Anthony Joshua has received a barrage of online abuse after posting an image of himself praying in a mosque to his Instagram page this week.
The heavyweight and Olympic boxer took to insta to share the above picture to him two million followers. He captioned the image “Besides luck, hard work & talent.. Prayer is a solid foundation. It was nice to join my brother as he led through afternoon prayer (asr).” Fairly innocent stuff, but the internet has had a alarming reaction.
Despite the fact that we are now in 2017, Islamophobia is still shockingly present in our society. After posting the photo, hoards of angry fans took to Instagram and Twitter to express their upset that Joshua would even set foot in a mosque, let alone consider converting.
You can read some of the outrage below. We apologise in advance for any offence caused.
As far as we know, Joshua is not a practicing Muslim, but even if he was – so what? Muhammad Ali, one of the most renowned and loved boxers of all time, belonged to the Islamic faith, as does Mike Tyson.
Thankfully, while the internet is full of some ignorant w*nkers, there are also some normal folk who realise that in this day and age why do we even care what religion someone follows?