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Calculated prayer times · ISNA method · local iqamah may differIndependent · Houston, Texas · Founded 2026
Research · Explainers · Reporting on Islam and Muslim life in Texas
From the founder
Texas Muslim’s new tracker gives people a place to report anti-Muslim incidents, read reviewed public accounts and follow what happens next. Voting and elections are its first featured category.
By Omar Afra ·
Community reporting
Report anti-Muslim incidents, explore reviewed public accounts and find independent voting-rights help.
Opinion / Sourced analysis
Texas politicians have turned mosques, Muslim schools, housing developments and history lessons into political battlegrounds. November will help determine who wields power over education, state courts and the public programs where those fights become policy—with religious liberty, equal treatment and the limits of government power at stake far beyond the governor’s race.
By Omar Afra · October 24, 2026
From the founder
Apparently, our neighbors believe we have a centuries-long plan to conquer Texas. Respectfully, this theory has problems with arithmetic, logistics, and motive. We love Texas. Don't be silly.
By Omar Afra
Opinion / Sourced analysis · October 18, 2026
Housing, schooling and burial have become fronts in a struggle over equal treatment. Court records and new research show why winning access does not erase the cost of fighting for it.
By Omar Afra
Read the sourced analysis →Editorial · Elections
Democrats learned over Gaza that Muslim votes aren’t theirs to inherit. Texas Republicans have spent the past year treating Muslim institutions like enemy territory. Now, with the governor’s mansion and a U.S. Senate seat suddenly in play, that might prove to be one of the costliest political wagers in Texas.
By Omar Afra · October 9, 2026
Texas Muslim Voter Guide
Compare candidates in 18 statewide races, read the sourced record and build a private ballot for Election Day.
Interview · October 7, 2026
Interview by Omar Afra
Pat Dixon answers ten questions on religious liberty, Muslim Texans’ rights, school choice, surveillance, and the limits of state power.
Read the full interview →Opinion / Commentary · October 15, 2026
Documented funding networks, political campaigns, and fabricated grassroots outrage reveal an organized assault on Muslim belonging. Texans who value liberty should recognize what is being sold to them.
By Omar Afra
Apparently, our neighbors believe we have a centuries-long plan to conquer Texas. Respectfully, this theory has problems with arithmetic, logistics, and motive. We love Texas. Don't be silly.
By Omar Afra
Being Muslim and being Texan are not opposing identities. There is no contradiction to reconcile.
By Omar Afra
From Testset
Reporting and commentary on Islamophobia, religious freedom and Muslim civic life in Texas.
A Testset dossier by Omar Afra.
Open the dossierFrom Testset
By Omar Afra ·
History · Estevanico, 1528–1539
An enslaved Moroccan reached the Texas coast in 1528—308 calendar years before the Republic. His extraordinary journey, uncertain religious history and the records that refuse to fit a tidy origin story.
By Omar Afra
Texas, on a plate
Halal barbecue is not a novelty but a growing, deeply rooted Texas tradition. This source-checked directory distinguishes fully halal operators from mixed-menu kitchens offering selected halal meats while honoring the culture behind both approaches.
Start here
You don’t have to know everything. You just need somewhere to begin.
Early African connections, Black Muslim congregations, immigration, music and civic life in Texas.
Why do Muslims pray five times a day? What does the Qur’an say about Jesus (PBUH) and Mary? Start with the questions that come up between neighbors.
Research
A European refugee episode cannot stand in for Muslim America. Neither can American professionals erase refugees, family migration or the differences within Europe.
A speech, a headline, a rumor passed along as fact. We check what was said against the law, the numbers and the original sources.
Read the statutory scope
Dates and methods matter
A specific doctrine is being overgeneralized
See Claims & Facts Search the Evidence Desk Compare scholarships for Muslim students Nationwide scholarships
Sharia. Halal. Jihad. Familiar from the headlines, often missing an explanation. Here’s what the words mean, how Muslims use them, and where interpretations differ.
Sharia is the broad Islamic idea of a path of right living. It includes worship and ethics as well as questions addressed by jurists; it is not one universally applied statute book.
Fiqh is human jurisprudence: scholarly interpretation of Islamic sources. Distinguishing it from Sharia makes disagreement, reasoning and change visible.
Jihad means striving or exertion in relation to God. It has spiritual, ethical and, in some contexts, armed meanings; neither all terrorism nor only inner peace defines it adequately.
Taqiyya concerns concealment or dissimulation, especially under threat. It is not a general permission for every Muslim to deceive every non-Muslim.
Halal means permitted in Islamic practice. On a menu it concerns ingredients and preparation, not a cuisine or a requirement that customers adopt a religion.
An Islamic tradition of spiritual discipline, remembrance and ethical self-examination—not a separate religion or simply an aesthetic.
From everyday greetings to questions of faith and law.
Full glossaryReference
Reference guides, data, directories, and public records on Muslim life in Texas. New here? Start with Islam in Texas: mosques, history, Sharia law claims and civic life.
Almanac
Population estimates, mosque counts and institutional data—with definitions, dates and a practical source ledger.
Atlas
Regional guides to the institutions people actually use: mosques, schools, campuses, cultural spaces, clinics and burial services.
Schools
Compare source-checked Islamic school organizations and programs by region, published scope, operator and named accreditor.
Funerals
A practical starting point for Muslim funeral services, burial and Texas requirements.
Records
Timelines and documents for Texas laws, investigations and public claims involving Islam.
Campus
Official university pages for Muslim student organizations, prayer information and campus programs.
Voting this November? Compare every statewide candidate in the interactive 2026 voter guide. The separate Texas voting instructions collect deadlines, ID rules and mail-ballot steps from the state's election pages.
Reference
Looking for a mosque or a local Muslim organization? Find addresses, contact details and official websites for communities in Houston and North Texas.
Who publishes this
Omar Afra is a Houston publisher, founder of Free Press Houston and publisher of Testset and Live Index. He started Texas Muslim to challenge lies about Islam and write about the faith and everyday life of the place he calls home.
He writes and edits here as a publisher, not as a religious authority. Scholarly and legal questions are referred to named outside sources on the page where they arise.
Disclosures
