Let’s get one thing straight: anyone who’s actually raised animals knows pigs are scavengers—opportunistic eaters that historically cleaned up refuse. If “you are what you eat” applies to animals, then pork has always sat in a different category from creatures that graze or hunt cleanly. That’s not moral panic; it’s a reality farmers understood long…

The market was loud with color—linen, cotton, silk—each stall a small theology of cloth. Layla ran a thumb along a bolt of soft sand-colored fabric.“What do you want this to say?” the tailor asked.“Not look at me,” she said. “More like see me rightly.” They both knew the answer wasn’t a cut or a color.…

When we say “God,” the mind tries to point somewhere—usually “up.” I carried that picture for years. But the Qur’an keeps steering me away from directions and into presence. God is not in the sky or heaven or in upwards direction, he is omnipresent Two verses anchor this for me:“We created the human being and…