- Islam is an African American religion in Philly.
- For all Philadelphians, the dessert of choice is water-ice (pronounced wooter-ice), and is basically some soft-serve ice cream with a snow cone.
- Not every African-American male with a long sunnah beard is Muslim, but many are. The ones who are will probably make eye contact with you, and possibly say salaam if they can tell you’re Muslim.
- Old City Cab comes a lot more often than Quaker Cab. As everywhere else, most of the drivers are Pakistani, Sikh Punjabi or Bangladeshi.
- The “Rocky” statue no longer sits atop the Philly Art Museum steps. It was moved recently, disgracefully placed along the curb.
- Muslim clothing is trendy here, to the point where some non-Muslim women occasionally wear headscarves and the pants-above-the-ankle look is trendy for black men (called the Philly capri).
- Strangely the imam of the largest mosque in West Philly cannot speak a word of English, and often yells during the Friday Khutba (otherwise I’m sure he is probably a very nice, learned man).
- There are no halal pizza places in West Philly.
- If the last name “Rahman” is called out in a patient waiting room at either Hahnemann or Jefferson Hospitals, you should ask for the first name also. Abdullah Abdur Rahman and Dawood Rahman were called up before me.
- The Germantown Mosque brothers are a really loving group who enjoy life in a halal way. Just don’t take photos of them or their mosque — they follow the salafi ruling on photography.
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