Saudi Children's Cartoon Depicts Quranic Story In Which Allah Transforms Jews Into Apes

On October 9, 2021, an animated video for children depicting a Quranic story about Jews being transformed into apes was uploaded to the Ibtikar Media channel on YouTube. The narrator told the story about a group of Jews in a seaside village who violated Allah's commandment to keep the Sabbath by casting fishing nets on Friday and gathering fish on Sunday. The narrator said that the group of Jews who did this were punished by being transformed into apes. Ibtikar Media is a Saudi YouTube channel.

Narrator: "There used to be a Jewish village on the seashore. One of Allah's laws that He laid down for them was that He forbade them from fishing on the Sabbath, in order to devote themselves to worship. Allah tested them by sending a lot of fish only on the Sabbath. So they employed a trick. They would cast their nets on Friday, the fish would get trapped in the nets on Saturday, and they would collect them on Sunday.

"The [Jewish villagers] were divided into three groups. One group defied Allah's commandment. They would fish [on the Sabbath] by employing trickery and deception. Another group abided by Allah's commandment, and never defied Him. They would warn the people about Allah's wrath and His punishment, and would forbid them from doing what they were doing. The third group would oppose the people who forbade these acts.

"When the sinners did not heed the words of advice, Allah's punishment came upon them at night. The group that commanded good were spared the punishment. The fate of the third group was not mentioned. The punishment of the sinners was that they were transformed into apes. It is said that the people who forbade evil wondered why the sinners did not appear, as was their habit. So they went to [the sinners, and saw that they had been transformed into apes. Each ape recognized his own family, but people did not recognize their relatives who had been transformed into apes. The people [from the first group] asked: 'Did we not warn you about Allah's wrath?' A while later, the sinners who had been transformed into apes died, leaving no descendants."