We’re visiting Niagara Falls (highly recommended, by the way) and there are far, far more Muslims here than I have ever seen at any other tourist spot I’ve been to. There are also a ton of Middle Eastern and South Asian restaurants and that’s who seems to own a lot of other businesses here too.
I don’t have a problem with it (especially not the restaurants), Muslims can go where they want to go, I’m just not sure what the draw is here specifically. Is there some sort of religious significance to waterfalls in Islam? They aren’t praying at the falls, so I don’t know if that’s it.
Anyway, it’s been a great couple of days here so far. I’ve only been on the Canadian side and I hear the American side is trashy, but the falls are so beautiful and the whitewater walk along the rapids was incredible and, of course, everyone is so nice here.
Edit: I just looked, there are two mosques, an Islamic society and an Islamic cultural center in the city. The population is around 88,000 people. Maybe Canada has more Muslims than the U.S. and that’s it?
You sure it isn’t just that they’re more detectable? I mean, you said that you’re going by the language and things like burkas. It could just be that you’re noticing them more than other groups because it’s easier to notice them.
Like, if you came to my town, you might ask, “why does this shithole attract koreans?” It doesn’t in particular, they just stand out against the crowd more than the crackers, latinos and black folks.
It could be, but as I said in my edit, 2 mosques plus a cultural center plus an Islamic society suggests to me that there are a larger than usual number of Muslims in a town this size, although maybe not for Canada, maybe just the US. One explanation for this would just be the town’s population has a larger than average number of Muslims. Possibly. Maybe it’s like Dearborn in the U.S. Another is that they want enough space for Muslim tourists if they want to come and worship. I don’t know what the answer is.
Also, this place is not a shithole, I hear the American side is a shithole, but this side is wonderful. So, if anything, the large number of Muslims here keeps the place a cool place to be.