Valley Muslims reach out

Saturday, Jan. 14, 2006 | 7:29 a.m.

Standing in a tightly packed mosque, men and women dressed in Ethiopian, Pakistani and other ethnic garb came together last week for prayer and a sermon about reaching out to Las Vegas.

More than 2,500 people attended prayers at the Jame Mosque in East Las Vegas Tuesday to celebrate the end of the hajj and to contemplate steps they can take to increase their community service and interfaith work with other religions.

For Aslam Abdullah, director of the Islamic Society of Nevada, the annual ritual of Eid ul-Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice, was an opportunity to extol Abraham and teach his congregants how to "manifest Abraham's sacrifice in our everyday lives."

"It is our responsibility that we sacrifice what Allah has given us for the sake of those who are needy and neglected in our country today," Abdullah said. "God will hold us responsible for every homeless person that sleeps hungry in this town. God will hold us responsible for every act of hatred that goes on in our town. We must become a moral force."

Abdullah has called for Muslims to work together with Christians, Jews and other faiths to end hunger and fight poverty. In the last year, he has worked to expand the mosque's efforts to feed the homeless and stepped up the mosque's involvement in the Las Vegas Interfaith Council, including participating in the Family Promises organization that has local churches, synagogues and mosques regularly host homeless families.

At an interfaith service for Martin Luther King Jr. on Friday, Abdullah said that he will push for Muslims to become involved in promoting social justice. He wants to start an outreach program to offer job development classes to at-risk youths and gang members, and has offered office space to the Interfaith Council. He wants Muslim doctors to open a free health clinic at the mosque.

He fought corruption, promoted justice and peace and placed God above all things, including his own son. Muslims, like Christians and Jews, believe God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son but then stopped Abraham when he saw he was willing to give God everything.

Muslims similarly live in a culture that is corrupt and where money and material objects are placed higher than God, Abdullah said. The tendency for many American Muslims and Muslim immigrants is to insulate themselves from the culture and surround themselves with other Muslims or others from their countries of origin, Abdullah said.

Those tendencies contribute to the stereotypes of Muslism as all Arabs or all terrorists, Abdullah said. Social change will occur only if different religious groups come together, and that will happen only if Muslims can dispel those stereotypes, he said.

"We have to show to them that we do have a human face. That the face that promotes terror is nor our face. Our face is a face of compassion and kindness and that is the face we want to show through the example of Abraham."

Rev. Gard Jameson, Interfaith Council chairman, and council member Rev. Tommy Starkes praised the work of the Las Vegas Muslim community.

Collaboration is the only way to solve the social issues facing Las Vegas, said Jameson, associate pastor at Grace Community Church in Boulder City. He said the city should embrace Abdullah's efforts.

"The task is greater than any single religious group can do," said Starkes, director of church development for the Southern Baptist Association. Community service is "essential to offset the modern stereotype of Muslims being jihadist and antithetical to the Judeo-Christian values."

Starkes and Jameson said they also see Muslims wrestling with the same challenge as Christians and other religious groups, to influence the culture around them without being negatively influenced by that culture.

"Jesus talked about being in the world and not of it," Starkes said. "... We basically have a choice to be isolationists or involved."

Khalid Khan, president of the Islamic Society of Nevada, said the mosque should be a community center that does "good works not only for Muslims but for all humanity."

Christina Littlefield may be reached at 259-8813 or at clittle@ lasvegassun.com.