(IsraelNN.com) An Egyptian Muslim cleric has called on the Muslim and Arab world to boycott Starbucks because he claims the female character depicted in the company’s logo is actually Queen Esther, the heroine in the story of Purim.

The logo shows a woman with a crown, topped by a five-pointed star on her head. Although there is no apparent reference to anything Jewish in the portrayal, cleric Safwat Higazi recently declared on Egyptian television, “The girl in the Starbucks logo is Queen Esther." The video of Higazi's statement was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

“Do you know who Queen Esther was and what the crown on her head means?" Higazi asked. "This is the crown of the Persian kingdom. This queen is the queen of the Jews. She is mentioned in the Torah, in the Book of Esther. The girl you see is Esther, the queen of the Jews in Persia."

He pointed out that Starbucks coffee shops are located in Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, as well as in Cairo.

“You should boycott this company,” he declared. “It is not enough to avoid entering this coffee shop. It is not enough to refrain from drinking this coffee. You must urge people never to go there.”
  
The cleric explained that the crown on the logo woman’s head is the crown of the Kingdom of Xerxes, who he said "gave an order that the seven most beautiful girls in the kingdom be brought to him. So they held contests and auditions, and selected the seven most beautiful virgins, one of whom was the Jewish Esther, whose uncle, Mordechai – or actually, it was her cousin’s brother – was a villain."
  
"It was Mordechai who hatched this plot. Esther was one of the seven girls brought before King Xerxes in the palace. When Esther, who was very beautiful, was shown to King Xerxes, she captured his heart, and he chose her to be his queen. He placed a crown on her head, and the crown you see here [in the Starbucks logo] is the crown of the kingdom of Xerxes.”
    
"We Want Starbucks To Be Shut Down Throughout The Arab And Islamic World... Can you believe that in Mecca, Al-Madina, Cairo, Damascus, Kuwait, and all over the Islamic world there hangs the picture of beautiful Queen Esther, with a crown on her head, and we buy her products?” Higazi demanded.