Saba Qamar and singer Bilal Saeed will be starring together in a music video for Bilal’s upcoming song Qubool. The music video which is the directorial debut of Saba Qamar will be released on 11th August. However, just a few days before its release controversy seems to have found its way to it.
The team behind the music video has steadily been building up hype for the upcoming music video before its release. It started from still images followed by an official poster for the music video. But when a behind-the-scenes clip from the making of the music video was released, it backfired as instead of creating positive hype it ended up getting backlash on social media.
The controversy
A behind-the-scenes video made rounds on social media where Saba Qamar and Bilal Saeed could be seen happily twirling. The location of the shot was the historical Wazir Khan Mosque in Lahore. Upon release, the artists received immediate flak for the apparent violation of the sanctity of the mosque. Social media got filled up with posts demanding that the Government of Punjab takes strong action against them for doing so.
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Apart from it, all sorts of rumors started flying around with people claiming that the team behind the music video had not even taken the permission to shoot the video inside the main chambers of the mosque. The assistant director, however, cleared up the misunderstanding and said that the team was given permission to shoot the nikah scene in the mosque.
Saba and Bilal address the issue
Saba Qamar and Bilal Saeed responded to the criticism by sharing a teaser of the music video alongside the official statement in the caption. The caption clarified how the scenes shot in the mosque were just a prologue for the music video. The characters in the music video, played by Saba and Bilal, were shown to get tied in the bond of nikah and that was the only scene that was shot at the mosque.
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The 55-second teaser shows Bilal and Saba saying “qubool” in the mosque, with no music in the background but only birds chirping. In the statement, it was clarified that the administration of the mosque was already present during the shooting and they can corroborate that no music was played there. The behind-the-scenes clip that sparked the whole controversy on social media did not involve them dancing. Instead, they were moving in a circular motion to click some pictures for the poster of the video.
After clarifying their stances, Saba Qamar and Bilal Saeed issued an apology for unknowingly hurting the sentiments of the public. They also urged the people to wait for the official release of the music video and not jump to any conclusions based on just one behind-the-scenes clip.
