Assaults, threatening phone calls, shattered windows. In the workplace, at school, at their houses of worship.
In Philadelphia and across the nation, Arabs and Muslims have been on their own heightened state of alert as Americans react to news that most of the hijackers in Tuesday's terrorist strike were of Middle Eastern descent.
Hate crimes against Arab Americans -- like the hundreds that followed the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 -- have already occurred nationwide.
Two mosques in Texas were the targets of destructive hate crimes on Tuesday night. Attackers with anti-Arab sentiments shattered the windows of one, and fired bullets through the windows of the other.
In Philadelphia, Arab shop owners and citizens have been experiencing similar harassment. According to Saad Elrayes, owner of Saad's Halal Place at 4500 Walnut St., windows had been smashed at a nearby Seven-11 convenience store owned by a Moroccan man.
Elrayes also said that Muslim women wearing the hijab -- the traditional head covering -- have been harassed by coworkers and people in the streets.
Hanif Munir, of the Masid Al-Jamia mosque and community center at 43rd and Walnut streets, agreed.
"They've been beating up Muslims and our Muslim sisters," he said.
Marvin Wingfield, education and outreach director at the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Center in Washington, has received reports of dozens of anti-Arab incidents across the nation -- some of which have occurred in schools and on university campuses.
At a college in Duxbury, Mass., faculty members reported hearing comments made by fellow professors that "we must kill the Arabs." Some students were approached with threatening comments like "We are going to kill you."
But at Penn, Arab and Muslim student groups say they have not felt this hostility.
"As far as I know there have been no incidents," said Amel Ahmed, graduate president of the Penn Arab Students Society. "Quite the opposite. Lots of groups on campus... have been offering their support."
Barbara Von Schlegell, a Religious Studies professor, said Philadelphia's Muslim community is lucky not to have received threats similar to those in cities like Chicago and San Francisco.
She attributes this to the fact that many of the city's Muslims are African American or second- and third-generation Arabs. "There isn't the same feeling of anger towards those of just Arabic descent," she said.
In West Philadelphia, Elrayes said, community members have been much more compassionate toward Arab Americans.
"The people have been very understanding," he said.
"We've been living together for a very long time," he added. "My customers have been calling and checking on me every couple of minutes."
Amin Bitar, one of the owners of Bitar's middle eastern restaurant on 40th Street, noted that he has not experienced anti-Arab sentiments thus far.
"So far there has not been one negative repercussion, no one's even commented, no hate calls, nothing like that, nothing that you're hearing about in the news," Bitar said.
"We've been in business... for over 28 years, and we've had many incidents over our history where we sort of expected the worst, but then everything worked out in a positive way," he added.
Still, area mosques have had to tighten security. Two Walnut Street mosques have added police officers to stand outside in case of threats.
And some members of West Philadelphia's Muslim communities said they have been living in fear of being targets since Tuesday's terrorist attacks.
Omar Bouchbouk, a member of the Masid Al-Jamia, said that some community businesses -- like Makkah Mart at 4249 Walnut St. -- have been hurt financially by anti-Arab sentiment, and that their owners have been staying inside.
"They fear getting hurt, like what's been going on in other cities," Bouchbouk said.
"It will get worse before it gets better, but in the end I think everything will be all right," he added.
Wingfield said that in advising student groups across the nation, he has recommended they first issue a joint statement and then work with other student groups to coordinate education events about the Arab world.
Wingfield added that it is important for campuses to "present a face of the Arab world and Islam other than that of political conflict."
According to Omar Al-Wir, the undergraduate president of PASS, his organization has been trying to do just that, and will be meeting tomorrow with representatives from Penn's administration and other Arab student groups.
"For us, as an Arab community on campus, we wanted to get our sentiments out about how we feel," he said.
Ahmed said that while many have pointed to network television images of Palestinian children waving flags following the attacks as one cause for anti-Arab sentiment, these images wrongly portray the reaction of the Arab world.
"A lot of Palestinians have come out and said that this is a very small minority, who were reacting before they even understood the magnitude," she said.
"We hope that the media, in their eagerness to post pictures of Palestinians celebrating, will also be posting pictures of their concern," she added.
Al-Wir agreed.
"The media... did reinforce that image by virtue of 24-hour coverage. A big chunk of that time goes to suspected people, and that does reinforce the image of terrorists being Arab.
"It affects many peoples' views, and apparently angered people to the extent that they reacted in they way that they did," he said.
"The desire to retaliate is a very natural human desire," Wingfield said. "It's right to feel angry, but it's wrong to harm innocent people."
"Islam does not support terrorism or killing people," Elrayes said.
"There were a lot of Muslims who were in the Trade Center," he said, adding that one of the buildings held a small mosque where Muslims came to pray.
