About

"Absolutely Haram" is an image macro featuring a photograph of Egyptian cleric Murgan Salem al-Gohary and the caption reading "absolutely haram" ("absolutely forbidden" in Arabic), which is an expression derived from another image macro "Absolutely Disgusting". Online, it is often used as a reaction image to sarcastically condemn an act or remark that goes against the teachings of Islam, in a similar vein to the use of the word heresy.

Origin

The photograph came from a still image from an interview with Sheikh Murgan Salem al-Gohary, an Egyptian Salafi cleric and a former Taliban jihadist, on Egyptian TV network Dream TV in November 2012. Sheikh Murgan called for the destruction of pyramids and the Sphinx in Egypt for he believes that they are pagan idols that need to be destroyed, like the Buddhist statues destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.

The image was taken off of news website Al Arabiya reporting on his call for destruction (shown left below).^[6] On April 25th, 2014, a derivative instance of the "absolutely disgusting" image macro featuring this photograph was submitted to a thread in the /ck/ (cooking) board on 4chan (shown right below).^[5]

Spread

On July 25th, 2014, YouTuber Akbar House uploaded a gameplay video from the first-person shooter Insurgency titled "Security Weapons Cache is Absolutely Haram" (Vimeo reupload by AkH Prevent shown below).

On September 2nd, the image macro was reposted to a Dungeons and Dragons thread on the /tg/ (traditional games) board on 4chan.^[1] On December 27th, the Absolutely Haram Twitter feed was launched.^[3] On January 13th, 2015, IGN Forums^[2] member merishaka started a discussion thread asking about "the absolutely haram thing." In July 2015, the image macro was paired up with a screenshot of a tabloid news article about an ISIS fighter allegedly having sex with a donkey and uploaded to iFunny^[4] (shown below).

On May 23rd, 2016, YouTuber LeoPirate uploaded a satirical review of the 2016 animated children's film Angry Birds titled "Angry Birds Movie Review: Absolutely Haram," in which he argues that the pig antagonists in the film represent Muslim refugees in Europe (shown below).

Examples

Search Interest

External References