No, these shoes do not have 'Allah' and 'Mohammed' written on them

This article is more than one year old.
Published on December 14, 2018 at 13:00
3 min read
By Karl MALAKUNAS

A photo posted on Facebook and shared more than 200,000 times purports to show shoes made by an Israeli company with “Allah” and “Mohammed” inscribed on them. The same photo has been used repeatedly for a decade on many social media platforms and blog pages in multiple languages to make similar claims about the words on the soles, but saying that the shoes were made by Nike or Puma. None of the claims are true; the photo is a manipulated image based on an original published by Getty Images in 2008 from a protest by Palestinians against then-US president George W. Bush.

This version has been shared 201,000 times since being posted on Facebook in April, 2018.

Screenshot of misleading post (Screenshot of misleading post)

The Urdu writing above the photo, when translated to English, says: “"Warning! Be careful when buying shoes. Don't unwittingly wear these shoes made by an Israeli company".

The writing circled in red states: “Curse of Allah on him who does not share”.

A Google reverse image search of the image (using a screenshot from another post without the misleading text) showed dozens of results that linked it to similar claims, or allegations that the shoes were made by global brands Puma and Nike.

Here are the results of the search.

Below is a screenshot of one page from the results showing the image on various social media platforms, and in multiple languages including English, Russian, Arabic and Chinese.

Screenshot of reverse image search results

Many of the results trace back to campaigns against Puma and Nike.

Here is a blog published in 2009 calling for a boycott of the two shoe companies for “using the name of Allah”, and here is a similar one from 2012.

Below is a screenshot of the 2009 blog:

Screenshot of blog with misleading photo

However, the reverse image search also produces some results that show the same photo with the word “Bush” written on one of the soles.

Clicking on these images leads to various news reports that say the image was taken on December 16, 2008, of a Palestinian man protesting against Bush in the Gaza Strip.

Below is a screenshot of one of the results from the search.