Saudi Arabia: Video clip of cafe offering camel urine goes viral, sparks controversy
It is not yet known if the video has been fabricated
Dubai: A video clip announcing the “openning of the first Islamic cafe specializing in camel urine,” in Saudi Arabia has gone viral on social media sparking widespread controversy among Twitter users who consider it an offense to Islam.
The video clip was first shared by a Twitter page called “Together Against Religion Traders”, showing a man standing in a desert area – which has not been identified – with a cart carrying a drink being sold to a group of bearded men. However, it is not yet known if the video has been fabricated.
The Saudi writer and political analyst, Turki Al Hamad, responded to the video, saying: “With such people, Islam is really in crisis.”
Al Hamad added in his tweet: “Is not there anything left of this great religion other than this doubtful part?! ... Indeed, we are in a stifling existence crisis”.
Drinking camel urine was and still causes controversy and division in Saudi society, as the Saudi Center for Medical Research announced in 2009 that there is a tendency to start producing medical capsules containing camel urine for use in treating cancer and related diseases.
Earlier last year, an “Islamic medicine specialist” from Iran urged Iranians to drink camel urine, claiming it can cure several diseases including coronavirus, according to a video posted on Instagram which has since gone viral.
Drinking camel urine can cure lung diseases, asthma, and coronavirus, “Islamic medicine specialist” Mehdi Sabili said in a video shared on his Instagram page.
Modern medicine
“Islamic medicine” in Iran relies on the sayings of the Shia Imams to treat patients and is dismissive of modern medicine.
Sabili is the head of the “scientific-educational association of Imam Sadegh’s medicine” in Iran and has over 60,000 followers on Instagram. Sabili himself drank some camel urine in the video, saying he needed it to protect him from the air pollution in Tehran.
He advised his viewers to drink camel urine three times a day for three days and said that the urine is best drunk while in its “initial, hot temperature.”
Videos of a cleric giving coronavirus patients at a hospital in northern Iran a perfume to smell as a cure for the virus also went viral on social media last month. One of the coronavirus patients visited by the cleric died a few days later.
The cleric, who is also a follower of Islamic medicine, was later arrested.