The village of Muslims in the city of sin .. Imam establishes the House of Light Plus Vegas

Amal Mohammed

For years, Imam Fatin Saifullah has sought to transform the city of sin into a city of light, through the Sabour Mosque, a few miles from Streep Street, the most famous streets of Las Vegas, Nevada, and the most prominent destination for those looking for the largest restaurants, casinos, and brothels.

Saifullah, the imam of the oldest mosque in Las Vegas, chased drug addicts and gangs in the area around the mosque, with the cooperation of many Muslims, locals and local police, until West Las Vegas became safer than before.

Saifullah calls the Muslim Valley the area around the mosque, which, after successfully expelling most of the gangs and drug dealers, strives to buy most of the surrounding houses and turn them into a safe area for Muslims and others.

The idea began with a mural painted on the wall of the mosque, the oldest of its pioneers.The aim was to see the residents of the neighborhood aesthetic space decorate the area in the unclean surroundings, realizing that the Muslims responsible for this building has done something beautiful to the people of the neighborhood, according to Abdul Sabour.

The imam of the mosque sought to implement a development project over the next ten years, which advances the surrounding area to attract Muslims from the outskirts of the city to approach the large and buy houses around it, according to the site "RNS" interested in news of religions.

Free services
Within the Muslim Village, the mosque's organizers have set up a free medical clinic and a food warehouse that provides free meals to those in need. It also provides special rooms for women who face abuse or find shelter, as well as a special treatment program for addiction.

The imam hopes that by next year, the construction of separate houses will be completed to accommodate many Muslim families, to settle in the area and start their lives in the vicinity of the mosque and join volunteer work in the project.

There are currently about 20 people living in rented rooms surrounding the mosque, one third of whom are non-Muslims and all of them are students, the elderly or women.

On 26 October each year, the mosque organizes a special day under the name of “Dignity Day”, which provides many services to Muslims and others, from the distribution of school supplies or therapeutic services or to provide suitable rented accommodation, clothes and free toiletries.

After this effort and ten years of continuous work on this project, the municipality of Las Vegas announced that the area surrounding the mosque has become one of the safest areas free of crime and drugs.

"There is a special connection between the police officers and this place," said Aden Ocampo Gomez, media officer for the Las Vegas Police Department. "Many of them are in the Muslim Village throughout the day, to engage children and adults in any activity. They feel part of society. "

In the vicinity of the mosque there are many churches that participate and cooperate with Imam Abdul Sabour in the voluntary work carried out by the project.

The "Muslim Village" has become one of the city's landmarks, and so often when someone is in a crisis, people advise him to go to the mosque for help.

Imam Saifullah was born in Louisiana, Louisiana, and has two brothers working as priests in an American church. Saifullah has been in charge of the Sabour mosque since 1999, and has been volunteering ever since.

Founded in the seventies of the last century, the mosque was the first mosque in the city, where Muslims represent about 0.1% of the population.

The mosque received many donations for this project, the most prominent of which was the American boxer Mike Tyson who donated $ 250 thousand, as well as Laila Ali, daughter of the late boxer Mohammed Ali Clay.

City of Sin
Las Vegas is described as a city of sin and a city of divorce, where everything is permissible, gambling clubs and casinos are common, and there are no restrictions on the sale of alcohol, which is legalized in many American cities, as well as legalized prostitution that is not allowed in many American cities. .

The name has historical roots dating back to 1906, where pubs and casinos rudely spread in only two areas of the city, Hayyan 16 and 17, and these boxes gained a bad reputation for the spread of gambling and the sale of alcohol without any restrictions, and then groups of notorious girls came to live in the two areas, and completed All the elements of sin with the arrival of the most famous gangs such as "Bugsy Siegel" (Bugsy Siegel) and "Meyer Lansky" (Meyer Lansky), which founded casinos in the city.

In 1931, these practices became legal by law, although prostitution was illegal in Clark County, where Las Vegas is located, which earned the city the title of "City of Sin," well deserved. What is illegal in the rest of the cities.

The residents of Las Vegas who were born and lived there for years do not care about this name, as they work in many areas far from gambling and prostitution, and live in the suburbs, and these works are attributed to outsiders from the city.

Las Vegas alone receives 42 million tourists a year and makes $ 10 billion a year in casino profits.