KINGDOM Under Fire For Album Cover That Resembles The Quran

KINGDOM faced backlash from the K-Pop community — especially Muslims — following the revelation of its new album cover having uncanny similarities to The Quran.

On Monday, the South Korean pop group’s agency GF Entertainment announced that the former will soon come back and release a new album titled “History of Kingdom: Part VII. Jahan.” The announcement, however, sparked mixed reactions from fans — known as Kingmakers — because the album’s cover featured a similar design to Islam’s holy book.

While some tried to defend KINGDOM, others felt offended that the company allegedly copied its design. Photos of the album cover have since been taken down from social media, but some fans were able to keep a copy.

“GF, you don’t surprise me at all… For those who don’t know: The second book is the Holy Quran, which is sacred [to] our religion [and] it is hurtful to compare the design exactly and to see the photos of our idols when opening that book. Please understand us…@KINGDOM_GFent,” one user wrote on Twitter, attaching a photo of the album cover.

Another commented, “The cover of KINGDOM’s upcoming album is inspired by the Quran, which is a sacred and holy book in Islam!! This is disrespect for our religion. My religion, ISLAM is not an aesthetic @KINGDOM_GFent.”

Meanwhile, one Muslim fan started a mass petition, urging others to send emails to GF Entertainment for them to address the issue. The user also said in another tweet, “It’s really upsetting that of all the ways and things that GF could’ve messed up, they made the literal album an exact copy of the holy Quran. I can’t even believe this is real, and I’m saying this.”

“I [am] Muslim, and yes, al Quran does have many [different] designs, but the album design is so similar to an actual al Quran is concerning. To make a K-Pop album an almost identical copy of the most basic design of a VERY holy book is very offensive,” a fourth user opined.

Other fans claimed that none of it was KINGDOM’s fault and defended the members.

“The way the physical albums are being redesigned, but the Quran design was the one everyone saw, and it’s their first impression of kingdom… [They are] such lovely people this is making me genuinely upset,” one user stated. To which another agreed, saying, “Kingdom are really sweet guys, and I’m just upset that this is how people found out about them. Things were just going smoothly, and all of the culture stuff [was] handled well, then this s—t happened…”

Following the backlash, GF decided to postpone the pre-order for the album, which was supposed to be released on Thursday, due to “internal circumstances,” per a statement translated by Koreaboo. The company apologized and then said a new schedule would be announced soon.

KINGDOM debuted in 2021 with seven members: Dann, Arthur, Louis, Ivan, Hwon, Mujin and Jahan. Each member was named after different kings in history.