Photo of Louvre fertility god statue edited as 'Allah figurine in Kaaba'

Pasika KHERNAMNUOY / AFP Thailand
·2-min read

As Muslims around the world prepared for the annual hajj pilgrimage, an edited photo made the rounds in Facebook posts that falsely claimed it shows a statue of Allah at Islam's holiest site, the Kaaba. However, Islam prohibits such representations of Allah and a 360-degree view of inside the Kaaba confirmed no such statue exists. The original photo shows a figurine depicting the fertility god Baal at the Louvre museum in Paris.

"Statue of Allah inside the Kaaba," read a Facebook post in Thai that shared the edited image on May 6, 2024.

The Kaaba is a black cube-shaped building at the centre of the Great Mosque in Mecca. It is the holiest site in Islam, towards which Muslims face when they pray.

The picture shows a horned statue with two right arms stood on a pedestal.

<span>Screenshot of a Facebook post sharing the false claim, taken June 17, 2024</span>
Screenshot of a Facebook post sharing the false claim, taken June 17, 2024

The image surfaced on Facebook ahead of the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the five pillars of Islam, in which 1.8 million Muslims took part this year.

Louvre figurine

However, the picture appears to be edited from a photo of a similar statue on display at the Louvre museum in Paris -- not the Kaaba.

A reverse image search and keyword searches on Google found a photo in an article by the World History Encyclopedia about the fertility and weather god Baal (archived link).

<span>A screenshot of the Baal Statue image, taken on June 11, 2024</span><div><span>FS</span></div>
A screenshot of the Baal Statue image, taken on June 11, 2024
FS

The photo is credited to "Jastrow", a photographer whose real name is Marie-Lan Taÿ Pamart.

Taÿ Pamart confirmed to AFP that she took the photo of the Baal statue at the Louvre.

She also posted the image on Wikimedia Commons in 2006 (archived link).

The figurine is featured on Louvre's website, which said the Baal statue was discovered in 1934 in Syria (archived link).

Below is a screenshot comparison of the edited image (left) and Taÿ Pamart's photo (right), with inconsistencies highlighted by AFP:

<span>Screenshot comparison of the edited image (left) and Taÿ Pamart's photo (right), with inconsistencies highlighted by AFP</span>
Screenshot comparison of the edited image (left) and Taÿ Pamart's photo (right), with inconsistencies highlighted by AFP

Moreover, photos from inside the Kaaba do not show any such statue.

A 360-degree view of the Kaaba's interior posted by the Islamtics website shows the same pedestal and pillars seen in the edited picture -- but with no figurine.

<span>A screenshot of the post depicting a 360 degree view of the Kabaa, taken on June 11</span><div><span>FS</span></div>
A screenshot of the post depicting a 360 degree view of the Kabaa, taken on June 11
FS

Below is a screenshot comparison of the false image (left) and a mirrored view of the same spot from the 360-view of the Kaaba (right).

<span>A screenshot comparison of the false image (left) and the original image (right) highlighted by AFP</span>
A screenshot comparison of the false image (left) and the original image (right) highlighted by AFP

Islam prohibits images or statues of Allah.

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