Allah tire treads

[Banrion]

Sorry if this has been addressed, but I have not seen it before, and cannot find any previous discussion. This just came up on another website, and for the life of me cannot figure out where it would have come from.

A few years back, there was a tire company that had to change the tread pattern on their tires. They supplied the US Military, and the vehicles driving in sandy middle-eastern countries printed the word “Allah”, or something that looked enough like it to make a native speaker do a double-take. It was a huge international incident. If the culture isn’t yours, you have no idea who you are offending or how. Tread lightly.

It is funny that I somehow avoided hearing about a "huge international incident."

[Tootsie Plunkette]

It might be true:

6. TIRE TREAD DESIGN
The Yokohama Rubber Company was forced to withdraw hundreds of tires from the sultanate of Brunei when Islamic authorities compalined that the tread design resembled the word for ALLAH.

(Source: BOOK OF LISTS by: David Wallechinsky and Amy Wallace)

... however, consider some of the other items on the list quoted in that source.

ETA: According to Sep 1, 1992 Rubber World (!),

Japan's Yokohama Rubber Co. Ltd. is recalling tires from Moslem countries following complaints that the tread design resembled the name of Allah in Arabic script, a company spokesman said. The company, Japan's second-biggest tire maker, first received complaints from Saudi Arabia in December last year and started recalling the tires a month later. Yokohama is also recalling the same tires in Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and Pakistan. The number of tires involved was not disclosed.

[Eddylizard]

I found it here which credits it to the Associated Press from 1992. Scroll down to the grey box

They "prove" it came from the AP by linking to not paticularly impressive looking site. which mearly repeats the contents of an email.

Of course I have no idea whether AP Tokyo did in fact carry such a story in 1992.

[Tarquin Farquart]

Surely Allah treads would be sought after?

"They're 99 kinds of beautiful..."

[snopes]

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...=2177,4701143&

[Mycroft]

Originally Posted by Tarquin Farquart

Surely Allah treads would be sought after?

Considering that figuratively stepping on someone is a major insult in Islam (invluding merely showing the soles of your shoes at somebody, let alone hitting a statue with shoes or throwing shoes at G W Bush); they would probably be interpreted at the vehicle stepping on Allah - not good.

[BamaRainbow]

How exactly are these tire treads supposed to look like "Allah"?

I found a way of producing the Arabic "Allah" (courtesy of Unicode) and I don't really see how a tire tread could resemble Allah

ﷲﷲﷲﷲﷲ

without being a really bizarre design. (It should also be noted that I pasted the code 5 times.)

Granted the little ligatures above the main part could be dropped and the letters could be completely joined, but that is still a weird looking tire tread. Even the samples of "Allah" at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allah would result in a really strange tire tread.

ETA: The way to get the "Allah" "symbol" on the computer: Pull up Character Map; Go to the desired font; Click "Advanced View"; Be sure that "Unicode" is selected from "Character Set" at which point you can enter FDF2 in the "Go to Unicode" box or you can scroll down through the whole font or "Group by Unicode Subrange"/Arabic (which gives only the Arabic characters in that font).

[Tabbyclaw]

Hi, fellow Raveler!

...Is it sad that I knew exactly what this was about (and the original source) just from the thread title?

-Tabby
the princess with claws

[Banrion]

Originally Posted by Tabbyclaw

Hi, fellow Raveler!

...Is it sad that I knew exactly what this was about (and the original source) just from the thread title?

-Tabby
the princess with claws

So you dredge through the big 6 too? I will look at them on occasion, but I definately don't participate much.

I had to ask here, as I was coming up with nothing when I tried to google. While there may have been such a recall, I think describing it as a huge international incident is a bit much.

[Don Enrico]

Originally Posted by BamaRainbow

I found a way of producing the Arabic "Allah" (courtesy of Unicode) and I don't really see how a tire tread could resemble Allah without being a really bizarre design.

From the results you get when picture-googleing "Allah", it seems that spotting his name is a bit like spotting the Virgin Mary:





More examples.

Given that, I can easily see that a tire treat made up from three vertical lines, joint on on side, followed by a kind of circle, could be taken for reading "Allah" - especially if the name of Allah in Arabic is a pattern you've been exposed to all your live in different forms (like a devout Catholic to the faces of Mary and Jesus).

Don Enrico

[Native Medley]

Originally Posted by Tabbyclaw

Hi, fellow Raveler!

I know this wasn't at me, but :O! another one who ravels! (or have I seen you there before and I knew this, but am too stupid to remember?)

um. probably time to stop threadjacking. but cool.

[King_Crimson]

I agree this is a case of paredolia. The 4 letters used in the word 'Allah' in Arabic are;
alif ا
lam ل
lam ل
ha ه

Arabic is written right to left and is a cursive script - that is, the letters are joined together (in most cases). However you can, if you want, write it letter by letter. ie (remember right to left for the Arabic):



So, given that Allah can be written either of the ways above, and taking into account all the different font types (it's calligraphy), it wouldn't take too much for a tread pattern to resemble the word 'Allah' (whether joined as one Arabic word or not).

That all presupposes that the word was written correctly (like one of the above examples). It is infinitely more likely that the 'word' was malformed, but still looked enough like "Allah" for native speakers to get upset. What I mean is that some 'letters' may have been joined together and some not - like in English if you printed some letters of a word but joined others together. You would not actually write like that, but if someone did, you could read it. Here are some examples using the letters alif, lam, lam & ha (right to left):


Of course since it was on a tire, then you could even skew the letters and make them even more obscure, discernible mainly to Arabic speakers only.

Heck most of those "Allah Miracle!" pictures that Muslim's have on the Internet...I still don't really see it well even when it's pointed out to me!

Definitely paredolia.

[Meka]

Originally Posted by BamaRainbow

How exactly are these tire treads supposed to look like "Allah"?

I found a way of producing the Arabic "Allah" (courtesy of Unicode) and I don't really see how a tire tread could resemble Allah

ﷲﷲﷲﷲﷲ

without being a really bizarre design. (It should also be noted that I pasted the code 5 times.)

Granted the little ligatures above the main part could be dropped and the letters could be completely joined, but that is still a weird looking tire tread.

I'd agree that would make for a fairly unusual tread design by itself, but as part of a larger pattern I don't think it's that uncommon:

Edges of both tires

Adjacent tread blocks in each "column"

Edges of tire

Admittedly, I was actively looking for similar patterns, but I'd say it's far from impossible for some portion of a tread design to at least partly resemble the Arabic script - particularly along the edges of the tire, where it would also be more noticeable.

[Azzizi]

The original post says that the tires printed something on the ground. With that being said, it's possible that the tread of the tire wouldn't need to resemble Allah, but the spaces between the treads would.

Also, the unicode is incorrect in its spelling of "Allah." It's missing the initial "alif."

[kanazawa]

Originally Posted by Tootsie Plunkette

It might be true:



... however, consider some of the other items on the list quoted in that source.

ETA: According to Sep 1, 1992 Rubber World (!),

The president of Yokohama Tire issued an apology, explaining, "Solly, we mean to write 'Arrah'".