Despite Liverpool's win over Aston Villa, Mohamed Salah was widely criticised

Mohamed Salah unleashed a barrage of criticism on social media after sharing a photo of himself and his family celebrating the festive season, as he has done every year since joining Liverpool, and which this time generated discontent from many Muslim internet users to the point that the largest Islamic body reacted to the controversy.

The origin of this controversy lies in the Christian nature of the Christmas festivities, which do not exist in the Muslim religion that is the majority religion in Egypt, Salah's country of birth, as well as in most Arab countries, which have Islam as their main religion. Salah's social media was flooded with criticism of the photograph of him with his wife and two daughters in Christmas clothes in front of a Christmas tree, while few comments in Arabic were supportive of the Egyptian national team star's Christmas snapshot.

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Some of the users attacked the Egyptian player on social media with comments such as "a photo like this will bring you closer to the English, but it will lose many of your Muslim fans in the Arab world", "Stop bowing to the West, you are a role model for Muslim youth" and even called him an "infidel". Few comments supported or defended Salah.

In addition, many users attacked Salah for not supporting the Saudi Arabian or Moroccan teams in the World Cup and for not celebrating events that have to do with the Muslim religion in the same way; criticisms to which the player reacted by keeping silent. For its part, Egypt's Dar al-Ifta, the largest Egyptian Islamic advisory body, spoke out on social networks about the controversy that is sparked by every Christian-related holiday and indicated that "there is no prohibition in the Sharia, to congratulate non-Muslims on their holidays, this is not a departure from Islam as some extremists say".

Salah criticised for his Christmas celebrations

"Congratulating the country's partners on their holidays is part of good neighbourliness, returning greetings and conviviality, and are noble human principles that are required in the Shariah and Sunna, which were practised in the biography of the Prophet," the Dar al-Ifta statement added.