Salam alechem

An assortment of Adidas sandals, Nike runners, striped Puma sneakers and brown leather dress shoes litter the space just inside the open green doorframe of Masjid Jamia, a mosque on the corner of 43rd and Walnut streets.

These are the shoes of men who shed them as they raced into the building in response to the evening's call to prayer -- the last of five daily prayer sessions required by the Muslim faith. Women come to pray, too, but do so in a separate section at the back of the mosque.

Passersby -- mothers with babies in strollers, a young woman in gym clothes, students from the Restaurant School across the street -- walk by and glance at the selection of footwear. It is just another night in West Philadelphia.

Inside West Philadelphia's Masjid Jamia, men kneel shoulder-to-shoulder in rows, bowing and reciting from the Quran -- Islam's holy book.

"Literally, you will find a doctor who has his head next to the feet of a taxi driver," mosque leader and Penn Dental student Fadi Kablawi says.

The Muslim community in West Philadelphia is an irrepressible one; with roots in the radical Nation of Islam movement of the 1960s, the 21st century community is now established in its own right.

Inside one of the nine mosques in the neighborhood you will find Algerians, Europeans, Pakistanis, Arabs, Cambodians and dozens of other nationalities practicing their common faith.

Kablawi says that, within his own mosque, it would be a conservative estimate to say that there are between 30 and 40 nationalities represented.

But the diversity of the community doesn't stop with nationalities. At the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen mosque on 58th and Overbrook streets, the religious leader -- or imam -- was once studying to be a rabbi. His name, Abdur-Razzaq Miller, speaks for itself.

It is the black Americans, however, who dominate this community. They are the ones converting in droves, bringing indigenous Philadelphians into the mosques alongside the immigrant population.

Imam Kenneth Nuriddin knows something about this group. A tall black man who is missing his front teeth and who wears a full beard in the Muslim tradition, Nuriddin was raised a Catholic -- he still remembers the Latin he learned in school.

After serving in Vietnam for a year at the age of 19, Nuriddin returned to his native Philadelphia and joined the radical militant group Black Panthers.

A "watershed" event, as he puts it, put Nuriddin on the path of Islam.

On the heels of a number of dangerous police confrontations in Detroit and Southern California, the police raided the Black Panthers' headquarters in North Philadelphia in 1970, where Nuriddin's brother was inside.

"When the police came, [the Black Panthers] just threw their guns out the window and came out," Nuriddin says. "It sorta served to me as a wake-up, meaning this -- if there was no principle that you were willing to give your life for, there was nothing there to live for."

Nuriddin converted to Islam shortly thereafter.

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At first, American Muslim activist Elijah Muhammad's radical Nation of Islam was the gravitational pull for Nuriddin and many of the other young black converts.

One of them -- the now infamous Imam Shamsud-din Ali, of the Philadelphia Masjid in West Philadelphia -- was indicted on racketeering charges about two weeks ago.

But now, Nuriddin is far removed from the often violent tactics of the Nation of Islam. He prefers to practice a more mainstream version.

He describes the Nation he was once a part of as "a chemotherapy to deal with the cancer of American racism."

However, he continues, "Once you got well, you didn't need it no more. ... If you keep taking chemo, it will kill every good cell in your body."

Islam still serves as a kind of lifestyle cure for many young black people in Philadelphia. With a high crime rate in the community, jails have become catalysts for West Philadelphia's conversion movement.

Nuriddin has firsthand experience with this phenomenon, having worked as the servicing imam for the Philadelphia county prison system from 1978 to 1985.

"For the first time in their life, they have a chance to sit down and quietly contemplate life itself," Nuriddin explains. "Because [Islam is] a way of life -- it's not just a religion. It's seen as a solution, especially to people who have problems."

For one, the Muslim faith forbids the consumption of alcohol and drugs -- two vices often associated with criminal activity.

The conversion process is fairly simple. Potential Muslims must present themselves before a congregation and make a declaration, or shahadah, to worship their one God Allah, and avow that the prophet Muhammad is the messenger of God.

Nuriddin says he gets an average of two converts every week at his mosque; Kablawi says he sees about one every other day at his.

What kind of impact is this religious trend making on West Philadelphia as a neighborhood?

Saad Alrayes says a big one.

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Alrayes is the general manager of Saad's Halal Place located on 45th and Walnut streets. He is a genial Muslim immigrant from Lebanon who knows the names of nearly all his clients who flock to the counter to order their teeming plates of shawarma, tabouli and baba ghanouj. ("I'm embarrassed, I'm embarrassed!" he exclaims when he can't remember the name of a regular customer when she orders her falafel.)

His restaurant is located across the street from the Association of Islamic Charitable Projects mosque, where he journeys each day between 1:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m., closing his store in the midst of the lunchtime rush to fulfill his prayer obligation.

"Before the mosque, it used to be a bad area, infested with drug dealers," Alrayes says. Now, "there's a lot of Muslims around. They push the bad people away."

And the people who are left eat at Saad's.

The halal meat he serves -- specially raised and slaughtered according to Muslim law -- is the only kind of meat strict Muslims can eat.

Perhaps only in West Philadelphia can you find a restaurant like Saad's that serves Philly cheesesteaks made exclusively with halal meat.

As a result, his restaurant is a veritable Muslim watering hole, a gathering place for the community, as well as for the other half of his clientele -- people who just enjoy a good tabouli sandwich.

Only in a place like Saad's would a photograph of the Haj in Mecca -- the yearly pilgrimage to Islam's holiest city -- hang over the stacks of Arizona green tea drinks.

Not everyone agrees about the true impact of Islam on the neighborhood, though.

"Most definitely it's cleaning the community," Kablawi says. "But 100 percent? No. I would be fooling you if I said yes."

"I think the drug problem ebbs and flows," Nuriddin says. "I think we have a generation of quote unquote 'druggies' who are just drugged out. ... Islam may have something to do with some of the people [not using drugs], ... but I wouldn't want to take the credit for it."

Even if Islam hasn't eradicated the drug problem in West Philadelphia, it does seem to have created a network of allies for Muslims.

Anjum Cheema is a Penn College senior who heads up the Muslim Students Association.

For Cheema, the sage advice given to Penn students not to wander beyond 40th Street is not so sage.

He says that his beard and kufi, or Muslim skullcap, that he sometimes wears signal his Muslim identity to others on the street, who accept him as a fellow community member.

From "a Muslim perspective it's a little different," Cheema says. "Generally, if you're walking down the street and you're recognized, you're pretty safe. You'll be walking down the street and someone far away will just shout out to you."

The greeting they shout is generally "salam alechem," translated as "peace be upon you."

Coordinator of the Arabic Language Program and West Philadelphia resident Emad Rushdie says he feels that security only very close to the mosque itself.

In "West Philly, the further you go, the more dangerous it becomes," Rushdie says. "It's not just Muslims living there."

Sometimes, the ties that bind the Muslim community are exploited by outsiders.

"The funniest thing is, almost everyone, Muslims or non-Muslims, know 'salam alechem,'" Kablawi says. "I go to Freshgrocer, and there was a [beggar] who said, 'Salam alechem.'"

The tactic is apparently common for beggars in the neighborhood -- this particular man went so far as to memorize passages from the Quran to elicit sympathy from the many Muslims he asks for money.

"He was reciting better than I do," Kablawi says with a laugh. "I found out later he was not a Muslim."

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On Friday, Muslims will begin celebrating the holy month of Ramadan. From sunup to sundown they will not eat, drink or have sexual relations for 30 days.

At the end of this demonstration of faith, the community will hold massive celebrations.

"You will find kids, people, happy," Kablawi says. "People hugging, kissing, greeting each other. Everyone -- young, male, female, kids, students, laborers -- that day, they stop working, they skip school."

This is a ritual that will be duplicated in mosques all over the world. But in West Philadelphia, the home of halal cheesesteaks, it's bound to have its very own flavor.

"See, in New York, you have a strong United Nations presence, so you have strong immigrant leadership," Nuriddin says. "Washington, D.C. is the same way. ... Those centers, they sort of dominate the fabric of Islam. But Philadelphia is probably the opposite. Because Philadelphia has the spirit of '76, we think and believe it represents the American foundation for Islam."

When Kablawi moved to the neighborhood from Miami, he felt the difference.

"At home they will say, 'Como estas?'"

In West Philadelphia, they say, "Salam alechem."

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