Does photo show adult Muslim man marrying a child? Fact Check

A photo is circulating across social media that purports to show an adult Muslim man marrying a child. In the photo, the child is visibly upset while the adult man is seen smiling.

An example of the photo as it appeared on social media can be seen below –

Islamic State jihadist announces his marriage to terrified 7-year-old in conquered city in Syria

The photo has been spreading for a number of years, and we previously discussed it back in 2014. Many variants claim the photo is from Syria, and other variants claim the child is only seven years old. Other variants claim she is nine years old.

However the photo does not show a wedding between an adult man and a child. We originally traced the still back to a video that surfaced on YouTube that has since been removed. The translated caption to that video was that the girl was reciting a particular passage from the Koran, and upon making a mistake, became upset.

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The Muslim man subsequently offered words of comfort to the girl who then resumed her reading. We included another still from the video below that shows the girl looking somewhat less upset.

It seems that during 2014, someone took a still from the video and attached a fake caption to it, and it has been circulating with that fake caption ever since.

Whilst it is important to know and understand that horrible crimes are committed by various religious extremists across the world, circulating inaccurate and misleading photos like this is just irresponsible.