The Council on American-Islamic Relations demanded Wednesday that Nike Inc. apologize for using a logo on athletic shoes that resembles the word "Allah" in the Arabic script.
Nike said the logo was meant to look like flames for a line of shoes to be sold this summer with the names Air Bakin', Air Melt, Air Grill and Air B-Que.The company said it caught the problem six months ago, long before the shoes went into production. A new logo separates the A in "AIR" from the IR, Nike spokeswoman Vizhier Corpuz said.
"We absolutely regret any misunderstanding, and we regret that this appeared in retail stores," Corpuz said at Nike headquarters near Portland, Ore. "We have changed the design to ensure that there's no confusion between the word `air' and any other word."
"Allah" is Arabic for God, used by Muslims and Christian Arabs to refer to the deity.
The Islamic council's executive director, Nihad Awad, insisted at a Washington news conference that the shoes have been seen at stores across the country, one pair in New Jersey as recently as Tuesday.
Holding up a pair of black and white Nikes with the logo, which he said were bought recently in the Boston area, Awad demanded that the company investigate to determine whether "there are people at the company who want to insult Muslims."
He said his Washington-based organization wants Nike to participate in a sensitivity-training program about Islam. "We would like this not to happen again," said Awad. "Nike has not given us one assurance it will not happen again."
Houston Rockets star center Hakeem Olajuwon, a Muslim who endorses another brand of athletic shoe, told Nike president Tom Clarke in a letter circulated at the news conference that the logo offends Muslims.
"The placement of this holy symbol on shoes which will be soiled, walked on and disposed of is very offensive to Muslims," the NBA star wrote. "It is offensive to us when a major corporation such as Nike publicly shows disrespect for Allah's name."