A six-month-old video of Zakir Naik having dinner in Qatar is being shared with the false claim that it is recent and from the ongoing FIFA World Cup being hosted in the country.
Naik faces charges of money laundering and hate speech in India and is reportedly set to give religious lectures during the tournament in Qatar.
News agency ANI reported on November 24, 2022, quoting the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Arindam Bagchi saying that Qatar has told India that no invitation was extended to the controversial Islamic preacher Naik to attend the ongoing FIFA World Cup.
However, Naik posted on November 23, on his official Facebook page that he met Dr Mustafa Souag, Director General – Al Jazeera Media Network in Doha, Qatar
The tournament began on November 20 and the final is set to be played on December 18.
In the 28 seconds which has no audio, Naik is seen having dinner with a few Arabs seated at the table.
The video is being shared with the caption, "SHAYKH DR ZAKIR NAIK is a Guest invited by QATAR ROYALS gracing Dawah Activities around FIFA WORLD-CUP 2022."
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the viral video of Zakir Naik dining in Qatar dates back to May 2022 and is not from the ongoing FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar.
The search results after breaking the viral video into keyframes using InVid and running a reverse image search using Google lens showed that it dates back to May 2022. The same video was uploaded on Tik Tok on May 2, 2022.
Taking a hint from this, we then searched with the same keywords of Tik Tok post -'Dinner with Doctor Zakir Naik' on YouTube and found that it was uploaded by the YouTube channel Musa Shahzad.
This is a longer version with a duration of 1.55 minutes and was uploaded with the caption, "Dinner With Dr. Zakir Naik #zakirnaik" on May 1, 2022. Additionally, we can hear what is being spoken in the video unlike the viral video which has been muted.
The visuals in this video and the people present in it match those seen in the viral video. At the beginning of the video, Musa Shahzad, the boy seen serving food narrates that Zakir Naik has come to Qatar and will be having dinner there.
Click here to view the original video.
