A social media post accompanying a photo collage in which a photo shows a man posing with a girl and the other images showing a woman posing with a small boy is being shared with a claim that a Muslim woman married her own son as retribution to her husband marrying their daughter. In these images, all four can be seen in garlands. Through this article let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Images of a Muslim couple marrying their own children.
Fact: These images are actually related to a Quran recital ceremony. Oldest social media posts that shared these images claimed them to be of Hafiz-e-Quran ceremony. Moreover, corroboration of the timeline of availability these images on internet suggests that these two images are not related to each other. Many social media users shared similar images claiming them to be of Quran recital ceremony. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Image 1 :
This image of a man posing with a girl is available on the internet at least since February 2016. Reverse image search of this photo yielded few old social media posts which shared the same image claiming that a father and daughter became Hafiz-e-Quran at the same time (here, here & here)
The Urdu description of all these posts loosely translates to ‘Congratulations … Masha Allah, father and daughter graduated from the same class (became Hafiz-ul-Quran). May Allah write’
Islamic Board, an Islamic discussion portal also shared the image back in 2016 with a similar description.
Image 2 :
This image is available on the internet at least since January 2020. Reverse image search of this photo traced the oldest social media post that shared the same image. As per the description associated with this post, the image shows a mother and her son posing on the occasion of the son’s Quran recital ceremony. The Urdu description of the post loosely translates to ‘Today was my son’s final Quran. Who will share after congratulating us’.
Further, this very same image went viral a couple of years ago with a claim that a Saudi woman married her son after her husband passed away.
Whereas the recent post claims that the image shows a woman marrying her own son as retribution for her husband marrying their daughter. This implies that over the years, this image is being circulated with varied claims.
However, neither of the claims associated with the image is true. Corroboration of the timeline of availability of these images (images 1 & 2) on the internet suggests that these images are related to a Quran recital ceremony and both these images are not related to each other.
Hafiz-e-Quran :
Generally, Hafiz is a title for people who memorise the Quran. Collins defines the term Hafiz as ‘a title for a person who knows the Koran by heart’. Hafiz-e-Quran is a popular religious ceremony among the Muslim community. Few social media users shared images related to the event, these can be viewed here, here, and here.
Although we could not independently verify the identity of the persons involved or the location of the viral images, the above explanation suggests that these viral images are related to a Quran recital ceremony and not parents marrying their own children as claimed.
To sum it up, images related to a Quran recital ceremony are passed off as Muslim parents marrying their own children.
