Old religious event at a Hotel in Abu Dhabi portrayed as visuals of first Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
February 17, 2021
A video is being shared on social media claiming it as the visuals of first Hindu temple built by Sultan Sheikh Mohammed in Abu Dhabi. This post claims it as the video of Abu Dhabi sultan’s wife carrying the Ramayana on her head to the first Hindu temple in the country. Also, it claims that the Indian spiritual leader Morari Bapu accompanied the Abu Dhabi Sultan and his wife for this event. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of the first Hindu temple built by the Sultan Sheikh Mohammed in Abu Dhabi.
Fact:  This video shows a religious event organised by Morari Bapu at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi. BAPS Hindu Mandir, the first Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi is still under construction. Also, the woman carrying the holy book of Ramayana in the video is not the Abu Dhabi Sultan’s wife. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On reverse image search of the screenshots in the video, similar visuals were found in a YouTube video published in 2016. This video was uploaded on YouTube with the title ‘Morari Bapu-Abu Dhabi-Dubai’. When we searched for further details of this video on the Morari Bapu website, we found that Morari Bapu organised this event in Abu Dhabi between 17 and 25 September 2016.
A video with similar visuals is found on the official YouTube channel of Morari Bapu. This video shows the Day-1 of ‘Manas Kishkindha Kand’ event organised in Abu Dhabi during 2016.
According to some social media posts, this ‘Manas Kishkindha Kand’ event in Abu Dhabi took place at the Emirates Place Hotel in Abu Dhabi. They can be seen here and here. Also, the same visuals in the video are found in the trip advisor pictures of Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi.  From all these pieces of evidence, it can be concluded that the video shared in the post is related to the 2016 religious event organised at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi.
In 2018, a few mainstream Indian media outlets reported that Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan attended this religious event conducted by Morari Bapu and chanted ‘Jai Siya Ram’ slogans. ‘Gulf News’ published a fact-check article on Indian media reports about Abu Dhabi prince. This fact-check article reported the person who attended the Morari Bapu ceremony is Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, a UAE-based columnist and commentator of Arab affairs. ‘Gulf News’ article clarified that Mohammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi had never attended this event of Morari Bapu. Clarifying the same, UAE Embassy-New Delhi posted a tweet on their official handle.
In a 2016 interview with ABP news channel, Morari Bapu clarified that the woman carrying Ramayana on her head is not the wife of Abu Dhabi Sultan. He mentioned the woman as Siya, a daughter of one of the volunteers in his organisation.
The construction of BAPS Hindu Mandir, the first Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi is still underway. More details about this temple can be seen here and here.
To sum it up, an old religious event video is portrayed as Abu Dhabi Sultan’s wife carrying the Ramayana to the first Hindu temple built in Abu Dhabi.