Zakir Naik did not convert four people during 2022 FIFA World Cup

Claim: Four people have converted to Islam after a lecture by Indian Islamic televangelist Dr Zakir Naik during FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar.

Fact: The incident took place in 2016, not during the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

On 22 November 2022, Soch Fact Check received an image of Muslim televangelist Dr Zakir Naik with the text, “4 Converted To Islam After Dr. Zakir Naik First Lecture in Qatar ‘FIFA World Cup’,” superimposed on it. The visual also shows a man wearing a thobe and the four alleged converts standing next to Naik on a stage.

The 2022 FIFA World Cup kicked off in Qatar on 20 November 2022, with its official opening ceremony held at the Al Bayt Stadium.

The quadrennial sports event is organised by FIFA in a different country each time.

Fact or Fiction?

Soch Fact Check cropped the text out of the image and input that version into Google Lens, which led us to a November 2022 video by the Facebook page ‘Learn Islam’.

We then took a screenshot from the ‘Learn Islam’ page’s video and used it in TinEye Reverse Image Search, which led us to a 27 May 2016 tweet by Qatari journalist and former editor-in-chief of Al-Sharq, Jaber al-Harmi.

4 أشخاص يعلنون إسلامهم بعد محاضرة د.ذاكر نايك في #كتارا ..#قطر pic.twitter.com/nUYUWZxbwp

— جابر الحرمي (@jaberalharmi) May 27, 2016

The caption of al-Harmi’s tweet translated to English reads as follows:

“4 people declare their conversion to Islam after Dr. Zakir Naik’s lecture in Katara, Qatar.”

A post on Naik’s verified Facebook page also confirms his 2016 tour to Qatar.

Therefore, the claim is false as the instance in question occurred in 2016 and nothing of the sort has been reported during the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

Virality

Soch Fact Check conducted a CrowdTangle analysis for the three-day period from 20 November 2022 to 23 November using the following search terms:

• “4 Converted To Islam After Dr. Zakir Naik First Lecture in Qatar ‘FIFA World Cup’”
• “Converted Islam Zakir Naik Lecture Qatar FIFA World Cup”
• “4 People Accepted Islam after listening Lecture by Zakir Naik in Qatar Alhumdulillah”
• “4 مشجعين بقطر يعلنون اسلامهم بعد محاضرة للدكتور ذاكر نايك”
• “Dr Zakir Khudbadiisii ugu horeysay oo uu ka jeediyay koobka adduunka ee dalka Qadar, waxaa ku soo islaamay afar qof”
• “ذاکر نائیک قطر فیفا ورلڈ کپ لیکچر اسلام قبول”

The first, second, and third search terms turned up 28 posts, 39 posts, and 96 posts on Facebook, which respectively gained 9,890, 12,204, and 51,751 interactions. The same search terms revealed 27, 64,781, and 2,420 interactions across one, four, and one post, respectively.

The fourth search term showed 73 Facebook posts and two Instagram posts, which garnered 19,842 and 2,241 interactions, respectively.

The fifth and sixth search terms, on the other hand, turned up six and 23 posts on Facebook, which gained 1,244 and 2,285 interactions, respectively. There were, however, no posts on Instagram.

Conclusion: The instance in question occurred in 2016 and nothing of the sort happened during the 2022 FIFA World Cup being held in Qatar.