Chinese people convert to Islam because of COVID-19.
The one-minute, 27-second video shows men standing in rows and raising their index finger, repeating words recited by a man holding a microphone., Below is a screenshot of the misleading post., The post’s Indonesian-language caption translated to English as:, "Latest news. From a mainstream Mandarin channel"., “20 million Chinese converting to Islam after it is proven that the corona epidemic has not affected Muslims. God is Great, praise be to God for the blessing of Islam. #Islam is a truth”., The novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, has\xa0killed more than 2,600 people, with more than 79,000 infected globally as of February 25., The same video has been viewed nearly 17,000 times after it was also shared with a similar claim on Facebook\xa0here\xa0and here,\xa0on Twitter here\xa0and on YouTube here., The footage was\xa0also shared with a similar claim in Malaysian here, and in English\xa0here\xa0and here., The claim is false; the video shows an Islamic conversion that took place in Saudi Arabia in May 2019, about half year before the novel coronavirus emerged in Wuhan in late 2019., A reverse image search and a subsequent keyword search on Google found the exact same footage previously posted here\xa0on May 27, 2019, by a Facebook user named Ahmad Erandio., , The caption of the post reads: “ALHAMDULILLAH WELCOME TO OUR BROTHERS IN FAITH”., The people in the video, from the 0:05 to the 0:51 mark, can be heard reciting the shahadah, a declaration of faith in Islam required when someone converting to the faith. The declaration is in Arabic and it is normally followed by a translation. The English translation of the declaration passage is: “There is no god but God; Muhammad is the Prophet of God.”, Starting from the 0:53 mark, the people in the video recite\xa0the shahada in Tagalog., Below is a screenshot comparison between the video in the misleading post (L) and the genuine Facebook video (R):, A banner with Arabic text can be seen behind the crowd. The same banner can be seen in this photo, posted with other pictures, on the same Facebook page on June 11, 2019., Below is a screenshot of the photo:, The Arabic text in the banner translates to English as: “Iftar project in the industrial city of Jeddah (KSA)”., Iftar refers\xa0to breaking the fast at sunset during the fasting month of Ramadan and KSA is an acronym for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia., According to Saudi-based daily Arab News, Ramadan in 2019 began\xa0on May 6, while Eid al-Fitr, which celebrated the end of Ramadan,\xa0started on June 4 – which matched the date the video was posted., Similar claims shared hundreds of times on Facebook show a photograph purporting to show Chinese people converting to Islam due to the coronavirus., AFP ran a reverse image search on Google and found it was taken by Reuters journalist on January 3, 2019, months before the virus was discovered. According to the caption, the photo shows Muslims praying during a government trip to the Xinjiang Islamic Institute in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region., , Copyright © AFP 2017-2020.  All rights reserved.  Users can access and consult this website and use the share features available for personal, private, and non-commercial purposes.  Any other use, in particular any reproduction, communication to the public or distribution of the content of this website, in whole or in part, for any other purpose and/or by any other means, without a specific licence agreement signed with AFP, is strictly prohibited.  The subject matter depicted or included via links within the Fact Checking content is provided to the extent necessary for correct understanding of the verification of the information concerned.  AFP has not obtained any rights from the authors or copyright owners of this third party content and shall incur no liability in this regard.  AFP and its logo are registered trademarks.
The video shows an Islamic conversion in Saudi Arabia in May 2019 – months before the novel coronavirus outbreak | AFP Fact Check