The Egyptian footballer Mohamed Salah unleashed an avalanche of criticism on social networks after sharing a photo with his family celebrating the Christmas holidays, something that has been repeated every year since his signing at Liverpool, and which on this occasion generated discontent among many Muslim Internet users until the point that the largest Islamic body reacted to the controversy.
The origin of this controversy lies in the Christian nature of the Christmas holidays, non-existent in the Muslim religion that is the majority in Egypt, the country of Salah's birth, as well as in most Arab countries, which have Islam as their confession. major.
Salah's social networks were flooded with criticism of the photograph in which he appears with his wife and two daughters, in Christmas clothes in front of a Christmas tree, while few comments in Arabic supported the star of the Egyptian team. of football for this Christmas snapshot.
Some of the users attacked the Egyptian player on social networks with comments such as "a photo like this will bring you closer to the English, but it will lose many of your Muslim fans from the Arab world", "Enough bowing to the West, you are a model to follow for Muslim youth" and came to call him "infidel". Few were the comments that supported or defended Salah.
In addition, many users attacked Salah for not supporting the teams of Saudi Arabia or Morocco in the World Cup and not celebrating events that have to do with the Muslim religion in the same way; criticism to which the player reacted by remaining silent.
For its part, Egypt's Dar al-Ifta, the largest Egyptian Islamic advisory body, spoke on social media about the controversy that erupts with every Christian-related holiday, stating that "there is no prohibition in Sharia , to congratulate non-Muslims on their holidays, this is not a departure from Islam as some extremists say."
"Congratulating the country's partners on their holidays is part of good neighborliness, returning congratulations and coexistence, and they are noble human principles that are required in Sharia and Sunna, which were practiced in the biography of the Prophet," he added. the notice.
