In Texas, where barbecue carries the weight of cultural identity, Muslim pitmasters are quietly rewriting who belongs to that tradition. By integrating halal practices into the long, patient craft of smoking meat, they are not challenging Texas barbecue so much as deepening it — adding new hands, new blessings, and new stories to an ancient human ritual. This is happening not in spite of rising anti-Muslim sentiment in the state, but alongside it, suggesting that shared meals may accomplish what argument cannot.