SAO PAULO // In a rundown Sao Paulo street, squeezed between a graffiti-covered sports bar and a dilapidated unisex hairdressers, lies a little haven of Islamic tranquillity.
Here, while Brazil is rushing to be ready in time for next month’s Fifa World Cup, staff at the Federation of Muslim Associations in Brazil (Fambras) are calmly preparing their own warm welcome for the 600,000 foreign football fans expected to arrive in the coming weeks.
Fambras has several initiatives to “help dispel prejudice and ignorance of Islam”, said Ali Hussein El Zoghbi, the federation’s Brazil-born vice-president.
