How Texas Muslim reports: a reader's guide

Texas Muslim publishes research, plain-language explainers and reporting about Islam and Muslim life in Texas. It is written for two audiences at once: ordinary readers who want a straight answer, and reporters who need to know where an answer came from before they repeat it.

The publication was founded and is initially financed by Omar Afra, a Houston-based publisher and cultural entrepreneur. He is the founder and editor. He is not an imam, a professor, a credentialed Islamic scholar, a lawyer, or an accredited institution, and nothing here should be read as a religious ruling or legal advice.

What we publish

• Explainers: short, sourced answers to questions people actually ask, with the disagreements left visible rather than smoothed over.
• Research notes: longer work that states its method, its geographic and time scope, and its limits.
• Glossary entries: terms that get used loosely in Texas public argument, defined with primary sources.
• Cultural reference: Muslim life in Texas as it is lived, including food, neighbourhoods and institutions.

How a page moves from draft to published

Every record in our content system carries two separate flags. One is publication status — draft, in review, or published. The other is editorial review status — whether a human editor has actually read and checked the body copy.

Sourcing rules

1. Link the primary document, not a summary of it, whenever a primary document exists.
2. Quote sparingly and paraphrase carefully. We do not reproduce long translations of scripture in place of sending you to the text.
3. Attribute statements by public officials with the exact words, the date and the setting, and link the original record.
4. Distinguish what a text says from what is independently established as history.
5. Where our sources disagree, say so in the body rather than picking a winner silently.

What we decline to print

• Numerical truth ratings on complex claims. We publish the evidence and the disagreement instead.
• Motive attribution presented as fact, including in our coverage of anti-Muslim political rhetoric.
• Candidate ratings, endorsements or partisan labels.
• Crime, immigration or demographic claims that treat nationality or country of birth as a proxy for religion. They are not the same variable, and we will not infer one from the other.
• Comparisons between United States and European migration that do not specify country, cohort, admission category, year and known limitations.
• Unverified halal certifications, addresses, hours, prices or ratings for any business.

Corrections

Errors are corrected on the page, with a dated note explaining what changed. We do not quietly edit a claim out of existence. The corrections policy is published in full and is linked from every page footer.

Ownership and conflicts

Omar Afra also publishes Testset and Live Index, and founded Free Press Houston. Those are affiliated publications under common ownership. When we reference them, we say so, and we do not present them as independent corroboration of our own work. Texas Muslim is not a government office, a state research body, an accredited institution or a nonprofit, and it is not an independent source about its own founder.