Devastating forest fires have been ravaging Los Angeles and surrounding areas of California since January 7. So far, more than 25 lives have been lost in the catastrophe. More than 1,80,000 residents were forced to leave their homes and more than 12,000 … Read on blog or Reader Alt News Read on blog or Reader Mosque, copy of the Quran unharmed in Los Angeles fire? AI-created videos go viral with baseless claims By Abhishek Kumar on 20th January 2025 Devastating forest fires have been ravaging Los Angeles and surrounding areas of California since January 7. So far, more than 25 lives have been lost in the catastrophe. More than 1,80,000 residents were forced to leave their homes and more than 12,000 buildings have been destroyed. Against this backdrop, several videos are going viral on social media including YouTube, in which it is being claimed that a mosque in the middle of the city remained safe in the grip of such a powerful forest fire, while everything else was destroyed. A YouTube channel named Islamic Vibe uploaded a video on January 12, claiming that Masjid Al-Hikma in Los Angeles remained undamaged during the fire. The video alleges that the wind, which had been pushing flames toward the mosque, mysteriously changed direction, sparing the structure. Similarly, YouTube channel Al-Fatahan also uploaded a similar video on January 12, claiming that while thousands of buildings were destroyed due to the devastation of the Los Angeles city fire, a Neural Imam mosque did not suffer any damage. A YouTube channel named Discover Pakistan also uploaded a similar video claiming that all the buildings were destroyed in the fierce fire in Los Angeles city, while a Neural Imam Masjid was not damaged in which many people were offering prayers at that time. Another YouTube channel called Islamic Survival posted a similar video on January 13, claiming that some people were taking shelter in a library amid the fires in Los Angeles. It claimed that eventually, the same library also got engulfed in the flames and everything was burnt to ashes. When a survivor who escaped from that fire later reached the library, he saw that everything there was burnt to ashes in such a devastating blaze that even iron structures had melted. However, it alleged that a single copy of the Quran remained untouched by the flames. According to the video, this miraculous event reportedly inspired several non-Muslims to convert to Islam. Similarly, a number of other YouTube channels like Islamic Robes, Path to Jannah, etc. also posted videos with the same claim. Fact Check Frames from the viral video show skyscrapers on fire, while in one of these, skyscrapers in the entire city are shown burning. Flames can also be seen coming out of the upper parts of the buildings in the frames. There are many such frames in the video which clearly indicate that it has been created with the help of artificial intelligence. In reality, no such incident has happened and the images depict an entire city burning in some instances do not correspond to any actual locations in Los Angeles.  Alt News performed a keyword search using terms related to the incident on Google, the most used search engine in the United States. However, we did not find any news reports to corroborate that a certain mosque was left undamaged during a fire in the entire area. Nor was there any news which mentioned the incident in the library and stated that the entire library was burnt to ashes, but the Quran did not catch fire. Such an incident does not seem logically plausible either. When we searched about the mosques mentioned in the viral videos, we could not find any related news reports regarding a mosque named Al-Hikma or Neural Imam that have been published recently in the city of Los Angeles, nor could we find any information related to such mosques available on the Internet. However, several places of worship in Pasadena and Altadena were reported to have been destroyed in this fire, including Masjid Al-Taqwa. It is worth noting that none of these contain any real image or videos related to the incident anywhere in it, nor has any official media report been cited here. All the videos and graphics have been created with the help of artificial intelligence, and the voiceover in all of them is also not a human voice, but a robotic voice. The one posted by YouTube channel Discover Pakistan is an exception in this case. This channel has created a report based on the AI-generated footage, in which a voiceover recorded by a human has been used. Screenshots from these YouTube channels reveal a consistent use of sensational thumbnails and exaggerated headlines, created with the help of AI, to attract viewers. Many of the videos posted on these channels follow a similar pattern of fabricating stories around trending topics to gain millions of views. This slideshow requires JavaScript.   To sum up, the slew of viral videos on YouTube claiming the miraculous survival of mosques and copies of the Quran during the Los Angeles fires are entirely fabricated. These videos were created with the help of AI. Since the incident is garnering widespread headlines at the moment, these edited videos were also amassing millions of views on social media.

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