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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Religion & belief fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about religion & belief. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

3,371 published reviews in this topic

dpaReligion & belief

« Baal enci aga » veut dire « Baal est le roi » en latin.

Publisher’s rating: Balenciaga correspond au nom de famille du fondateur de la marque. Le mot ne se traduit pas en latin, même quand on le divise en plusieurs parties. Il semble s’agir d’une erreur de la part de Google Traduction, un logiciel utile mais pas infaillible.

The claim arose from a Google Translate result: entering “Baal enci aga” as Latin and translating it into French produced “Baal est le roi.” The review says that result fueled the idea that the luxury brand’s name concealed a religious reference. It identifies Cristóbal Balenciaga, a Spanish founder, as the source of the fashion house’s name, rather than Baal. The review checked the translation in the opposite direction as well. Translating “Baal est le roi” from French into Latin produced “Baal rex est”; the Latin word for “king” is “rex,” not “aga.” It also reports that “enci” and “aga” are not Latin words. These checks undermine the proposed phrase-by-phrase Latin interpretation and support the review’s conclusion that the displayed translation was a Google Translate error, not a translation of the brand name. The review places the rumor amid social-media discussion of Balenciaga and a controversy over an advertising campaign accused of sexualizing children. It notes that a photograph in the campaign appeared to show “Baalenciaga” on a roll of tape, while saying the significance of that apparent wording was unresolved. That separate detail does not establish the Latin translation claim: the review distinguishes the campaign-related speculation from the brand’s documented name origin and the translation checks.

annamu-fi-almassihReligion & belief

أن الإنجيل محرّف

Publisher’s rating: الإنجيل ليس محرف فالله قادر على حفظ كلمته كما أنّ المسيحيين يستطيعون إثبات عدم التحريف عبر عِلم التَّحقُّق النَّصّي.

FACTLYReligion & belief

Video of Ghanim Al-Muftah having a conversation with Zakir Naik during a lecture at FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The claim concerns a video said to show Ghanim Al-Muftah speaking with Zakir Naik during a lecture at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. FACTLY identifies the footage instead as coming from Naik’s “Does God Exist?” lecture at Katara cultural village on 26 May 2016, which Al-Muftah attended. The review says he expressed happiness at meeting Naik there; it does not describe this as a meeting during the World Cup. To check the footage’s provenance, the review reports using reverse image searches of screenshots from the circulating video. It says a video with similar visuals identified the occasion as the 2016 event, then points to footage posted by the KataraQatar Facebook page on 27 May 2016. FACTLY reports that Al-Muftah makes the same comments in that footage as in the circulating clip, and that the page identified the material as being from Naik’s May 2016 lecture. The review also cites the full lecture and Q&A recording and a full-speech video uploaded by Aljazeera Mubasher on 27 May 2022, whose Arabic title it translates as referring to Naik’s “Does God Exist?” lecture. Taken together, the review’s cited footage and event descriptions place the conversation in 2016, not at the 2022 World Cup. It also says it found no recent press reports of a meeting between the two during the tournament.

FACTLYReligion & belief

Recent video showing mass Namaz offering at a FIFA World Cup stadium in Qatar

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

FACTLY investigated a video shared as recent footage of hundreds of Muslims offering Namaz at a FIFA World Cup stadium in Qatar. The review’s conclusion is that the footage was not from the Qatar tournament: it showed an earlier gathering at Kazan stadium in Russia. The review specifically says the video did not show “any latest visuals from the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar.” To trace the footage, the review reports conducting a reverse image search on screenshots from the video. That search found a video with similar visuals posted by The Message of Islam YouTube channel on 10 June 2019; the channel described it as a mass Namaz gathering at the Kazan stadium in Russia. The review also notes similar visuals from a gathering of 10,000 Muslims at Kazan Arena in June 2016, during the fourth Republican Iftar. These details place the footage’s visual provenance in Russia, not at a World Cup venue in Qatar. The review distinguishes this older footage from the tournament’s opening ceremony, held on 20 November 2022 at Al Bayt stadium in Qatar. It reports that Qatari YouTuber Ghanem Al-Moftah recited Quranic verses there in the presence of actor Morgan Freeman. That ceremony detail is separate context; the review’s identification of the claimed video rests on the reverse-image-search results and the earlier Russian gathering it describes.