Clip shows performance at Portuguese fair, not priest who converted to Islam

Published on October 10, 2025 at 08:37
2 min read
By AFP Middle East & North Africa
Translation and adaptation AFP Malaysia

A clip of a man reciting the Muslim call to prayer in front of a cathedral has circulated around the world in posts falsely claiming it shows a Portuguese priest who converted to Islam and bought the church. It in fact shows a Syrian vocalist performing at an annual cultural event in the Portuguese city of Silves.

"Portuguese priest converts to Islam, buys a church in rural Portugal, and performs a call to prayer inside," reads Malay-language text superimposed on a TikTok video shared on September 25, 2025.

The video shows a crowd watching a man reciting the call to prayer in front of the door to a cathedral.

Screenshot of the false TikTok post captured on October 9, 2025, with a red X added by AFP

The video was shared by social media users in Muslim-majority Malaysia on Facebook and Instagram, as well as in similar English, Arabic and Indonesian posts.

But the man reciting the call to prayer is not a Portuguese priest.

A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to the same clip in an August 16 Facebook post by Mahmoud Fares, whose bio states he is a singer from Aleppo, Syria (archived link).

The caption of Fares' video says it was filmed during a festival in the Portuguese city of Silves.

Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (left) and the clip from Mahmoud Fares' Facebook page (right)

The Syrian vocalist shared additional photos of him performing outside the city's cathedral in a separate Facebook post on August 16 (archived link).

Fares also posted videos of his performances in 2019, 2021 and 2023, noting they were part of the city's Medieval Fair (archived here, here and here).

AFP reached out to Fares for comment, but no response was forthcoming.

The annual Silves Medieval Fair (Feira Medieval de Silves) is held in the city each August, with the 2025 edition taking place from August 8 to 16 (archived link).

Silves was a prominent Muslim hub in the 12th and 13th centuries and the fair recreates the daily lives of people during the period and features artisans, Sufi performers and merchants dressed in traditional costumes (archived link).

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