Mango-Allah
Is that an Allah in your rotten mango or are you just happy to see me completely off your rocker?
Rubina Sheikh from Helsingborg in southern Sweden believes she’s received a message from God – in a rotten mango.
As the two halves of Sheikh’s freshly sliced mango fell away from her knife last Saturday, she discovered what she says is a sign from God.
“When I sliced the mango in two, ‘Allah’ was written in one half and ‘Muhammad’ in the other. It’s a miracle, a sign from Allah,” said Sheikh to the Metro newspaper.
The practicing Muslim is convinced that the black lines emanating through the fruit form characters in Arabic which spell the holy words.
And local Muslims have been streaming in to see the miracle for themselves.
“I’d heard of the phenomenon earlier, but never before seen it with my own eyes,” Ghulam Mughal told Metro.
But an emeritus professor in Islam from nearby Lund University is less convinced the rotting fruit is a sign from Allah.
“There are 14 recognized ways to create the word ‘Allah’. When you think about how many mangoes there are out there, it’s not strange that one of them has a pattern which can be interpreted to be the right combination of characters,” said Jan Hjärpe to Metro.
Incidentally, this is not the first time something has been sliced in two for the name of Allah.
An Australian immigrant to Israel, Aussie Dave has been blogging since early 2003.
