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Part One: Roots

23 issues

October 2, 2026

The Moor's Account, Week 6: Embraced as a Brother, Counted as Property

Cover of The Moor's Account by Laila Lalami The rumor of last week becomes this week's dinner table, and the question becomes the oldest one the book asks: who decides who counts as a person? Hunger goes first. October 2, 2026

Minaret, Week 4: Hands That Do Not Tremble

Cover of Minaret by Leila Aboulela The last step left her on a bus; this one puts her back to work in a household where faith is both an obligation and a wage. Notice where faith actually lives here — in an open book and an abandoned prayer mat, traces a servant can read precisely because she owns nothing in the room. October 2, 2026

The Moor's Account, Week 5: The Raft and the Rumor

Cover of The Moor's Account by Laila Lalami Last week the market taught us that a mark can move off the iron and onto a body. This week the water takes the mark away again, and the question becomes: what actually holds a hierarchy upright? October 2, 2026

Minaret, Week 3: The Ablution Stool and the Bus Seat

Cover of Minaret by Leila Aboulela Once she is inside the house, the book widens outward, and that widening is this step. Follow the labour first. October 2, 2026

The Moor's Account, Week 4: The Mark Moves Off the Iron

Cover of The Moor's Account by Laila Lalami From rooms where things are handed down, we step into the square where people are handed over. This is the week the book stops asking what a family keeps and starts asking what is written on a body. October 2, 2026

Minaret, Week 2: The Gate the Watchman Opens

Cover of Minaret by Leila Aboulela The house of the last step now meets a state. A government lets students print what they like while quietly keeping a file on them, and a young woman learns that being noticed is one of the ways you become endangered. October 2, 2026

The Moor's Account, Week 3: The Whip and the Aunt's Hands

Cover of The Moor's Account by Laila Lalami Step two showed us the machinery out in the open air — the nodding, the counting, the writing down. This week the book moves indoors, into the rooms where a boy actually grows up, and the question changes. October 2, 2026

Minaret, Week 1: The Minaret Over the Low Ceiling

Cover of Minaret by Leila Aboulela Begin where the book begins: a woman in London under a low ceiling, and above the roofs a minaret she can still see. She has accepted a sentence and she is still hungry. October 2, 2026

The Moor's Account, Week 2: A Governor's Nod, a Pebble of Gold

Cover of The Moor's Account by Laila Lalami Last week's question was who holds the pen. This week, how far that pen reaches. October 2, 2026

The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf

Cover of The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf by Mohja Kahf Mohja Kahf, 2006. Growing up in a devout 1970s Indianapolis Muslim community, from rigid certainty to a more capacious faith.