By Anmol Alphonso
An old video of a man reciting the azan (the Islamic call to prayer) from a dilapidated mosque is being shared with a false claim that it was recorded in Morocco after a powerful earthquake rocked the country.
The powerful 6.8-magnitude quake struck Morocco late on September 8, 2023 and is reported to be the deadliest to hit the country in decades with the current death toll of more than 2,100 people according to CNN. Rescuers have warned that the toll is still expected to rise. The earthquake also badly damaged one of the most important historical sites in the High Atlas mountains, an earth-and-stone mosque according to Reuters citing Moroccan media reporting that parts of the Tinmel Mosque had collapsed.
The 40 seconds video was shared by the handle '@AllahGreatQuran' on X (formerly known as Twitter) with the caption, "In Morocco, the Masjid is broken, yet the adhan continues. Allahu’Akbar"
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The same video is being shared on Facebook with the same misleading caption.
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the viral video is old dating back to at least 2017 and is not recent after the earthquake in Morocco as being claimed on social media.
Taking a hint from the replies to the viral post stating that the video is old and from the recent earthquake, we found a tweet from July 16, 2017, that posted the same video which was longer. The caption with the video when translated reads, "Thus, the call to prayer is raised on the ruins of a mosque in Mosul, Raise your ears, for He is the one who created confusion He will show you one day in the dusty environment"
A comparison shows that the visuals in the viral video match the video posted in 2017.
We also found the same video posted on Facebook on June 27, 2017, with the caption, "An elderly man making adhan in a broken mosque in war-torn Syria. They can take everything from us but they can't take our Iman. (SHARE)"
BOOM was unable to independently verify the incident or whether the video was from Syria or Iraq, however, we were able to establish that the viral video was not from Morocco after the earthquake as claimed on social media.
