-A new PBS documentary highlights the Muslim American experience through a road trip along legendary Route 66.

But what's life like as a Muslim in Las Vegas?

That's this week on Nevada Week.

♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt and additional supporting sponsors.

-Welcome to Nevada Week.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

Part 1 of the "Great Muslim American Road Trip" debuted July 5th here on Vegas PBS.

The three-part documentary follows a young Muslim American couple, musician Mona Haydar and her husband, Sebastian Robins as they travel along Route 66 in search of Islams roots in the United States.

And they just so happened to stop in Las Vegas where they met members of the Muslim community who we will be talking to shortly but, first, our conversation with Haydar and Robins.

-Mona Haydar and Sebastian Robins of the "Great Muslim American Road Trip" on PBS, thank you so much for joining us, and tell our viewers why you decided to take part in this project.

-The project was born out of a very simple and personal idea, actually, which was for Mona and I to in some ways have a second honeymoon, to spend some time together.

Like everyone in the world, we've been locked down, homeschooling, and remote learning with our kids.

We've been married almost 10 years.

So the inception was really this chance to just be together and take this road trip through a part of the country that we really didn't know anything about.

But what ended up happening and what it blossomed into was actually something much more beautiful and really more interesting than just the two of us bickering in the car and eating potato chips, and that was meeting these amazing people and vibrant communities in the most unlikely places along Route 66.

And that's really what the show conveys.

-Mona, what do you think the purpose of this show is, and what need does it fulfill, if any?

-For us the opportunity was golden because it was an opportunity for us to be real and to be authentic and to just be who we are.

We're not actors.

So it's just actually us taking a road trip and meeting beautiful people along the way, getting really inspired by people's stories.

And the need, I feel like, is that you don't see a lot of just genuine authenticity on TV, and a lot of things are scripted.

And even in reality television, it's scripted.

And this was just us kind of being goofballs and us really just being us.

-In your highlighting various Muslim stories across Route 66 and a history of Muslim stories that date back to the 1800s, I was surprised to learn the history extends that long.

Were you?

-Yeah, we were blown away.

We actually thought we knew something about Islam.

We thought we knew something about American history.

And actually what we learned was in some ways, the further west we went, the further back in time our sense of history.

And it actually goes back even further than that.

It goes back to the year 1500 when this man was born, Mustafa Azemmouri.

We hear his story on the Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico regarding the first African and the first Muslim to come to this land as an enslaved Moroccan.

His story is amazing.

And then about 120 years later, the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade actually included a large number of Muslims who were kidnapped as Africans and brought to this country, many of whom held on to their religion.

And we, like I said, had an inkling of some of this history, but we were really students at the feet of the scholars and historians and archaeologists who took their time to explain that.

And I really hope the viewers can learn with us because the journey was really as much education for us as it was for anything else.

-And that's neat because both of your histories have been involved in educating Americans about the Muslim population here, specifically the "Ask a Muslim" table that you set up in Massachusetts outside of a library, and that was following some terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and in Paris.

When you did that, Mona, what did you find people wanted to know, and what do you want people to know about being Muslim in the US or Islam?

-One thing that I hope is always conveyed is beyond language.

It's just an energetic.

It's a good feeling.

And that is when you spend time with a human being, you can truly meet them and know them.

And that was the entire intention behind the "Ask a Muslim" project.

It was that-- Sebastian always likes to share this quote.

It's that "You can't hate up close."

And when you really spend time with a person, you look into their eyes, you shake their hand, they become not a stranger anymore.

They become a friend, they become a beloved.

And when you have beloveds all around you, you're home everywhere you go.

And that was the experience that we hoped to share with our neighbors while we were living in that part of the country at the time, and we've taken that ethos with us everywhere we've gone.

We've lived in a great many places, and everywhere is home when you're surrounded by beloveds.

-Sebastian, when you converted to Islam, that was after you met Mona, why did you make that choice?

Had you been practicing a religion prior to that?

Yeah.

You know, I grew up-- My mom is a beautiful Christian believer.

I grew up going to church.

My dad's family is Jewish, and I have the whole spectrum of Jewish belief on that side.

So I really grew up with this very rich understanding of what God is and who God is.

And I spent a lot of my young adult life searching for my home and my path to God.

Mona was sort of this muse who appeared in my life and kind of just gave me the keys to this castle and said, look, I'm not your teacher.

I'm not going to encourage you to do this, but it's there if you want to explore.

And I'm grateful to her, and I'm grateful to have found a path.

You know, I think we're all on our own paths.

I think ultimately we're going to the same place.

And, yeah.

And I try to make my work and my life on this earth a part of that path.

-There was an interview that you did in 2017 where you said, " Islamophobia just wasn't the thing that it is today.

I don't know if I would have converted as readily or as publicly now as I did then."

Do you still feel that way?

How were you received during this trip?

-We were received beautifully, I have to say.

You know, I could go on and on about all the problems in the world, and I think anybody paying attention knows what they are.

No matter what you believe, you're afraid of something.

We're all afraid of each other.

And in some weird way, that gives us something in common, right?

We're all afraid of each other.

And if we can somehow leverage that commonality to say, hey, we're all actually feeling the same thing, we might be able to get somewhere.

But there's something about being a traveler that puts you in a very vulnerable, open, almost helpless situation, and people can respond to that in different ways.

People can take advantage of that, or they can open their arms and welcome you in and feed you and share stories.

And that's really what we felt from the beginning was this welcoming, this desire to know us, but also to have us know them.

And the trip was very charmed and blessed in a way.

And I think because we didn't go in with a hammer.

We didn't go in trying to educate anybody.

We went in very openhearted and almost innocently.

And that led to this series of beautiful encounters in just these wild places around the country.

-Mona, do you think that maybe Sebastian sometimes doesn't pick up on how you are received?

Are you received a little bit differently because of the hijab?

Also, I love your song, (singing) Wrap my hijab.

Wrap my hijab.

It stuck in my head.

I encourage everybody to go look on YouTube.

-Well, yeah.

I mean, I married a six-foot tall blue-eyed white man, and we're not going to have the same experience.

And I think that's just the reality of the world, that we all have our unique individual experiences.

And there is beauty in that because when we come together, we can learn from one another based on our individual unique perspectives.

But the thing that I love about Sebastian is that he's always curious about what my experience is.

And while we do have wildly different experiences out there in the world, he has showed up for me in all his beauty as a, you know, male with so much privilege.

And he's using his privilege as an investment into a more beautiful world.

And I think that's what it takes, you know, for each person to take what they have that they have been gifted in this world, whether we deserve it or not, and invest it into the world that we're hopeful about creating together that's more beautiful and more excellent and more generous and more kind.

Because, I don't know, if we're not doing that, I don't really know what we're doing.

So, yeah.

I mean he's, you know, he called me his muse; but in a way, I really respect the way that he shows up in this world, too.

-Last question for both of you.

You made a stop in Las Vegas.

What were your impressions of this city?

-It was in some ways the best, most profound stop.

And I'm not just saying this because this is coming to Las Vegas.

On the one hand, we met a man who holds the Guinness Book of World Records for head spinning.

He's just an incredible guy.

He was a performer with Cirque du Soleil.

He's from Belgian and Moroccan descent.

-But we had this transformative experience in Las Vegas where we met with the Muslim Village, and you would never know that they were there because they're right off the Strip, and it's this vibrant community where this woman saw a need for fresh fruits and vegetables in her community, went into her own pocket and filled up her trunk and went around giving away free food.

And that has blossomed into a practice that continues to today.

But now it's not just a trunk of a car, it's a community center, a mosque, a library, housing initiatives, job training, and so much more.

And we just walked away from that community so inspired by what they're doing and hopeful that we can learn from them and do similar work where we are.

-A transformational trip to Las Vegas.

Mona Haydar, Sebastian Robins, I so look forward to seeing that episode of the "Great Muslim American Road Trip."

Thank you for joining us.

-Thanks so much for having us.

-And joining us now to talk about living in Las Vegas as a Muslim are RJ Khalaf, an active member of the local Muslim community, as well as a licensed Islamic wedding chaplain, and Imam Fateen Seifullah, the imam of Las Vegas' oldest mosque, Masjid As-Sabur.

He is also the founder of the Muslim Village, which was featured in the "Great Muslim American Road Trip."

Gentlemen, thank you so much.

-Thank you so much.

-Thank you for having us here.

-Imam, the Muslim Village made quite an impact on the couple that we just featured.

Mona Haydar mentioned its beginnings with a woman who was bringing vegetables and fruits to the community, the Historic Westside.

Who was that woman?

-That woman was my wife, Nissa Seifullah.

She passed away in January, January 2nd.

But as Mona mentioned, she was an amazing person.

She was concerned about service and concerned about the people, and she pushed me for 20 years to engage with her.

-January of this year is when she passed away?

-Yes, ma'am.

-And how did she pass away?

-She passed away of COVID.

Her son also passed away a week before, Mark McLean.

And they both had COVID, they were at the house.

We were taking care of them.

She got COVID also and passed away.

-What would she think of what you're doing right now?

-She would be pleased.

And I can hear her every day saying, Seifullah--she would always call me by my last name, our last name--and say, "Do you know how big this is?"

So we're grateful, really, for Mona and Sebastian and the work that they did and shining light on the Muslim Village and her efforts.

-And they got to meet her.

-Oh, yeah.

They got to meet her.

And anybody that meets her, she becomes an instant marriage counselor, too.

Everybody wants to ask her about that.

And she was 20 years older than me.

So she was 70 and looked amazing.

So they would also ask her about that, what does she do to maintain the health?

-RJ, did you get to benefit from any of that marriage counseling?

I understand you both have known each other since he was a child.

You were raised in Las Vegas since, I believe, five years old?

-Yeah, absolutely.

So I moved to Las Vegas in about 2000, and I've known Imam Fateen and Nissa pretty much my entire memory of my life.

And so I have been receiving wisdom and counseling from both of them, both asked and unasked, from the beginning.

But they are both gems of our community, both for the Muslim community and for the Greater Las Vegas community.

I am very fortunate to have learned from them throughout my life.

-You brought up the word "gems."

And so I want to acknowledge that you are part of a family business, Kalifano, which sells gemstones, crystals, jewelry, are a long history in the US and, as I mentioned, you were raised here in Las Vegas.

We talked about your wife sharing one's wealth with the less fortunate, is a pillar of Islam, one of five.

How well known, as a whole, do you both believe Islam to be understood by non-Muslim Americans?

-I think it's growing.

There's much more interaction through services around the country.

Muslims are engaged in services, both civic and also as it relates to meeting the needs of the people on the ground.

There are Muslim clinics sprouting up all over, free Muslim clinics all over the country, food pantries.

And just to go back a little bit on the work that my wife was able to do, we were able to do because RJ and his family, they were always supported financially.

And so any of the good work that we've been able to do over the years, we've received tremendous help from families like RJ, the Kalifano family.

-How well do you believe Islam to be understood?

-I think it's similar to Imam's point.

It's becoming greater understood, and I think as a community, we are becoming better at expressing who we are in a proactive and active sense, rather than a defensive reactive sense.

The newer generation, we're becoming more and more unapologetically Muslim.

I think that's absolutely important as to defining who we are, not allowing any sort of narratives in the media to define us or anything external or fierce, but to say who we are and what we believe.

-When do you believe that change started happening, where you were defensive and now more proactive?

-I don't know if I could point out a specific moment in time.

But I think, at least in my own memory drawing on post-9/11, kind of growing up in this country, seeing the rise of the Donald Trump presidency-- And one of his claims to fame was a Muslim ban and stopping all migration of Muslims into this country.

For us and our allies to have the strength and the courage and conviction to stand up and to say, No Muslim ban.

No Muslim ban ever.

And our fight also goes back years and decades prior.

There is years with people like Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali within our own community who have stood up.

And so I believe that as a community, as we're addressing larger challenges within our community, both the Muslim community and with the larger Black community within this country, we're finding how intertwined our struggles are, and how we're drawing on the wisdom of each other to form coalitions to actually address the hatred that often comes from the same side of the coin.

-And I would also say to RJ's point, that his generation, they're fearless.

Muslim, non-Muslim, they're fearless, they're courageous, and they're not afraid to challenge the establishment.

So I would say it's maybe over the last 10 years with those individuals becoming young adults and looking at and thinking about the America that they want to see and the children that they want to raise in that environment.

-How does that courage compare to the courage that was exhibited by the Nation of Islam which is, I believe, how you were introduced to Islam?

- Yes.

It is very similar.

Although I would say that they are much more sophisticated.

The Nation of Islam was fearless.

The elders that we have at Masjid As-Sabur and around the country, they were people who made popular the terms "Allah" or "Mohammed" or "Islam" in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s.

So it wasn't foreign to the inner city.

The inner city knew of Islam and knew of Muslims.

What RJ and his generation has been able to do is to take it into the mainstream.

-RJ, tell our viewers where you were on September 11th.

How old were you?

-So I was five years old on September 11th.

I was-- September 11th happened the day before my first day of kindergarten.

And my first day of kindergarten was also the first day a local Islamic school opened up here in town, Omar Haikal Islamic Academy.

So my first day of kindergarten was September 12, 2001, at an Islamic school with the entire student population from kindergarten to eighth grade was only 26 students.

And so I remember very vividly, one, being kind of confused.

And that first day of kindergarten, there was police officers there, there was a fire department there, and there was a whole lot of stress and commotion that I really had no understanding of what was going on.

But after looking back, obviously, there was larger things going on, either threats or fears or concerns that was maybe potentially being happening against our own community or that small school.

But the only America that I've ever known was the post-9/11 America and some of the fallout and the misconceptions and misunderstanding that have happened as a result of that.

-Islamophobia, is that something that Black Muslims face?

-I would say not in the same way that Muslims who migrated here or the children of Muslims who migrated to this country.

African Americans tend to face some form of discrimination, and it may morph a little.

It may grow because of taking Islamic positions or donning Islamic dress, but our concern as African Americans have always been about the Muslim community as a whole.

And I remember 9/11 and thinking, we have to get over there and protect those children.

So that was our thoughts when we heard about it.

Someone called and said, Turn on the TV .

I think maybe it was the computer, and we saw the planes going into the buildings.

And then we started to think about RJ and those young people over there for the first day.

So, yeah, our concern has always been about the other.

-RJ, before you attended NYU, you went to Coronado High School, and you started the Muslim Student Association.

In 2013, you told the Review Journal that it was, quote, a safe place for Muslim kids to hang out without being judged.

What was the judgment then, and what's the judgment now, if anything?

-As far as I can remember now that it's almost been eight or nine years since, but I just remember inviting students to come to the Muslim Students Association.

And they would tell me yeah.

Sure, no problem.

Then they would go home and talk to their parents.

These are non-Muslim students, and their parents just say no.

You're not allowed to go.

And the next day in class asking, Hey, we have the meeting today after school.

Can you make it?

Sorry, my parents said I can't go.

And it was a very awkward and painful moment to recognize that you don't fully accept me for who I am, or at least your parents don't fully accept me for who I am.

And then along the way just as Muslim kids and kids in general, I think take on a lot of what their parents are saying at home.

And so a lot of times that is attributed to students in school.

And they express that interpersonally to one another, whether it's calling someone a terrorist, supposedly jokingly, or making fun of their name being Mohammed, or saying some sort of anti-Muslim slur against them, perhaps in jest, but nonetheless, the impact feels the same.

And so we wanted to give them the space where they can just come together, be who they are, find support amongst each other, but also invite our allies in so that we can also share who we are and what our religion and culture is all about.

-I want to make sure I get this in for both of you.

Living in Las Vegas as a devout Muslim, a city where gambling is legal, alcohol is promoted, what is it like to live in a city that on its surface is so contrary to your beliefs and what you are not allowed to do, gambling and alcohol being just two?

-First, if I may, just thinking about 9/11 and this community, the Las Vegas community, not just the Muslims, but as a whole, we've received tremendous support immediately after 9/11.

There were church members who would call and say, Do you need somebody to come stand outside of your mosque and protect you while you pray?

So Vegas is unique in that people think that it's a transient place and that it's just filled with people who are among the gambling population, but there are great people adhering to their belief system and also concerned about their fellow human beings.

And so we saw a lot of that, and we heard a lot of that.

And so living in Vegas while the gambling is here, we've often said that we want our light, the light of God consciousness to outshine the lights of the Strip.

And so we do that in our locale, and we do face challenges sometimes, you know, members who are struggling with gambling addiction and struggling with the impact of gaming itself, and we try to meet those concerns whenever we find them.

Sometimes we have to send people, non-Muslims, back home after they've lost all of their money gambling, and we get bus tickets for them and get them back to their families.

-Wow.

Very quickly, I know you're expecting a child, RJ.

What is Muslim life like in Las Vegas?

I mean, is it attractive for Muslim families to live here?

-I think it absolutely can be.

It's up to how you raise them.

As I think any Las Vegas local will tell you, there's a whole lot more to living in Las Vegas than the Strip.

And I think as long as my children can grow up in places like Muslim Village and learn from people like Imam Fateen, I'm excited about their future to grow up here.

-RJ, thank you so much.

July 23rd is where we are going to have you, Imam, on Nevada Week In Person at 6:30 p.m. And the Great Muslim American Road Trip reruns Sundays at 11 p.m., with Part 2 which includes the stop in Las Vegas debuting Tuesday, July 12th at 10 p.m.

Thank you so much for joining us for Nevada Week.

For any of the resources discussed, go to our website, vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek.

You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter @VegasPBS.

♪♪♪