Detroit, USA - Across from the burned-out house on Marlborough Street, behind a tall cyclone fence with a lock and chain on the gate, sits a single-family home -- clean, well-kept and full of praying Muslims.
"At first, we organized amongst ourselves and worshipped in different rooms of each other's houses," said Biodun Yinusa, 49, a construction contractor from Detroit and the president of the mosque. "Then we decided when we grew so much in numbers that we can't be in each other's houses. We were able to get this place. We bought it from HUD through the city and we did all kinds of work on it ourselves, improvements, to serve as a mosque."
But the immigrants from Nigeria are on the move, again -- along a path well-traveled by Muslim communities in Detroit since the first decades of the last century. They opened a new mosque Sunday, the Muslim Community Center of Detroit, in the former shop of a trophy manufacturer on West McNichols, just in time for the start of Ramadan, which begins today.
For Muslims, it is the holiest month of the year, during which they believe God began to reveal the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad.
Metro Detroit may be in a long recession and the United States may be viewed dimly by much of the world, especially Muslim countries. But for a group of Muslims from Nigeria, the country remains a beacon and the city a place where they hope to spread their faith. The immigrants are making the most of opportunities here, earning college degrees, working as professionals and setting up places of worship and charity in hardscrabble neighborhoods in America's poorest city.
"No matter what anyone says, this is still the land of opportunity," said Noa Fasina, a mechanical engineer from Pittsfield Township and the treasurer of the mosque. "Just like any other person, when we see an opportunity to come to the United States, of course, we come."
Nigeria is a complex country in which religious groups are sometimes in violent conflict and in which the well-educated do not always find opportunities for their livelihood.
Many of the Muslims from Nigeria who worship in the mosque were allowed into the country in the 1990s as permanent residents, workers in fields for which there was a documented demand in the United States. And, here, they are trying to establish Islam in America.
The Nigerians say they believe the work that God calls them to is in the city of Detroit. They engaged in outreach in the East Side neighborhood and they expect to serve a growing community of Muslim health care professionals and business owners near West McNichols and Schaefer, near the DMC Sinai-Grace Hospital, where a lot of Muslims work.
"We are here in the city because this is where Islam is needed by our brothers and sisters," Yinusa said.
"We see the city as a central place, with a lot of opportunities for us to expand our faith, rather than in the suburbs," Fasina said.
It is a well-traveled path for the Muslim communities, which have now set up more than 50 mosques in the city, according to a University of Michigan scholar who produced an exhibit on the history of mosques in Detroit, "Building Islam in Detroit," which opened Friday at the Muslim Center of Detroit, 1605 W. Davison.
"There tends to be a pattern," said Sally Howell, a U-M graduate student and curator. "Even today, a mosque that started in a coffee shop or a home moves to a storefront when it becomes affordable and then to an old church, perhaps, if that is available.
"We are really seeing a wave of this happening for the past 10 years," Howell said. "It has been remarkable. I would say well over 20 mosques have opened in the last five years."
The Nigerians intend to worship with more people than just immigrants from their former country. African-Americans and people of Arab descent worshipped in the mosque on Marlborough.
They have had an impact in the neighborhood, supporting local causes, providing food for the poor and even paying for the burial of a man who had no living relatives.
The new mosque on McNichols is in the former Spike Lawrence Inc. building in the heart of a burgeoning business strip that has been revitalized by African immigrants, including Muslims from Senegal, Nigeria and other African countries, and a host of Muslim health care professionals, who work at the hospital.
With no other mosque in a two-mile radius, Fasina said, the new mosque is likely to the site of worship for Muslims from many countries, as well as the American-born. It also will provide space for study, a community center and activities for Muslim youths.
Muslims believe that worship and charitable acts during Ramadan are especially rewarded. During the month, observant Muslims do not eat or drink from sunrise to sunset in an act of sacrifice intended to encourage patience and humility. Prayers, charity and responsibility are stressed, and acts of kindness and worship garner far greater rewards from God than during the rest of the year.
"We did not decide to open the mosque during Ramadan," said Mufutau Adegunlola of Belleville, a pharmacist and the vice president of the mosque. "God the almighty -- Allah -- has decided that this is the best time to open up a mosque so that all Muslims, not just Nigerians, but all Muslims, will have the opportunity to witness the month of Ramadan and come to the masjid. This is a very good month for all Muslims to be there."