'First, we pray. After that, we hang out': A stroll along Itaewon’s Islamic Street, where Seoul’s Muslim community gathers

[About Town Global]: Itaewon

Korea is no longer the homogeneous nation it once was. The country saw a record high 2.16 million foreign residents as of 2025, accounting for more than four percent of the population. Many of them have found comfort in settling near one another, creating various ethnic enclaves in Korea that preserve culture and language from afar. In this "Global" edition, a spinoff of Korea JoongAng Daily's long-running "About Town" series, we talk to residents, business owners and passersby to explore the beginnings of these communities, their evolution and the ways they navigate life in modern Korea.

Most Fridays, Abdullah Faizi heads to Itaewon. But he gets there long before the bars and clubs that made the central Seoul neighborhood famous begin filling up.

In fact, it’s barely past noon.

Leaving Exit 3 of Itaewon Station on Line 6, he turns right at the intersection and makes his way up the steep street, joining a stream of people. Some walk alone, others with friends or family.

Near the top, a minivan pulls over, and six men spill out, looking up toward where everyone else is headed: Seoul Central Mosque. Behind its gates, two minarets topped with crescent moons rise above the street.

Friday prayers are about to begin.

Opened in 1976, Seoul Central Mosque was the first mosque built in Korea and remains the country’s largest, drawing roughly 1,200 Muslims for Friday prayers, according to a mosque representative.

Many make time for the weekly prayer despite work and other commitments, taking time off or traveling from different parts of the city to attend.

“Muslim people come and pray and meet people and families,” Faizi said. “That’s the center of everything.”

From there, the community spills down the hill. Halal restaurants and grocery stores, clothing shops and travel agencies cluster around the mosque, particularly along Usadan-ro 10-gil, the street leading up to it. Together, the area is commonly known as Itaewon’s “Islamic Street.”

For many Muslims, however, these places are more than simply somewhere to eat, shop or run errands.

“The street is not just a place for restaurants, buying food or going to a travel agency,” Faizi said. “We connect with one another there."

When Friday comes

As prayer time at 1 p.m. approached on a recent Friday, the mosque’s parking lot was already packed, leaving barely enough room between cars for people to squeeze through.

Worshippers of various ethnicities and nationalities — Malaysians, Pakistanis, Arabs, Indonesians and Bangladeshis among them — arrived, joined by a smaller number of Korean Muslims.

Men, some in traditional dress and others in T-shirts and track pants, climb the stairs to the main prayer hall and take off their shoes before entering. Women in colorful hijabs, some carrying young children, enter a separate prayer area on the ground floor.

By 1 p.m., both rooms are filled to the back.

An Egyptian prayer leader led the service on the day of the visit, speaking in Arabic and English upstairs, while a livestream played on a large television screen in the women’s prayer room.

Outside the mosque, tourists stood beneath the minarets to photograph the mosque and themselves.

The mosque has served as a spiritual anchor for Muslims living in Korea for five decades. Its origins date back to 1969, when the Korean government provided a roughly 5,000-square-meter (54,000-square-foot) plot for the project as Seoul sought closer ties with oil-producing countries in the Middle East. Muslim-majority countries, including Saudi Arabia, helped fund its construction. Work began in 1974, and two years later, Korea’s first mosque opened its doors.

“When you go there, you feel more connected,” Faizi said. “For some people, when they have stress, or maybe feel not well, they spend some time there, and they feel okay.”

Despite having a small prayer space near his house in Sinchon, western Seoul, he makes the trip across town to the Seoul Central Mosque whenever he can.

Around 1:20 p.m., the doors opened, and worshippers poured down the steps and spilled back onto the street they climbed earlier.

“First, we pray. After that, we hang out," Faizi said.

Down the hill they go. Groups linger outside restaurants and shops, talking with friends.

Some head for Pakistani and Indian restaurants; others seek out Indonesian, Malaysian, Uzbek or Middle Eastern food. Shoppers duck into halal grocery stores for meat, spices and ingredients that can be difficult to find at ordinary Korean supermarkets.

The Islamic Street began to take on more of its present character in the 1990s, as a growing number of Muslim residents and workers settled around the mosque. What began with a mosque gradually grew into a commercial and social hub. And one does not necessarily have to know someone to sit down with them.

“It doesn't matter which country you're from. When you meet, you bond. It’s not strange to just say hi and sit together."

Where daily life takes root

For Nur Kasmidah from Malaysia, Friday unfolds from the other side of one of those counters, where she serves many customers a taste of home at a halal restaurant, Itaewon Kitchen.

“Friday afternoon is the busiest,” said the 24-year-old, who has spent the past two years cooking and serving at a halal restaurant offering Iranian and Malaysian dishes at one end of Islamic Street as a part-time job.

On other days, particularly Sunday, she sees more tourists discovering the neighborhood for the first time.

"Some first come to Itaewon to visit the mosque, then stay for a meal."

Md Nazrul Islam Dulal operates a clothing shop and a cafe in the neighborhood.

The Bangladeshi businessman arrived in Korea in 2000 to help his brother, who was already running a travel agency.

What began as a place to make a living gradually became the center of Dulal’s life and eventually his family’s.

“My wife opened a clothing business in Itaewon and sold women’s clothes for about 15 years,” he said. About three months ago, the couple relocated their shop, Kazi Fashion, from a nearby location to Islamic Street. They also opened a small cafe next door.

Building a life in Korea, however, has not always been easy.

“Language has been challenging. I still cannot understand or speak fluently,” Dulal said.

But the Muslim community around the mosque gave him a sense of belonging. Over the years, fellow merchants became friends.

“Many of us are very close,” Dulal said. “We have a good community among the merchants here.”

He now thinks of the neighborhood as home. It is where his children have grown up.

“They speak Korean far better than I do now,” Dulal said with a laugh.

A community in transition

But the neighborhood where he built that life has been changing around him.

“Our house and business had to be moved because of redevelopment, so we moved,” he said.

The changes Dulal describes are unfolding amid massive redevelopment across Hannam-dong, which encompasses much of the neighborhood surrounding the mosque. The area was first designated for redevelopment more than two decades ago, but the projects moved slowly for years.

Now, demolition is underway in parts of the neighborhood, while barriers have already cut off sections just behind the mosque. Islamic Street has not been untouched by the changes. On one side of Usadan-ro 10-gil, many storefronts are shuttered, with stickers on some buildings identifying them as property of a Hannam redevelopment association.

Across the street, halal restaurants, grocery stores and other businesses remain open, Dulal’s clothing store among them.

As residents have moved out and businesses have disappeared or relocated, merchants who remain say the difference can be felt in the thinning foot traffic, Dulal said.

“Before, many people were coming. Now, much fewer do so. Monthly rent is hard to pay, with fewer people and no sales."

A few doors away, Kim Dong-gun has watched much the same change unfold.

Born in Pakistan and having come to Korea in 1997, he is now a Korean citizen who goes by his Korean name. Kim ran a halal food shop in the neighborhood for years, at one point occupying several storefronts, before moving into travel services about 15 years ago.

Kim also remembers Itaewon as much busier, particularly around 2007 and 2008.

“There were just so many people back then,” he said. “There were more restaurants and more shops back then. And a lot of tourists came too. Many businesses have since moved or relocated."

Yet Kim still keeps the doors of his travel agency Marhaba Travel open long after many businesses would have called it a day. “I usually come in around 10 or 11 in the morning and stay until 11 or 12 at night.”

He stays open so late so people can come late, he said.

Kim mainly helps Muslims living in Korea arrange pilgrimages to Mecca, book trips home and plan travel to other destinations, including Africa and East Asia.

Despite the decline in foot traffic, Kim says Islamic Street continues to draw people and remains an “important” place for the community.

“There are people who live here and people who come as tourists,” he said. “Many also come from across Korea.”

Businesses like Kim’s, deeply rooted in Islamic Street and witness to its many changes, are what hold the community together, offering a sense of home to those who come through their doors.

BY WOO JI-WON [[email protected]]