Thinking in Washington, the Church was Turned into a Mosque in Germany

HAMBURG - A Facebook post shared in Kenya intended to show a photo of a church in Washington DC, United States (US) being converted into a mosque. The photo is real, but the narrative is wrong and the correct one is a building located in Hamburg, Germany . "The church in Washington America ... turned into a mosque is now named mosque issa ibn maryam", reads Abdul Menk's Facebook post published on February 6, 2021. Facebook immediately flagged this as false information. Also read: Syria arrests Israeli women, Zionists ask to be exchanged for 2 post prisoners it includes two side-by-side images of the same structure. The building in the photo on the right has a cross at the top, while on the left is a sign that reads "Allah" in Arabic.

The majority of comments on the post indicate support for building conversions, although some claim the photos have been engineered.

Both photos are genuine, but the claim that the building is in the United States is fake. The photos show a church in Hamburg, Germany that was converted into a mosque in 2018. Formerly the Lutheran Capernaum Church, now the building is the Al-Nour Mosque.

The AFP Fact Check page , which was launched Saturday (20/2/2021), tracked the photo being shared on a Dutch-language extremist blog based in Belgium. According to TinEye's reverse image tool , the photo first appeared online on July 1, 2016. A

search on Getty's photos revealed many photos documenting the mosque's inauguration. In the caption photos show that the building is a "former church".

AFP Fact Check geolocated buildings in Hamburg with the address of the Al-Nour mosque provided by Google. Using the Google Street View option, the AFP Fact Check finds images of buildings where the red brick tower is clearly visible.

According to information provided by Google, the street view image was taken in April 2010, before the building was converted into a mosque. A closer look at the tower reveals a cross on it.

The inauguration ceremony of the mosque was carried out on September 26, 2018. A search on YouTube resulted in footage of the inauguration ceremony, which was uploaded on October 9, 2018. According to RMX news, the former Kuwaiti ambassador, Nadzib Al-Bader, and the former general chairman of the Muslim Central Council in Germany, Aiman ​​Mazyek, attended the opening of the mosque.

The sign of the inscription "Allah" above the minaret is clearly visible at the beginning of a recording taken by ARD Mittagsmagazin on YouTube on the day of the mosque's opening ceremony.