Rabat - Ramadan prayers from Mecca began streaming live on Snapchat on Monday, allowing millions of worshippers in Mecca to upload video content of Mecca through Snapchat’s 24-hour live story feature.
Rabat – Ramadan prayers from Mecca began streaming live on Snapchat on Monday, allowing millions of worshippers in Mecca to upload video content of Mecca through Snapchat’s 24-hour live story feature.
Millions of videos and pictures from inside Mecca have been shared by worshippers, using snap chat’s live story feature.
The service collects submitted clips and splices them together before releasing the best footage to all Snapchat users, estimated at 100 million. Like other content on the app, the submitted clipsdisappear after a short period of time.
Snapchat’s decision to dedicate its live stream to Mecca comes after Muslims worldwide lobbied the social media to feature the holy city of Mecca.
They launched a campaign on Twitter using the hashtag #Mecca_live. More than 300,000 people tweeted the hushtag to get Snapchat to feature Mecca, according to the BBC.
Content from Mecca flowed online once the hugely-popular social media app agreed to feature the city. This opened a digital window on Mecca, the birthplace of the prophet to non-Muslims who are not permitted to enter the city.
Non-Muslim users of Snapchat reacted to the content streamed live, expressing their fascination with the peaceful portrayal of the Islamic faith. Some of them said Mecca Live changed the perceptionsthey had had about Islam.
“I’m not Muslim but #mecca_live was absolutely stunning. What a beautiful religion Islam is,” tweeted Beauty Das on Twitter.
I’m not Muslim but #mecca_live was absolutely stunning. What a beautiful religion Islam is ????
— Beauty Das (@HugMeZiam) July 14, 2015
“Islam is perfect but I am not. If I make a mistake, blame it on me, not on my religion. #mecca_live,” commented Romie in a tweet.
I’m a Muslim, Islam is perfect but I am not. If I make a mistake, blame it on me, not on my religion. #mecca_live pic.twitter.com/wQ8CGvK2ef — Romi??. (@RomiMorisel) July 13, 2015
Char reacted to mecca feature in a tweet that reads: «I’m not Muslim but the #mecca_live story is so beautiful! Really shows that Muslims arent how the media show them! What an amazing religion!”
I’m not Muslim but the #mecca_live story is so beautiful! Really shows that Muslims arent how the media show them! What an amazing religion!
— char (@killtyIer) July 14, 2015
“Not a Muslim, but #mecca_live is something so beautiful that it makes me really want to be one… Maybe one day,” tweeted MirellaJärvinen.
Not a Muslim, but #mecca_live is something so beautiful that it makes me really want to be one… Maybe one day????
— Mirella J (@JjMirella) July 14, 2015