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One Direction, Zayn Malik Accused of 'Pimping' Islam to Fans

Posted on Jun 20th 2012 8:40AM by Contessa Gayles

One Direction Zayn Malik islam Neilson Barnard, Getty Images

One Direction member Zayn Malik has been accused of "pimping" Islam by American conservative blogger, Debbie Schlussel.

In a blog post entitled, "Boy Band Jihad: Mega Pop Star Pimping Islam on Your Daughters," on Schlussel's personal website, the 19-year-old boy bander is attacked for his Twitter messages and tattoos. ''He not only tweeted about fasting for Ramadan, but told fans that Allah is the only god and that only Mohammed is God's true prophet," Schlussel wrote of Malik, who was born to a British-Pakistani father and an English mother in Bradford, England.

''Not the kind of thing you expect your kids to hear sandwiched in between cheesy, saccharin-sweet songs coming out of the mouths of over-moussed and over-gelled boy band tools," she wrote of Zayn's Arabic tweets. The phrase in question is a standard declaration of faith among all Muslims, not a "militant statement," as Schlussel insists. The anti-Islam writer also took aim at Malik's Arabic-language chest tattoo, the name Walter, an homage to his late grandfather. The evidence is mounting ...

''Keep your daughters away from Zayn Malik's enticing jihad," Schlussel warned. "With the boy band One Direction, it's all about pimping Islam amid the deceptive visage of angelic, effeminate boys in a band. Yup, for them there is definitely One Direction: facing Mecca.''

Other public figures have since come to Zayn's defense. U.S. Muslim campaigner Zuhdi Jasser rejected Schlussel's claims of extremism and praised the teen for being proud of his Muslim faith. "All the power to him to be respectful to his faith" he told The Sun.

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