Claim: Coca-Cola's script logo was designed to reveal anti-Islamic messages in its mirror image.
Origins: No one is quite sure how this rumor got started, but many in the Middle East are now turning the Coca-Cola logo towards a mirror to examine it for anti-Islamic statements. According to the current bit of misinformation being touted as truth, the backwards script reads: "No to Mohammed, No to Mecca."
Although a backwards, fuzzy image of the Coca-Cola script logo does vaguely resemble some phrases in Arabic script, there's nothing to the claim that this phenomenon is the result of intentional design. As mentioned elsewhere in our collection of Cokelore, the elegantly-written "Coca-Cola"trademark was invented by Frank Mason Robinson in 1886 when he wrote the first label in flowing Spencerian script. Robinson was a partner with pharmacist John Pemberton (who made the first syrup), and it was also Robinson who gave the beverage its name.
It's ludicrous to imagine far back in 1886 a back-room chemist and his partner were evilly plotted to work a hidden anti-Muslim statement into a soft drink label. Those early Coke men had no reason to suppose that their concoction would someday come to be marketed internationally, in far-flung lands they'd never themselves visit, or that the dashed-off script of one of them would continue to adorn the product more than a century after it was first penned. Yet to give the rumor any credence, one has to believe all of that.
In May 2000, the Grand Mufti Sheik Nasser Farid Wassel, Egypt’s most senior religious figure, gave his opinion on the matter. The artwork was also closely scrutinized by researchers and linguists at the Ifta’a Institute, a scholarly authority on Islamic law. All found no
harm.
"The trademark does not injure Islam or Muslims directly or indirectly," the mufti ruled. In an official statement, he found that "the trademark was designed 114 years ago in the state of Georgia and was written in a foreign language, not in Arabic," and that "no one had objected until now."
Coca-Cola officials believe the lie started on the Internet. However it began, leaflets calling for a boycott of the U.S. on the basis of the rumor's premise have been distributed in schools and mosques in various regions of Egypt. In early 2000, the rumor was afoot in Saudi Arabia.
Such rumors are horribly damaging to any company they attach to, with Coca-Cola being no exception. In Egypt, a country where Coca-Cola is said to hold a 54% share of the soft drink market, Big Red has seen sales drop 10 to 15%. The company employs more than 10,000 workers in Egypt, and plummeting product sales over this lie mean those jobs are now at risk.
Barbara "risky business" Mikkelson
Last updated: 13 March 2007
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