Thanks to the intrinsically viral nature of Facebook I came across this rather amusing (and albeit ludicrous) conspiracy theory today that appears to suggest drinks giant Coca Cola is secretly trying to do away with Islam.
For some reason Coke has long been a target of conspiracy theories from within the more, shall we say, "imaginative" quarters of the Islamic internet community. In 2006 a false rumour swept the internet that Coke was secretly putting pig extracts in its drink. The above rumour is not new - I think it first surfaced in the late 1990s - but the fact that it is currently doing the rounds on Facebook shows just how cyclical these conspiracy theories can be.
This particular campaign suggests that the Coca-Cola logo itself is anti-Islamic.
By flipping it horizontally the letters do seem to create the following Arabic letters: Laam (l), Ha (a/h), Miim (m), Haa (h), Daal (d) and Laam (l), Ha (a/h), Miim (m), Kaaf (k) and Ha (a/h).
Usually most non-essential vowels are left out of Arabic writing meaning when those letters are put together they spell the words: La Muhammad, La Makka - No Muhammad, No Makka (Makka being the birthplace of Islam in Saudi Arabia).
Now when Frank Mason Robinson first came up with the Coca-Cola logo in 1885 for, John Pemberton, his boss and the founder of the famous drink, I'm sure neither of them had a secret agenda to subliminally undermine one of the world's great religions.
As ridiculous as this particular rumour may seem it was taken seriously enough for someone to the office of the Grand Mufti in Cairo, one of the most respected theological institutes in Islam, to investigate. Unsurprisingly they ruled there was no intention on behalf of Coke to insult Islam.
The fact is that Coca-Cola can be found across the Middle East and people happily swill it down as happily as anywhere else in the world. But this page on Coke's website shows how the company is all too aware of the possible damage these rumours can cause.
In the meantime a whole host of "halal" cola companies have sprung up in the past few years, no doubt happy to cash in on the confusion. Mecca Cola is the brainchild of a French entrepreneur. Zam Zam Cola, another popular alternative found across the Middle East, was created when the Iranian government expropriated the local Pepsi subsidiary in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution.
Unfortunately there are idiots with nothing better to do than think up these ploys to deter people from a certain company or organization. Of course the logo has nothing to do with anything anti-islamic or anti semitic or anti anything. These submental messages forwared in emails are designed for people with narrow understandings of the world, very smle & uneducated people. Another phrase used to affect a product or a service negatively is by claiming its a jewish company. I as a muslim don't understand what's a muslim company in the first place let alone jewish, if they do exist in fairytales alongside unicorns & dragons. Muslims should try & be more rational than emotionally blind.
Posted by: Ahmed | Thursday, 10 July 2008 at 02:33 PM
Dude, unicorns are real.
Posted by: Larry | Thursday, 10 July 2008 at 03:10 PM
A minor correction: "…for someone to ask the Grand Mufti of Al Azhar in Cairo…" They actually asked the Office of the Grand Mufti of Egypt, known at Dar al-Ifta. It is in Cairo, but it is not part of al-Azhar.
Posted by: Fulan b Fulan | Thursday, 10 July 2008 at 03:12 PM
Sorry my mistake Fulan, that's been corrected in the copy above. Many thanks
J
Posted by: Jerome Taylor | Thursday, 10 July 2008 at 03:33 PM
There's a really rather fundamental flaw in this bit of "Arabic": the word for "no" is "laa", not "la". It should be a lam-aleph, not shown in the grid. It looks something like the hands of a clock at 8:00 with the outer two-thirds of an extra hand pointing to 11. As shown in the mutated logo, the word would be "li", meaning "for" or sometimes "to" or "belonging to".
Posted by: CN | Wednesday, 16 July 2008 at 10:52 PM
When I was in Saudi Arabia in 1973, instead of Coca Cola a brand called Kaki Cola was on sale. Of course it was the same Coke but with a different label.
Posted by: Clive | Thursday, 17 July 2008 at 05:47 PM
And they've taken the bleedin cocaine out of it as well!
Posted by: Ron | Monday, 25 August 2008 at 09:57 AM
Li mohamed li meccah is the correct phrase. As mentioned above the Lam-alif is missing.
The 'arabic' in the image reads 'of mohamed of mecca'. Transliterated to english this implies the drink belongs to mohamed. Certainly not a kufr statement... it seems the 'muslim' who authored this scam has been hoisted by his own petard.
Posted by: Mike | Tuesday, 09 September 2008 at 12:59 PM
Coca-Cola:
As pointed out, negation in Arabic - is laam alif. (not btw al'e'f - never trust an Arab to transliterate into English - it is almost always wrong) -
what the Arabic phrase says is 'laMuHammad laMakkah' which actually means 'INDEED MuHammad, INDEED Makkah' !
'la' is an emphatic particle so in actual fact as opposed to laa - which means 'no',
could it be that mssrs pemberton and robinson were cryptic muslims.
trying to ram the religion down our throats by stealth!
#i'd like to teach the world to say the adhaan in perfect harmony....#
Posted by: afzal hasan | Wednesday, 10 September 2008 at 10:26 AM
after reading these comments my arabic has improved considerably.
Posted by: TH | Wednesday, 10 September 2008 at 04:34 PM
if it sayes li muhamad li makka which means of muhamad of makka that is kuffr because the drink was no muhmads
Posted by: mohamad | Monday, 27 April 2009 at 04:58 AM