(RNS) — Haris Tarin, the vice president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, had come to Capitol Hill with a group of interfaith leaders on Thursday (March 19) to confront House Speaker Mike Johnson and Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles about anti-Muslim statements Republican lawmakers have made in recent weeks. As Tarin left the Cannon House Office Building, he encountered Republican Florida Rep. Randy Fine, who a few weeks before had posted on X, “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”

“You’ve disparaged the community,” Tarin told Fine, who is also the co-sponsor of the “No Shari’ah” Act, a bill aimed at preventing Muslim law from being applied in the United States. 

As the 2026 midterm elections loom and the U.S. and Israel wage war with Iran, Republican leaders’ increasingly incendiary rhetoric against Muslims has focused on two assertions: that Islam is incompatible with U.S. political culture, and that the country’s approximately 4 million Muslims, about 1% of the country, are attempting to impose Islamic religious law on American communities.

On March 9, Ogles tweeted, “Muslims don’t belong in American society. Pluralism is a lie.” Asked about Ogles’ comment, Speaker Johnson claimed it resonated with many Americans. “The demand to impose Shariah law in America is a serious problem,” he told reporters. 

Exchanges like these prompted MPAC and the Interfaith Alliance, a First Amendment watchdog group, to go to Capitol Hill to create moral pressure on members of Congress to reject anti-Muslim sentiment. Tarin and the Rev. Paul Raushenbush, CEO of the Interfaith Alliance, were joined by Rabbi David Saperstein, former U.S. ambassador-at-large for religious freedom; and Sister Marie Lucey of the Franciscan Action Network, as well as roughly two-dozen other faith leaders.

The delegation left the offices a written prayer: “The promise of equality, freedom, liberty, dignity, justice in America is not just for some, but for all. Contrary to the claims being made by political leaders and public figures, we know Muslims are an integral part of the United States.” 

A flashpoint of conservative politics back in the 2010s, the claim that Muslim Americans seek to enforce Shariah in American courts gained renewed energy around Zohran Mamdani’s New York mayoral campaign last summer. Since then, House Republicans have formed a “Shariah Free America Caucus.” Co-chaired by Texas Republican Reps. Chip Roy and Keith Self, the caucus counts more than 50 members, including 10 from Texas, three from Florida, three from Arizona and three from Virginia. It has introduced two bills to ban Shariah.

In Oklahoma, Republican lawmakers have introduced a state bill that would ban Shariah.

Tarin and others say these efforts represent a cynical ploy to gain votes. “It has nationalized beyond New York and beyond Mamdani now because of this election cycle in 2026,” Tarin said in an interview. “We’re seeing dozens of candidates that are using Islamophobia and anti-Muslim and anti-Shariah rhetoric for their campaigns.” 

For Muslims, Shariah is sacred law that guides their personal lives. It includes rules for charity, prayer, pilgrimage, inheritance and marriage. Arabic for “the path to water,” Shariah also includes criminal law, though mainstream Muslim American scholars have consistently said that those laws can only be applied in Muslim countries with Shariah courts. 

The “No Shari’ah” Act, co-sponsored by Fine and Self, would prevent American courts from enforcing judgment based on Islamic law and other foreign legal systems. Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee has joined Fine and Self in introducing the “Preserving a Shariah Free America” Act to ban immigrants “who adhere to Sharia law” from the U.S. “America is facing an existential threat — the spread of Sharia Law,” Roy said in a press release. “From Texas to every state in the union, instances of Sharia Law adherents have threatened the American way of life, seeking to replace our legal system and Constitution with an incompatible ideology that diminishes the rights of women, children, and individuals of different faiths.” 

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights group, designated the Shariah Free America Caucus an “anti-Muslim hate group,” arguing it advanced legislation that would render the practice of Islam illegal in the U.S. 

At the “Sharia-Free America” congressional hearing held on Feb. 10, those against Shariah argued it poses a threat to “America’s founding principles.” The hearing, led by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, discussed both bills introduced by the GOP caucus. Robert Spencer, the director of the anti-Muslim blog “Jihad Watch” and co-founder of Stop Islamization of America, argued in his congressional testimony that Shariah presented a derogatory and hostile vision of non-Muslims. Krista Schild, the Texas director for the RAIR Foundation USA, which was called an anti-Muslim hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, claimed Shariah justified gender inequality. She also raised concerns over Shariah being “entrenched” in Texas and “operating across the state as a complete legal code controlling every private and public act.”

Texas has become a battleground for debates over Shariah, particularly last year, after the East Plano Islamic Center unveiled its project to establish a Muslim-centric community with residential units, a commercial area and schools on a 400-acre plot near Josephine, Texas. Following a request of Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, Attorney General Pam Bondi opened an investigation into alleged religious discrimination before dropping it. The developers were since ordered to halt any construction related to “EPIC City,” now known as “The Meadow.”

Asifa Quraishi-Landes, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in comparative Islamic and U.S. constitutional law, said Muslims’ view on a particular issue varies based on the school of Islamic jurisprudence they follow. “The phrase ‘Islamic law’ is the typical English translation, but it’s both over and under inclusive because it doesn’t exactly track to what Muslims think about when (they) think of Shariah,” she said. “The individual Muslim has within their authority, their power, to choose which school to follow in their exact life.”

The GOP caucus confuses Islamic scholars’ interpretations of the Quran, also called fiqh, with laws developed in Muslim-majority countries and rooted in Islamic principles, she said. “A Muslim in the United States doesn’t look to the norms of (Muslim-majority) countries to guide their life,” Quraishi-Landes said, adding, how a Muslim chooses to live their personal life is different from what they want from state laws.

When Islamic family law from abroad surfaces in American divorce or custody proceedings — in disputes over marriage contracts or child custody, for example — courts already have established procedures to reject any terms that conflict with the Constitution, Quraishi-Landes said. “The fear that Shariah is going to somehow override these systems is not true, because the system has worked to shut this down.” 

Just as Catholics resolve some disputes through ecclesiastical courts and Jews use rabbinical tribunals, Muslims have their own private arbitration bodies that apply religious principles. Quraishi-Landes warned that laws targeting that practice would not stop at Muslims. “We are a religiously plural country, and if we are insisting that every single family divorce dispute gets adjudicated by some kind of very watered down secular law that isn’t willing to take into account some tailoring for individual practice. … I think that’s a dangerous thing,” she said. 

Advocates against Shariah now argue immigration from Muslim-majority countries is one way Islamic law is gaining ground in America. The topic was less central in the anti-Shariah rhetoric of the 2010s, said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.

“It’s more mixed up with immigration now, because Trump has mixed up race with immigration, religion with immigration,” she said. 

In 2010, the establishment of Park51, an Islamic community center in lower Manhattan, fired up a network of anti-Muslim organizations and activists against Shariah. The center, dubbed the “Ground Zero mosque” by activists due to its proximity to Ground Zero, led to 201 anti-Shariah law bills being introduced in 43 states between 2010 and 2018. The movement also rallied around birtherism activists, who falsely alleged that then-President Barack Obama was born in Kenya and was a Muslim.

“This had sort of died down,” Beirich said. “It looks like Republicans have decided to glom back onto the Muslim fear strategy.”

The caucus signals that the movement’s ideas have become mainstream and that the Republican Party leans heavier toward extremism. “There doesn’t seem to be anybody in the GOP, really, who’s saying ‘knock this off,’” Beirich said. “It’s a very different Republican Party today. It’s Trump’s party.”

MPAC’s Tarin said these anti-Muslim campaigns are taking a toll on the community, which has seen mosques vandalized and faith leaders attacked. “It’s causing profound angst, anxiety and emotional strain—impacting our communities at a level I haven’t seen even in the aftermath of 9/11.”

State Rep. Salman Bhojani, who represents Texas’ 92nd District, condemned the fact that Shariah was dominating debates in the Republican Texas primaries. But the election is designed to tap into concerns of the Republican base, he said, adding that Shariah has been used “as sort of that red meat or that bait for their voters to get more votes and attract more political attention.”

But despite misrepresentations, Bhojani credits his Muslim faith as a reason for his political engagement.

“I’m doing it because I had the love of the community, because God has told me to ‘Love thy neighbor, to help the vulnerable fight against injustice for the oppressed,’ and that is part of Shariah law,” he said.

Jack Jenkins contributed to this reporting.