كذبة أبريل (Kadhbat Abril) - 'the April lie' in the Arab world

1930

April Fools' Day is observed across the Levant and Egypt as كذبة أبريل (Kadhbat Abril, 'the April lie'), or in Lebanon كذبة أول نيسان ('the first of April lie'), the phrase used to reveal a prank. A recurring annual custom adopted through European contact rather than indigenous in origin. The year is anchored to the earliest documented Arabic-press April hoax in the region traced in this archive (the 1930 Ha'alif Bei libel), not to an origin date, which is not documented.