In Tennessee state prisons, practicing Islam is expensive.
A Bible here costs $5.45, while a Quran goes for $7.25 — even though it has fewer pages. The rosary used by Catholics sells for $1.65, while Muslims are charged $6.95 for prayer beads. And a satin kippah associated with Jewish adherents costs less than half of a Muslim kufi head covering.
In state and federal prisons in the U.S., about 9% of people identify as Muslim. Whether intentional or not, prisoners tend to have fewer options to purchase Islamic religious items than non-Islamic items, and the ones they can buy often cost more.
At the time of publication, the Tennessee Department of Corrections had not responded to a request for comment for this story.
There are way more Muslim prisoners than Jewish prisoners, so there’s something else at play making kippahs cheaper than Kufis.
That’s how supply and demand works. If there are more Muslims wanting to buy kufis, than Jewish wanting to buy kippahs, the kufis will be more expensive than the kippahs. And add that there is no competition when selling in prisons (aka monopoly) and the price goes up in orders of magnitude.
Yeah, I was thinking about economies of scale and bulk discounts. In that case, the Catholic rosaries should cost more than the Muslim prayer beads.