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?
Similarly, I see lots and lots of orthodox Jews when hiking in New Hampshire.
I don’t know. Just one of those things groups of people like to do. They probably also like seeing others from their community while on vacation so they encourage others in their community to go as well. And then it just takes off as a common recommended vacation spot amongst themselves or something.
Also I’m sure it helps that people from those communities report that they had a good time, they were safe, and weren’t harassed or anything.
(I have no idea if that’s accurate, but that’s my guess)
That makes sense. Although I hope they stay on the Canadian side because I imagine American border security gives them a lot of shit. They see a woman in a Chador and they probably get a fascism hard-on.