A Muslim celebrity’s opposition to the new name of a travel platform launched by China’s largest online commerce company Alibaba, which he called an “insult to Muslims”, has sparked widespread debate among Chinese netizens.

On Saturday, Adili, aka “Princess of Qiegao (Xinjiang nut cake)”, who has 210,000 followers on Sina Weibo, said on his Weibo account that he will delete Alitrip, Alibaba Group's online travel booking platform, because it has changed its name to “Fliggy” (feizhu in Chinese, meaning “flying pig”), which “hurts Muslim sentiments” as it contains the word “pig”. However, Adili deleted the post later.

“Alibaba is an international corporation, can they consider Muslim’s sensitivities?” asked Adili, who called on all Muslims to delete the app.

Fliggy explained on its official Weibo account the rationale behind the naming the app as “Feizhu,” saying it symbolizes people’s desire for traveling afar with freedom while staying comfortable at the same time.

Adili’s post generated widespread debate among the Chinese netizens, who argued that religious notions should not interfere with the secular matters.

“Religion can be a basis for personal self-constraint. But it will be inappropriate if someone uses his religious beliefs to restrict others,” a netizen surnamed Huang told the Global Times on Sunday.

A Muslim from Northwest China’s Qinghai Province told the Global Times that Muslims do not have “pig-phobia.” “We just don’t eat pork, we don’t hate the animal and we have no problem with the word zhu (pig). Moreover, some Muslims even have their surname as zhu,” she said.

Adili apologized on Zhihu, a popular Chinese question-and-answer website, saying that he feels sorry for his Sina Weibo post and did not expect it would have a bad influence on the public. But he also deleted the post on Zhihu later.