American-Muslim man calls Singapore out after seeing bikinis with 'Quran verses' in online store

Swimwear 'inspired' by a holy book? Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

And so it proved to be true as TikTok user __Abu.toz__ lost his cool after coming across Playmate, an online store selling womenswear with "Quran verses" on them.

The American-Muslim took to TikTok on June 19 to air his grievances.

"Are you kidding me right now?" he asked, pointing to the black pyjamas with gold Arabic scriptures.

[embed]https://www.tiktok.com/@__abu.toz__/video/7110697151235181866[/embed]

"Please, we need to do something about this. They are using Quran prints on bikinis now! And disrespecting Islam," he wrote on TikTok.

Upon scrolling on the website, the TikTok user found out that Playmate listed its address as Paya Lebar and went ballistic on Singapore.

"Singapore, I lose all respect for your country," the American said.

He added that he could respond with hate speech but would instead take the supposed moral high ground. He made it clear he wanted to "hold Singapore accountable for posting stuff like this on their website".

Many netizens agreed that the products are disrespectful but some felt that the TikTok user wasn't gracious with his comments on Singapore. 

On Thursday (June 23), the TikTok user apologised to Singaporeans.

"When I said, 'I hold Singapore accountable', I wasn't attacking the people. I'm getting your attention," he said.

But his apology took an odd turn when he mentioned how Singaporeans were clueless about an issue that was happening in their own backyard, saying: "It took somebody from America to find this on a website."

Netizens didn't feel the apology was genuine with one saying "you said sorry and then immediately doubled down".

A couple of others suggested that it might be to his benefit if he'd research the issue before coming to any conclusions.

It appears that the company is using a fictitious address, as suggested by some netizens.

A quick search of Playmate on the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority register did not yield any matching results for the Paya Lebar address.

According to Playmate's website, the company operates from the United States and has a supplier from Zhejiang, China.

The items with "Quran verses" have since been removed from the online store.

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amierul@asiaone.com