An image, showing a stone pillar surrounded by people near a low, circular boundary wall, has gone viral on social media, claiming that it is a Shivling in Mecca, the sacred site for Muslims.
The image is shared on Facebook with a caption: “This is Mecca in 1480 … The structure in the middle is undeniably Shivling”.
Here’s the link to the above post. (Archive)
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the above claim, and found it to be MISLEADING.
A Reverse Image Search through Google Lens identifies the viral picture in Alamy — a stock image website — categorised as part of the Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
Further verification detects a photo feature in India.com website which has referenced images of the Hajj pilgrimage taken by the National Geographic magazine in July 1953.
We also searched for the archived editions of the magazine using Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine and located the July 1953 issue of National Geographic. The feature story, titled “From America to Mecca on Airborne Pilgrimage”, was documented by Abdul Ghafur Sheikh and included the same image on page 38. The previous page provided a detailed caption explaining the context of the photo.
According to the description, titled “Pebbles Fly. The Pillar is Stoned at Mina”, the image depicts a ritual performed in Mina, a city near Mecca. The tradition stems from Islamic belief, which narrates that Ishmael, the son of Abraham, encountered the devil three times while on his way to be sacrificed as per God’s command. To reject the devil’s temptations, both Abraham and Ishmael pelted stones at him, a practice that pilgrims replicate during Hajj to symbolise defying evil.
Thus, the claim that the image shows a Shivling in Mecca is misleading.
