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In a remote corner on a relatively isolated WAWA parking lot not far from my Philly home, I spotted a platinum-haired guy about 25 years old kneeling face-to-the-ground on a prayer mat. This non-Middle Eastern, Caucasian prayer penitent could have been any one of the local Catholic boys you sometimes see playing street hockey. I had to look twice: what is his story? How had he converted to Islam – or had he? And what do his poor parents think about that?

The most likely possibility, of course, was a conversion in prison. This poor lad had some sort of legal drug complication and wound up serving time in a Muslim-dominated prison where the Muslim Brotherhood got to him. Or maybe he went to “the brothers” for some kind of protection. Perhaps he was afraid of rape; perhaps the Muslim prison mafia also had useful in-house drug connections.

These suppositions are not hard to imagine since nearly 77% of all converts to Islam are former Christians, and since 80% of U.S. prisoners who convert to a new religion convert to Islam. That percentage alone is enough to cause heart palpitations among followers of Jesus Christ, even if one can presumably say that these converts aren’t “in depth” or serious Christians to begin with.

And yet there’s something attractive about a religion that makes its adherents stand out. Unfolding a colorful prayer mat in a parking lot at sunset and kneeling down among parked cars is not only great theater, it provides an ad hoc advertisement for the religion itself.

The behavior of most Christians and Jews in the public square is mostly invisible, whereas Muslims aren’t afraid to show their faith in places that might– by any definition– be deemed queer or “inappropriate”: shopping malls, the hallways of hospitals, the cereal aisle in a grocery store—or parking lots.

Unlike Dearborn, Michigan, where the Arab Muslim majority population stands at 55% of the city’s 110,000 residents, Philadelphia’s homegrown Muslim population has caused it to be called “Muslim Town” and the “Mecca of the West.” The overwhelming majority of Muslims in Philadelphia are not Middle Eastern but black Muslims. Black Muslims continue to be disparaged by “real” Middle Eastern Muslims as wannabe or “fake” Muslims. Black Muslims are seen as less authentic Muslims because their conversion to Islam almost always has a basis in racial politics rather than anything theological or spiritual. In other words, allegiance to Allah has more to do with black racial solidarity than with the truth or untruth of Mohammed’s message.

The black Muslim phenomenon is really a reconfiguration of other black power movements — Black Panthers with prayer mats, sans berets, who quote the Koran rather than Huey Newton.

The situation puts me in mind of what a Catholic priest friend of mine told me years ago about some Anglican Franciscan friars he knew who wore their monastic habits to flea markets, bars, and the movies: “Because Episcopalians like to copy Catholics, they often don’t know what the heck they’re doing.”

Anne Owers, the UK’s former Chief Inspector of Prisons, said that conversions to Islam in prison are driven by a “specific situation.” Rarely are these conversions inspired by a point of doctrine or theology. For the most part these conversions are superficial.

A “specific situation” constitutes the seeking of “support and protection in a group with a powerful identity” — as in the Muslim Brotherhood. Muslims in prison defend one another. In some prisons, a new inmate has a choice: align yourself with the Muslim brotherhood or the Aryan Brotherhood. Yet most conversions to Islam in prison are over as soon as the new convert is freed from the “specific situation” — i.e., jail.

News media updates concerning this year’s Ramadan observance — on social media like Facebook — attracted many progressive Jewish comments about the “good vibes” and delicious foods at Ramadan feasts. These culinary comments were mixed in with “Free Palestine” jargon, attracting many “likes” from other non-religious Jews who have adopted the progressive political mindset as the Third temple.

Philadelphia, as it becomes an increasingly black majority city, will in time have many more black Muslims than it does in 2024. Someday in fact the city may rival Dearborn, Michigan; only in Philadelphia’s case the Muslim growth will be homegrown, meaning religious conversions based on racial identity. Certainly, Islam has been mainstreamed in the City of Brotherly Love, as the advertising for a March 29 event on the north side of City Hall indicated:

“Bring your keffiyehs#FromPhillytoPalestine,” stated the ads for Philly United, One Ummah, Praying for Peace,’ that also urged participants to bring prayer mats. Ten days later ‘peace’ came in the form of 30 or more gunshots being fired into a end-of-Ramadan celebration in the city’s Parkside neighborhood as 1,000 people celebrated Eid-al-Fitr. Three people were shot—happily, no fatalities—and four juveniles and one adult were later apprehended by the police.

Initial reporting on the shooting was vague: were the shooters hostile to Islam or did the shots come within the Ramadan crowd itself?

CNN reported that two groups in the park began exchanging gunfire, while adding that police did not believe the shootings were connected to the Ramadan celebration. The curious two-group reference was picked up by NBC Philadelphia when it reported, “Two factions appeared to be exchanging gunfire in the park, and police officers saw four people fleeing the scene, Police Commissioner Kevin J. Bethel told reporters. He said about 30 gunshots erupted in a park where about 1,000 people were gathered.”

NBC News elaborated: “The Philadelphia Masjid, a mosque near the park, was holding an event at the time of the gunfire. No one with the mosque could immediately be reached for comment Wednesday afternoon.”

Reached for a comment regarding what? Being part of the two groups who did the shooting? At no point was there a news follow-up on who these two supposed groups were. Were they two opposing Islamic forces, drug gangs, or just hooligan youths?  The mainstream media dropped the ball when they failed to identify just who these groups were. No doubt fear of being labeled “Islamophobic” had something to do with probing this taboo question.

NBC News took a completely different tactic when it lectured the reader on Islamophobia: “The Council on American Islamic Relations said in a report last week that last year marked the highest number of bias reports in its 30-year history. The Muslim civil rights organization said it got 8,061 complaints nationally in 2023 from Muslims who reported having experienced discrimination or hate incidents. The figure is a 56% increase from 2022.”

But what does this have to do with the two groups in the crowd who were at war with one another?

Time.com made it worse when it quoted Philadelphia Police Commissioner Bethel: “Ninety-nine percent of the people attending this event were good people who wanted to have a good time.” There was also a statement from Bethel that city officials were offering their support to the Islamic community.

Bethel’s statement clearly implies that the shooters were Ramadan-celebrating Muslims and not outsider hooligans out to disrupt a peaceful celebration.