Author: Leah Fabel

  • Spice Road

    Though Minneapolis is seven thousand miles from Mecca, the heart of Islam, that holy place is not far from many hearts that live and work along Central Avenue. This street, which begins in Northeast Minneapolis and runs north into Fridley, is the center of the Twin Cities’ Muslim population, which numbers about seventy-five thousand, according…

  • Syria, Somalia, and Soccer

    On a warm Friday evening, most of the lights were out at the Coffman Union bookstore on the U of M campus. In the back, though (the place is the size of a department store), a hundred chairs were set up and people milled about, greeting one another and conversing in English, Arabic, and Somali.…