original movie poster
On the IMDB page of the 2015 movie 'Muhammad', we found the original poster. This movie is on Prophet Mohammed and was directed by Iranian director Majid Majidi. The movie had faced criticism prior to its theatrical release from Sunni Arab countries.
A comparison of the original and morphed movie poster can be seen below
2019 photo of a man praying with a child
BOOM found that the photo of a man praying with a child is from 2019 and is unrelated to the movie poster.
We ran multiple reverse image searches and found a fact check done by Times of India in 2019 when the same photo was viral with other false claims. TOI in 2019 had spoken to the photographer Omar Shekoo who clicked the picture during the Eid prayers at the Al-Tawheed Mosque in Cairo, Egypt.
We looked up Shekoo's profile on Instagram and found the original picture posted on his Instagram page with a caption in Arabic that translates to, "Eid prayer at Al-Tawheed Mosque in Matariya"
We also found another photo from the same place posted by Shekoo where the same man and child can be seen seated during Eid prayers. The caption translates to, "Eid prayer at Al-Tawheed Mosque in Matariya"
BOOM has reached out to Shekoo for a response, the article will be updated upon a reply.
