The Inquirer

The serene room with violet walls and views of Fairmount Park is a milestone in the 43-year history of the Please Touch Museum.

For the next seven months, the space will be part of an exhibit about Muslim culture around the world, from its architecture, music and art to clothing and food. It marks the first time that the West Philadelphia children’s museum has explored a religion so comprehensively, even providing a prayer room for the visiting faithful.

Petra Watson, a mother of four from West Oak Lane, knelt inside the prayer room during a preview of “America to Zanzibar: Muslim Cultures Near and Far.”

“I see myself here,” Watson said as she emerged. “I see my family and my community.”

And that is the point, said president and CEO Patricia Wellenbach.

It is possible to “educate the audience about religion, without promoting it or favoring one over another,” said Gretchen Buggeln, a professor of art history and the humanities at Valparaiso University in Indiana and coauthor of Religion in Museums, published in 2017.

Buggeln calls the addition of a prayer room “fascinating.” She compares it to the rooms reserved for quiet reflection at the U.S. Holocaust Museum and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

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If I go I’m going to pray ALOUD for the thousands upon thousands that have been killed in the name of the religion” this a$$holish museum is championing.

ht/ fdr in hell