Fact Check: Viral image of Laila-Majnu is doctored
The viral image shows two people with not-so-pretty faces, claiming that they were the real faces of Laila and Majnu and from now on, no lovers can claim that they are like Laila and Majnu.
The image of two people is in circulation with a claim that it shows the real image of Laila and Majnu. Laila Majnu is an age-old epic about 7th century Bedouin poet Qays ibn al-Mulawwah and his love Layla Bint Mahdi. They were in love, but could not unite. Layla was married off to another man and Majnu became a hermit, devoting himself to writing verses about his love for Layla. Several movies in different languages portrayed Laila-Majnu as a beautiful couple who died for love.
The viral image shows two people with not-so-pretty faces, claiming that they were the real faces of Laila and Majnu and from now on, no lovers can claim that they are like Laila and Majnu.
The claim links can be found here, here, here.
Fact check:
The claim that the image shows the real Laila Majnu and is on display in a French Museum is FALSE. The image is doctored.
When we searched for details about Laila Majnu, we found that the story about the Bedouin poet is from the 7th century but photography was first invented in the 1800s by Joseph Nicphore Niepce. So there is no chance of the photographs of Laila and Majnu being present in any museum. However, there are some paintings about them in several museums.
We also searched some of the famous museums in France but were unable to find any pictures or artwork based on Laila Majnu.
When we performed a reverse image search, using each of the images separately, we found that the woman's picture depicting Laila is a morphed image of a woman's stock image.
According to the website Library of Congress, the photograph shows a woman from the settled town of Kerak, Jordan, who probably was the wife of a sheik. Her high social status is reflected in her expensive clothing (which possibly came from Homs, Syria) and her hair braids. Braids were predominantly worn by Christian women of the tribes of Jordan. (Source: researcher J. Sawalha, 2017)
We found a similar image on Alamy's stock image also.
Though we could not find any references on the man's image shared, the women's image is found to be a morphed one. Here is a comparison of the original and viral images.
Hence, the viral image does not show real images of Laila and Majnu. The claim is FALSE.
