Gambiaj.com – Radical Islamic preacher Zakir Naik recently stirred a controversy when he boycotted a group of orphan girls when he was invited as a guest at an orphanage in Pakistan on Wednesday (Oct 2). In a viral video, Naik can be seen walking off stage as soon as of the women walk up to him at the event hosted by the Pakistan Sweet Home Foundation, which supports orphaned girls. The video of him getting restless when a group of orphaned girls arrived on stage went viral, with Pakistani people schooling him on his “misogynistic behavior.”

Naik was of the opinion that these girls were “na-mahram” to him, and hence he would not interact with them in any way.

In Islam, the term na-mahram is used to refer to an unmarried woman who is not directly blood-related. Naik said, “You cannot touch them or call them your daughters.”

In the viral video, Naik can be seen walking off stage as soon as the women walk up to him at the event hosted by the Pakistan Sweet Home Foundation, which supports orphaned girls. When the organizer made an announcement for the felicitation of the girls, he referred to them as Naik’s “daughters,” which the Islamic preacher deemed inappropriate.

In Pakistan, Zakir Naik was in an orphanage. When the little orphan girls were called on the stage to receive the shield, he left the stage without giving the shield.
His argument is that these little girls are of marriageable age, so for Muslim men should not be associated with… https://x.com/ImtiazMadmood/status/1841494552646963443/video/1

— Imtiaz Mahmood (@ImtiazMadmood) October 2, 2024

Naik then said, “You cannot touch them or call of them your daughters, adding that these girls are considered “non-mahrams.”.

Pakistanis have called the incident “peak misogyny.”.

“Dr. Zakir Naik is a religious scholar and guest in Pakistan, but I find this act of his so abominable – peak misogyny and sanctimony on display. How embarrassing and rather disturbing it must have been for these poor little girls!”, lawyer Saria Benazir wrote on X.

Renown Pakistani economist Yousuf Nazar made a direct remark, “Pakistan doesn’t need more fundos like Zakir Naik, it already has too many,” he wrote.

Journalist Abbas Nasir even blamed the government for inviting him and called PMLN a “write-off. “I was wondering how Zakir Naik came to Pakistan. It turns out he was invited by the PMLN government; and received by Rana Mashood. He will pollute minds for four weeks. This is what a government thrashing about for legitimacy does. PMLN is a write-off,” he wrote on X.

Naik is scheduled to deliver a series of public speeches in major Pakistani cities, including Islamabad, Karachi, and Lahore, as reported by Pakistani newspaper The Tribune.

This is not the first time that Naik has created controversies over his radical thoughts about Islam.
Since 2016, Naik has been residing in Malaysia following the initiation of legal proceedings against him by India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA).

This action stemmed from the July 2016 Dhaka terror attack, where one of the perpetrators confessed to being influenced by Naik’s sermons on his YouTube channel.

(With inputs from news agencies)