KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 27 — Muslims here have joined followers of the religion elsewhere in the world to demand the removal of a Katy Perry music video they deem “blasphemous” over the disintegration of a man wearing a pendant inscribed with “Allah”.
In the US pop star’s Egyptian-themed video, “Dark Horses”, she plays a queen that transforms rejected suitors into sand, which then crumbles into the ground.
One such suitor is said to be wearing a pendant with “Allah, the Arabic word for God, when he is snubbed by Perry’s character and destroyed.
This led Shazad Iqbal of Bradford, UK to start an online petition seeking the removal of the video from YouTube, which has since gathered 60,000 signatures including from Malaysia, Indonesia, Morocco, Lebanon and the US.
“Blasphemy is clearly conveyed in the video, since Katy Perry (who appears to be representing an opposition of God) engulfs the believer and the word God in flames,” Shazad was quoted as saying by BBC News on its website.
“Using the name of God in an irrelevant and distasteful manner would be considered inappropriate by any religion.”
The video was first uploaded to Perry’s official channel on YouTube on February 20 and has since gained nearly 36 million views.
In 2012, Malaysia experienced its own controversy over an entertainer’s use of the Arabic word when a local newspaper reproduced an image of songstress Erykah Badu adorned with a temporary tattoo of “Allah”.
This led to the cancellation of Badu’s concert here. Badu is a professed Muslim.
Malaysia is also currently grappling with an intractable religious conflict between Muslims and Christians over “Allah”, which is still pending before the Federal Court, over four years after a High Court upheld the Catholic Church’s right to use the Arabic word.
