Fahad Mustafa, Yasir Hussain and Iqrar ul Hassan Syed have extended their support to Saba Qamar and Bilal Saeed after they received backlash for shooting part of their upcoming music video at Lahore’s historical Wazir Khan Mosque.

Iqrar ul Hassan requested all his followers to accept Saba and Bilal’s apologies and said that Bilal’s respect in his eyes has increased after his apology message. Fahad later retweeted Iqrar’s tweet and urged everyone to forgive and move on.

Yasir Hussain also extended his support to his Lahore Se Aagay co-star and called out trolls spreading hate.

RELATED STORIES

Shafaat Ali also voiced his support, though he did not explicitly name anyone.

Last weekend, Saba and Bilal found themselves in hot water after they released the teaser of their upcoming music video Qubool Hai. Part of the music video, which has been directed by Saba herself, has been shot inside Wazir Khan Mosque upsetting the public, who demanded strict action be taken against those who allowed the video to be shot inside the mosque.

Chief Minister Punjab Usman Buzdar also took notice of the incident following which the Punjab Auqaf department suspended the manager of Masjid on Sunday. According to reports, the CM sought a report from the minister concerned and the department’s secretary on the matter.

“The mosque is the holiest place and no one can be allowed to trample upon its sanctity. Whosoever is found responsible will not be spared,” an official handout quoted the chief minister as saying.

After severe criticism and backlash, Bilal, in a video message apologised for hurting the public’s sentiments and clarified that they did not dance or record any music in the mosque.

“We realise what has happened over the past few days has hurt your sentiments deeply,” says Bilal in the video. “We as Muslims, as decent human beings and as artists will never, ever trivialize or condone disrespect to Islam or any other religion, race, caste, colour or creed. If we have unknowingly hurt anyone’s sentiments we apologise to you all with all our heart.”

He continued: “Alhamdulilah I am a Muslim and I was raised in a Muslim household. I cannot even think about doing something that would disrespect my religion. I solemnly affirm in the name of Allah that neither did we play any music in the mosque and nor did we dance and the witness to that is the management of the mosque.”

Referring to the clip in which he is twirling Saba, Saeed said: “There was a move that we did for the sake of the photoshoot. We were not following any dance sequence and neither was there any music playing in the background. We understand that we have unintentionally made a mistake and we are acknowledging our mistake.”

“Saba Qamar and I, are just humans like the rest of us and to err is human,” he further said. “As a Muslim, if I was in your place, maybe I would also think the same. So we also apologise to you, and hope that you can let this go. As a realisation on our part, I am also removing the entire sequence from the video, and assure you that we won’t make such mistakes in the near future.”

“I had never imagined my name would be associated with something like this. As a Muslim, I am extremely regretful of this and apologise on behalf of all of us, including Saba and our entire team,” he concluded.

Earlier, Saba had also clarified that “this is also the only sequence that was shot at the historical Wazir Khan Mosque” and is a prologue to the music video.

“The BTS video that’s making rounds on social media was just a circular movement to click stills for the poster of ‘Qubool’ depicting a happily married couple right after their Nikah. Hurting or offending anyone or being disrespectful to a holy place is as unimaginable and unacceptable for me as for any decent human being,” she had said.