PETALING JAYA - Johor authorities have seized 11 door mats that appear to feature the image of a sacred structure in Islam, but the supplier and a hypermarket chain said those are actually prayer mats wrongly labelled as door mats.

Johor Islamic affairs committee chairman Mohd Fared Mohd Khalid said on April 13 that the mats were seized from a booth at a popular shopping complex on April 9, eve of Hari Raya, after the Johor Islamic Department (JAINJ) received a complaint from the public, The Star reported.

The mats appeared to carry the image of Kaaba, a cuboid-shaped stone shrine located in Mecca. Muslims consider stepping on the image of Kaaba to be a disrespect to the holy site.

Mr Fared said the JAINJ had decided to delay a statement on the seizure out of respect for the Hari Raya celebration.

He advised the public to stay calm and let the authorities investigate the matter.

“I hope people do not blow this out of proportion. I would also like to remind businesses to be more careful and ensure that this does not happen again,” he said.

In a joint statement on April 13, hypermarket chain Aeon Big and the supplier of the prayer mats, A&R Fashion Collection, said the mats are prayer mats that have been mistakenly labelled as door mats.

They said that the design is vertically oriented, which is common for prayer mats.

“In line with Aeon Big’s best practices for SME suppliers, A&R proceeded to use an item code previously used for the company’s other products,” said the statement.

“As a result, the label tagged onto the product carried several descriptions, thus causing confusion,” it added.

The error has since been rectified in Aeon Big’s stock management system.

“The supplier involved, A&R Fashion Collection, is...