CHICAGO — A year ago, Mohammed Assaf was a 23-year-old wedding singer in a Gaza refugee camp. But since he won the “Arab Idol” singing competition in June, in front of more than 100 million viewers, he has become something of a pop superstar in the Arab world.

Now, Mr. Assaf is trying to conquer North America, or at least its people of Arab descent. He has been on a nine-week tour of cities that have large Arab immigrant populations, ending in Charlotte, N.C., on Dec. 28 and including performances in Ottawa on Thursday and Friday. From Detroit to Tampa, every show has been packed, with entire extended families paying up to $350 a ticket.

At the sold-out Alhambra Palace in Chicago on Friday, grown men rushed to touch him, and mothers in head scarves embraced their squealing daughters. An old woman in a traditional cross-stitched dress, usually reserved for weddings, solemnly draped a checkered kaffiyeh over Mr. Assaf’s sleek black suit as the crowd dissolved into rapturous cheers.

“When I was younger, I used to go to ’NSync concerts, and people would throw their bras on stage,” said Marwa Abed, a 24-year-old Palestinian-American who is a teacher’s aide. “To see this similar popular act with the kaffiyeh, which has so much symbolism in the Palestinian community, for those people to be throwing the kaffiyehs on stage and for him to be wearing them, it felt like there wasn’t a stage and an audience, it felt so fluid.”