When Texas Governor Greg Abbott called on 19 November for a formal investigation into what he described as “Sharia courts”, he did so without presenting any evidence, complaints, or legal violations. It was a political performance.
There are no Sharia courts in Texas. There are only voluntary arbitration bodies for Muslims that operate within the same framework used by Jewish “Beth Din” courts and Christian arbitration services.
Nonetheless, Abbott wrote in a letter sent to prosecutors and sheriffs demanding an investigation:
“Religious protections in the Constitution give no authority to religious courts to supersede federal or state law simply because judges wear robes and issue rulings that contradict Western civilisation”, insinuating that Muslims are secretly constructing a parallel legal system.
This was not law enforcement. It was political theatre designed to incite fear.
A day earlier, on 18 November, Abbott issued an executive order designating the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) the largest civil rights organisation for Muslims in the United States as a “foreign terrorist organisation”.
The order was not based on any crimes, violence, conspiracies, or legal precedents. It was a sweeping allegation claiming that an American civil rights organisation posed a national security threat.
Lawyers quickly pointed out that Abbott has no legal authority to designate organisations as “foreign terrorist”; that power belongs solely to the federal government. But again, legal accuracy was never the goal.
It was an ineffective order meant to send a political message rather than enact a legal step. It was designed to portray American Muslims and their institutions as suspicious, and their civic participation as a security threat.
Republicans are not the only ones who fuelled this fear. Major newspapers, liberal politicians, and even civil rights institutions have at times adopted the same underlying framework that depicts Islamic Sharia as “foreign”.
Political manoeuvres built on false claims
Abbott’s actions are only the latest expression of a long history of manufactured American panic that transforms ordinary aspects of Muslim life into an “existential threat”. This discourse has operated for decades, repeatedly using “Sharia” as a political weapon.
For example, in the late 2000s, activists such as David Yerushalmi, along with organisations like ACT for America, led a coordinated national campaign pushing legislators across the country to introduce “anti Sharia” bills.
In the early years of the following decade, more than 40 states considered laws preventing courts from applying “foreign law”, a coded term widely understood to mean “Islamic Sharia”.
In the most extreme example, voters in Oklahoma approved a constitutional amendment banning Sharia and the application of international law. When the law was challenged, a federal judge blocked it.
Legal challenges both in that case and others revealed that these measures were not responses to real legal issues but political manoeuvres. Nonetheless, the broader campaign succeeded in embedding the idea that Muslim religious practice was a national security threat, paving the way for later escalations including Abbott’s recent actions.
Months before Abbott’s call to investigate “Sharia courts”, a Muslim led housing development project in Texas was targeted by a Department of Justice investigation, and was labelled online as a “Sharia colony”.
Residents were told the neighbourhood would be governed by Islamic law, that non Muslims would be excluded, and that the project was part of an “Islamic takeover”. All those claims were false: the project was open to everyone and simply sought to address the area’s housing crisis.
The Department of Justice closed the investigation in June after finding no legal violations. But in September, Abbott signed a law banning “Sharia settlements” in Texas.
This pattern is not confined to Texas. In Tennessee, opponents of a mosque in Murfreesboro argued that Islam “is not a religion” and therefore does not deserve First Amendment protection. This argument contradicted centuries of constitutional understanding, but that was irrelevant. The purpose was to cast Muslim religious life as legally illegitimate.
In Dearborn, Michigan home to one of the oldest Arab and Muslim communities in the United States false rumours repeatedly circulated claiming the city had been “taken over by Sharia law”.
Fabricated videos, manipulated headlines, and images taken from other countries were used to create the illusion of “Islamic rule on American soil”. Fact checking reports debunked these claims, yet the rumours continued to spread.
A prominent Muslim candidate was also targeted during his campaign: New York City mayor elect Zohran Mamdani faced racist stereotypes and conspiracy theories accusing him of planning to impose “Sharia rule” if elected.
Although his agenda contained no religious elements focusing instead on public transport, housing, and police accountability his Muslim identity made him a “Trojan horse” in the eyes of those who believe in Sharia panic.
And Republicans are not alone in fuelling this hysteria. Major newspapers, liberal politicians, and even civil rights institutions have sometimes adopted the same narrative framing Sharia as “foreign”, “political”, or “incompatible with American values”. By accepting this framework even when they claim to oppose it they implicitly legitimise the architecture of Islamophobia.
Historical links
These repeated incidents reveal a consistent pattern: panic over Sharia has nothing to do with law, security, or constitutional principles. It is about an identity struggle in a country facing demographic transformation. It is about who is allowed to be “American”, and who will always remain suspect.
The panic resurfaces again and again not because it reflects genuine concerns but because it is an effective tool for mobilising voters, policing civic belonging, and justifying surveillance and government intervention.
What makes this even more ironic is that Sharia, as understood by Muslim scholars for centuries, bears little resemblance to the caricature promoted in American politics. In Arabic, the word “Sharia” means “the path to water”, a metaphor for spiritual and moral sustenance.
It is a broad moral framework concerned with justice, public welfare, and accountability. Its core objectives known as the Maqasid al Sharia aim to protect life, intellect, religion, property, and human dignity. It includes sophisticated principles such as istihsan (juristic preference), maslaha (public interest), and urf (custom). These are similar to balancing mechanisms familiar to Western legal systems.
Sharia is not an alien legal code. Its structure intersects with Western legal traditions. Professor John Makdisi, in a seminal article in the North Carolina Law Review, demonstrated that several foundations of English common law closely resemble Islamic legal institutions, with these influences likely transmitted through Norman Sicily.
These historical links matter not because they erase distinctions between legal systems but because they highlight the absurdity of claiming that Sharia is inherently incompatible with Western governance.
America once recognised this legacy. When the US Supreme Court building was inaugurated in 1935, it was adorned with a marble frieze depicting the world’s greatest lawgivers among them the Prophet Muhammad holding the Quran, symbolising justice and moral authority. Today, simply mentioning this historical fact is enough to provoke outrage.
Weaponising fear
The new wave of Sharia panic is not about Islam entering American courts but about Islam entering American civic life. It is about Muslim political participation, developing Muslim communities, building institutions, and representation all of which are reframed as “existential threats”.
As the country enters a new election cycle marked by anti pluralist rhetoric, conspiracies targeting Muslims, and attacks on Middle East studies programmes, Sharia becomes a flexible vessel into which deeper anxieties are poured: fear of a diverse America.
The real danger is not Sharia. The real danger is the political machinery that turns ordinary American Muslims into objects of suspicion, targets of state power, and instruments in a culture war they did not choose.
If Americans should fear anything, it is not Islamic Sharia. It is the weaponisation of fear itself.
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