Scripted Video Viral as Real One of ‘Sheikh’ Removing Wives' Hijab at Gym

The video was created by Brazilian content creator Sheik do Tocantis.

A video showing a man dressed in a thobe — a long, ankle-length robe — accompany a couple of women to a gym, has gone viral on the internet.

The claim: The video, which shows the man removing hijabs and niqabs that the women were wearing, has gone viral with the following text:

"Sheikh was asked, why are you removing the hijab of your wives? Sheikh Saheb replied- I am not a Convert, I am an Original Sheikh and This is My Personal Choice. (sic)"

This post by X user '@Realbababanaras' was viewed 15 lakh times at the time of writing this report.

(Archived versions of more posts sharing this claim can be seen here and here.)

But...?: The video is a scripted one, created by Brazilian content creator 'Sheik do Tocantins'.

How did we find out the truth?: We noticed that in one part of the video, the background carried the words 'Sky Fit Academia'.

• Taking a cue from this, we used this as keywords and found that 'Sky Fit Academias' is the name of a chain of gyms in Brazil.

• Using the name of the gym, coupled with "sheikh" as a keywords, we conducted another search.

The source of the video: This led us to their TikTok account, which we accessed using a VPN (virtual private network), as the platform is banned in India.

• The account carried a video showing the same man, and a screenshot of what appeared to be a news headline in Portuguese which read "Sheik compra academia do Lucas Lucco e leva pretendente para conhecer."

  [Translation: Sheik buys Lucas Lucco's gym and takes his suitor to meet him.]

• Next, we ran a Google search using the headline as our search term, which led us to an Instagram account called 'Sheik do Tocantins'.

• This account had shared the viral video on 16 April, with the hashtag '#meme".

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sheik do Tocantins (@sheiktocantinense)

• We saw that this account had shared several videos of this 'Sheik' from Brazil's Tocantins, which showed the man going to different places and were shared with hashtags mentioning 'humor'.

• You can see these videos here, here, and here.

• His Facebook page identifies him as a 'video creator', indicating that the person creates staged videos.

The Quint has contacted the creator for their inputs and will update this report if a response is received.

Conclusion: A Brazilian content creator's video has gone viral with the false claim that it shows a sheikh taking his wives to the gym.

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