"The Fast & Furious" star Tyrese Gibson recently raised a lot of eyebrows concerning his faith when he visited a mosque in the Middle East purportedly to learn "how to properly pray."
On his Instagram account (@tyrese), he posted a photo showing a Muslim man kneeling down in prayer inside a mosque. He captioned it, "My first visit ever to a Grand Mosque. My heart is ... beating so fast, and I felt vulnerable just by walking inside. I was given my first course on HOW to properly pray and I truly feel blessed."
"Shout to all of the believers around the world... Inshallah my visions will be blessed for the Middle East," he wrote.
His post drew over a thousand comments, with many asking him if he had converted to Islam. Others simply told the actor that he has "finally lost it."
But later, Gibson shared a follow-up post and assured his fans that he is still a Christian. "From the beginning and end I will always give the Lord Jesus Christ all the glory!!!!!!!! Nothing more inspiring than making history with people who make you feel most welcome," he writes.
He explains that he went to the Middle East for business reasons. Gibson says he plans to create a movie studio in the United Arab Emirates called Voltron Studios and invest around $700 million to help boost its movie-making industry.
"Trust me when I tell you I'm in the Middle East not even remotely caught up in titles, money, and materialistic things," he says. "You will see one day I'm a man with a mission on my heart. I came here to change things. I came here to create better relations and bridge understandings between the East and West. Inshallah!!"
