President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he would “absolutely” prohibit Sharia law in the United States, joining a growing number of Republican lawmakers pushing measures aimed at preventing Islamic law from superseding American law.
“You do have pockets of it,” Trump told Glenn Beck, founder of Blaze Media. “You go to London, you go to Paris — it’s almost like their second way of life. … I would absolutely prohibit the Sharia law thing. … You have to take it out.”
Several GOP lawmakers have similarly called for restrictions on the application of Sharia law in the United States.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN), who joined the Sharia Free America Caucus earlier this year, has said that “Sharia is completely incompatible with the American way of life and threatens the very fabric of our society.”
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) introduced legislation in October to ban Sharia Law in the United States.
“Sharia law is fundamentally anti-American and has no place in our country,” Tuberville said. “If you want to peacefully practice your religion, you have every right to do so under the Constitution. But if you want to come to the United States and advocate for the practice of Sharia law over U.S. law, you should not be here.”
Tuberville’s No Sharia Act would prohibit courts from enforcing judgments, decrees, or contracts based on foreign laws when doing so would violate constitutional rights. It would also bar the application of foreign law in matters including marriage, divorce, custody, adoption, and inheritance when it conflicts with U.S. law.
Some applications of Sharia have previously come into conflict with American law. In 2008, Maryland’s highest court refused to recognize a husband’s unilateral divorce under Pakistani law incorporating Islamic law because doing so would have allowed him to avoid Maryland’s rules governing the distribution of marital property.
Traditional interpretations of Sharia law can also differ from American law on marriage, divorce, inheritance, and the legal rights of men and women. For example, a man may have as many as four wives, while a woman may have only one husband. Men can also initiate divorce without establishing fault, while women generally face greater restrictions. In some legal proceedings, a woman’s testimony may receive less weight because of her gender, whereas American courts evaluate witnesses under the same standards regardless of sex. Sharia law also traditionally imposes stricter dress requirements on women than on men.
The debate over Sharia has also surfaced in the Michigan Senate race following renewed attention to comments Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed made as a 24-year-old medical student.
El-Sayed discussed his Islamic faith with The New York Times in 2009 while explaining his decision to use a Sharia-compliant mortgage, which was structured to avoid the payment of interest prohibited by Islamic law.
“Ultimately, the question is, when I die and I stand before God and go through everything I did in my life, I don’t want to say I did it the easy way instead of the Shariah-compliant way,” El-Sayed said. “Not because of fear but because of obligation.”
El-Sayed has repeatedly defended his adherence to Sharia while maintaining that his religious beliefs would not be imposed on others.
The renewed debate comes as the number of Muslim elected officials in the United States has grown. A total of 255 Muslims now hold elected office across multiple levels of government.
“This record-breaking number represents far more than a statistic. It reflects an American Muslim community that is increasingly engaged, organized, and committed to serving our nation,” said Executive Director Nihad Awad of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
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