Libya’s Dar al-Ifta has told Muslims to stop buying, selling or wearing Nike products. The fatwa office in Tripoli, led by Grand Mufti Sadiq al-Ghariani, issued the Libya Nike fatwa on Sunday, November 1. It gives two reasons: the brand takes its name from a Greek goddess, and the office says Nike supports Israel.
The ruling is religious guidance, not a state ban. It sets out no penalties, and Nike-branded goods remain on sale in Libyan shops. What it can do is shape what devout shoppers and traders choose to buy and stock.
What the fatwa says about Nike’s name and the Swoosh
The fatwa committee said it was answering a question about whether Muslims may wear Nike clothing. Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported this on November 2 and published passages of the Arabic text. Nike is the Greek goddess of victory. The committee said the company “acknowledges” that its logo is a curve inspired by her wings.
It concluded that buying clothes with the logo “to be worn and displayed” publicizes symbols of polytheism, “and it is not permissible.” The translations from Arabic here are ours. Islam counts shirk, or associating partners with God, among the gravest sins. That is why the committee treats a logo as more than decoration.
Nike’s own account of the Swoosh is different. The name did come from the goddess. Runner Jeff Johnson suggested it in 1971, when Blue Ribbon Sports became Nike.
The logo has a plainer story. Designer Carolyn Davidson, then a Portland State student, charged $35 for it. In Nike’s history of the logo, she says she thought the shape “suggested motion.” Co-founder Phil Knight said he wanted it to stand for speed. That page makes no mention of wings.
The second reason: a 2023 Gaza boycott call
The fatwa’s other argument is political. It calls Nike one of “the companies that support the Zionist entity.” It adds that “boycotting companies that support this entity is obligatory.” For that it leans on a November 5, 2023, statement from Dar al-Ifta’s own research council. That statement came a month into the Gaza war. It said trading in such firms’ goods that people can do without “is participation in the war on Gaza.”
The ruling closes by saying every Muslim must stop wearing the brand and stop buying or selling its goods. Al-Araby noted that Nike told some Israeli retailers in 2021 it would stop supplying them. The Jerusalem Post reported at the time that this was a commercial move. Nike wanted to sell more through its own stores and website, in Israel and worldwide.
The fatwa does not cite any specific Nike donation or contract. Support for Israel is a live argument in the US too, including over Washington’s military aid to Israel.
Who issued it, and why it isn’t law
Libya has had rival governments in the east and west since Muammar Gaddafi fell in 2011. Its religious bodies have split along the same line.
The National Transitional Council made Ghariani grand mufti in 2012. In November 2014 the eastern-based House of Representatives voted to remove him and dissolve Dar al-Ifta. It gave the office’s duties to the endowments authority. Dar al-Ifta kept working from Tripoli regardless.
Its rulings carry moral weight but no legal force. This year showed the gap.
In April, the Libya Herald reported that Dar al-Ifta had said shops could charge more for card payments. The Central Bank of Libya then told municipal guards to crack down on merchants who did so. It even urged them to seize card machines.
The Nike fatwa names no penalties either. The Telegraph reported (via Yahoo syndication) that Nike has no stores in Libya. Sportswear retailers sell its products, and counterfeits are common in local markets. Those traders are the people this ruling most directly asks to change course.
Van Cleef & Arpels came first, and Nike has faced this before
Dar al-Ifta has ruled on a brand symbol before. We read its fatwa No. 6184 in the office’s online archive.
Ghariani and two committee members signed it on October 27, 2025. It bars Muslims from wearing Van Cleef & Arpels’ four-leaf-clover design.
The committee said Christians revere the clover. It also noted that the jeweler markets its Alhambra line as an icon of luck, which it tied to fortune-seeking. The Libya Observer reported that ruling on November 4, 2025.
As of November 5, the Nike text was not yet in that archive. Its newest entries date from October 26. The quotes above come from the passages Al-Araby published.
Nike itself has handled a religious objection to its branding before, in a very different way. In 1997 it recalled shoes whose flame-style “Air” logo Muslims said resembled “Allah” in Arabic script. It also apologized under an agreement with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Associated Press reported in a story carried by the Deseret News.
This time Nike had not commented in any of the reports we read. Faith-based objections to everyday things surface in the US as well. A Kentucky humanist recently won a religious exemption from using AI at work.
The next markers are whether Dar al-Ifta posts the full Nike text to its archive. Watch too for any reply from Nike or from Libya’s eastern religious authorities.
