Gov. Greg Abbott took time during a bill signing event this month to scold a Houston imam he said was trying to force Muslim-owned businesses to follow Sharia law.

“To be clear, Texas law and Texas courts govern those businesses and those neighborhoods,” Abbott said. “No ranting imam can change that.”

The governor appeared to be referencing F. Qasim ibn Ali Khan, whose campaign against Muslim-owned businesses that sell products forbidden in Islam, like alcohol, pork and lottery tickets,has gone viral among right-wing activists warning of “Sharia patrols” in Texas. Abbott said the Texas Department of Public Safety is investigating, though it is unclear what laws Khan may be violating.

The governor and other top Republicans have increasingly targeted Sharia law in recent months, resurfacing an issue that has long fueled right-wing, Christian nationalist conspiracies of an Islamic takeover. This week, President Donald Trump told the United Nations that was just what is happening in London, which elected a Muslim mayor in 2016: “Now they want to go to Sharia law,” Trump said.

In Texas, Sharia has become a buzzword in GOP primaries, including the race for attorney general, where candidates including U.S. Rep. Chip Roy and Aaron Reitz, a former Department of Justice appointee, have both vowed to fight it.

“I don’t think Texas should be subject to the advancement of Sharia and radical Islamists, who are undermining western civilization,” Roy said Thursday in an appearance on Fox Business.

Experts say the rhetoric is playing on a deep misunderstanding of Sharia law and appears to be part of a broader effort by Republicans to create a new foe as polling shows concerns about the border have largely evaporated.

“I really do think that we have political leaders and a political movement who are looking for enemies to target,” said Mark Chancey, a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University, adding that it “misrepresents who fellow Texans are.”

Chancey said Sharia law is religious law in the same way that Torah governs Judaism. Both lay out a broad set of principles and address matters like how to pray and what is an appropriate diet.

“Sharia is all-encompassing in the same way that Torah is all-encompassing — and there is ample room for both in the American system of religious freedom,” Chancey said.

Khan did not respond to multiple requests for comment, but in videos circulating online, he has described the boycott as a response to Muslim-owned businesses he believes are “disrespecting the religion” by selling haram in “poor, Black neighborhoods.”

“If they weren’t Muslim it wouldn’t matter, they do whatever they want to,” he said. “But if they call themselves Muslim, then they should have a responsibility.”

Much of the concern this year from Texas Republicans has centered on a mosque near Dallas that they warn is planning to build a “Sharia city.”

Abbott unleashed a blitz of state agencies on the development and the East Plano Islamic Center, the mosque associated with it, accusing EPIC of having “serious legal issues,” even as developers said they had yet to move beyond the planning stages.

Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an investigation into EPIC, while U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican whom Paxton is challenging in the upcoming primary, called on the U.S. Department of Justice to step in. The DOJ opened and closed an investigation without finding any wrongdoing.

Nonetheless, state lawmakers passed a law in June prohibiting religious discrimination in developments like EPIC, in which a business entity sells shares in the company rather than actual property. The law itself did not specifically target Sharia law.

The company behind EPIC said in a statement that they support the legislation, and that it doesn’t change their “business structure, future sales processes, or investor rights.”

“Anyone is welcome to buy and live there,” Dan Cogdell, attorney for the project, told CBS News earlier this year. “This is nothing more than a political opportunity for Abbott and others to claim they defeated an evil that never existed.”

Abbott touted the new law when he called out Khan earlier this month, saying it would block developers from “creating Sharia compounds and endangering Texans.” In response to questions from a reporter at the event, Abbott defined Sharia law as “requiring people to comply with either the rules of Sharia, the rules of Islam, the rules of a local mosque.”

“To be clear, you need to read only one thing: the Texas Constitution,” Abbott said. “The Texas Constitution prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion — period.”

In a post on X, the governor urged his followers to report “ANYONE” who “attempts to impose Sharia compliance” to law enforcement.

The focus on Sharia comes as Republicans appear to be searching for a new rallying point after concerns about border security — which long dominated GOP politics — have faded, said Josh Blank, a political scientist at the University of Texas at Austin.

“One of the key features of our current polarized partisan political environment is that both sides are always looking for an enemy,” Blank said. “For Democrats, this is very straightforward at the moment — it’s Donald Trump, Greg Abbott and the leaders of the Republican Party. For Republicans, this question has become more complicated.”

Polling by UT Austin’s Texas Politics Project found the share of Republicans who say immigration and border security is the most important problem for the state was just 27% in August. That was down from as high as 68% last February.

“Donald Trump’s central issue, which was the primary issue for most Republicans and certainly most Republican voters, has been taken off the political menu,” Blank said. Democrats also have no clear frontrunner or leader of the party, so “absent a clear opposition, the opposition becomes more diffuse and somewhat random but still familiar: Democratic-run cities, colleges and universities, the media — and now, Sharia law,” he said.

Civil rights groups warn the rhetoric can have consequences. The Council on American-Islamic Relations’s Houston office has seen an uptick in complaints about discrimination, now getting two or three a day, said Imran Ghani, the group’s director.

“The governor’s targeting affects Muslims’s safety, our sense of inclusion and our sense of citizenship,” Ghani said. “Despite being part of the fabric of Houston culture — as business owners, as physicians, as lawyers, as contributing citizens — this kind of rhetoric affects our sense of belonging in Houston, and more broadly, in American culture.”

CAIR has urged Abbott to visit a mosque to learn about Sharia.

“We’re very willing to have a dialogue to educate the governor and not to escalate conflict,” Ghani said.

A leading Muslim civil rights and advocacy group urged Gov. Greg Abbott to visit a mosque after it accused him of “fearmongering about Islam.”

The call from the Council on American-Islamic Relations comes after Abbott’s press office posted a statement on X Monday claiming Sharia law and “Sharia cities” are banned in the state.

“In Texas, we believe in equal rights under the law for all men, women, & children,” the statement read. “Any legal system that flouts human rights is BANNED in the state of Texas.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations’ national office and Texas chapter defined Sharia as meaning “the way to water,” and compared it to Jewish Texans following Halacha and Catholic Texans following Canon law. Similar to the traditions in those faiths, Islamic teachings include rules on burial practices, estate distribution and other guidelines that hold legal value as long as they do not violate public policy, the organization said in its statement.

“When Texas Muslims pray to God five times a day, donate (to) charity, fast in Ramadan, or speak up against injustice, among many other practices, they are observing sharia,” CAIR and CAIR Texas said in a statement.

Muslims account for fewer than 1% of the population in Austin, according to the most recent Religious Landscape Study from the Pew Research Center. In contrast, about 1% of adults in Dallas and San Antonio identify as Muslim, while 3% in Houston do.

It’s not the governor’s first time speaking out against Sharia law and “Sharia cities.” In February, Abbott replied to a now-unavailable X post from conservative activist Amy Mekelburg, who frequently posts against Islam online.

Mekelburg posted about the East Plano Islamic Center City — or EPIC City — which is a project with a stated goal of building an inclusive community that caters to the evolving needs of Muslims. It prompted state and federal probes and condemnations from conservative leaders, including U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, Attorney General Ken Paxton and Abbott.

“To be clear, Sharia law is not allowed in Texas. Nor are Sharia cities. Nor are ‘no-go zones’ which this project seems to imply,” Abbott said in his reply to Mekelburg’s X post in February. “Bottom line. The project as proposed in the video is not allowed in Texas.”

In Monday’s statement, CAIR referred to Mekelburg and Abbott’s responses to EPIC City as “fearmongering.” The group released a report last month about “anti-Islam organizing” that it said targeted the project and denied Muslims equal opportunities, citing Mekelburg and Abbott as leaders of what it called the “Sharia-scare.”

The Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office has filed hate-crime charges against three people in connection with graffiti that included profanity — the phrase “(expletive) Israel” — spray-painted on a non-denominational church in Euless in 2024.

The three defendants — pro-Palestine protesters Raunaq Alam, Afsheen Khan and Julia Venzor — initially faced misdemeanor graffiti charges for damage under $750.

Prosecutors upgraded their cases, however, to third-degree felonies under Texas hate-crime law, with possible sentences of two to 10 years in prison for criminal mischief causing damage to a place of worship. Activists are speaking out about the defendants’ First Amendment rights and asking the DA’s Office to drop the hate-crime charges as the cases head to trial this month.

Alam’s trial is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 8, and Khan’s and Venzor’s trials are scheduled for Sept. 30, according to court records and a news release Thursday evening from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The District Attorney’s Office told the Star-Telegram in an email Friday that, “We will enforce the law.”

The indictments allege that the defendants showed “bias or prejudice against a group identified by national origin and/or ancestry and/or religion, namely, the state of Israel or Jewish faith.”

Urging prosecutors to drop hate-crime charges 

The Council on American-Islamic Relations is urging Tarrant County prosecutors to drop the hate-crime charges filed against Alam and Khan, CAIR officials said in the news release.

“Texas condemns vandalism of religious sites, including the repeated desecration of mosques with Islamophobic graffiti. Such acts cause real harm to communities of faith. At the same time, applying hate-crime enhancements to graffiti that criticizes a foreign government misapplies the law,” CAIR officials said.

“Although we strongly condemn the vandalism of this church and believe that those responsible should be held accountable for this crime, Texas prosecutors are going beyond the law attempting to criminalize political speech by conflating criticism of the Israeli government with religious hatred,” said Mustafaa Carroll, executive director of CAIR-Texas DFW. “Our state’s hate crime laws were meant to protect vulnerable communities, not shield foreign governments from critique. We can and should condemn the vandalism of a house of worship without criminalizing speech.”

“Vandalizing a church property goes against the tenants of Islam; however, manipulating Texas’ hate crime laws to punish criticism of a foreign government will further erode public confidence in expressing their freedom of speech: a lose-lose for all Americans,” said Imran Ghani, director of operations of CAIR-Texas Houston, in the release.

Defense attorney Adwoa Asante told The Guardian that it is dubious to maintain Alam’s action constitutes a hate crime as Alam did not target a synagogue and the message did not single out a group protected under Texas’ hate-crime statute.

“Nowhere in the statute does it cite governmental entities such as states as part of protected persons or groups,” Asante said.

“If citizens and persons within the United States are allowed to say and express ‘(Expletive) America’, why would the condemnation of a foreign country garner more enhanced prosecution from the state of Texas?” the defense attorney asked.

Pro-Palestine activists face up to 10 years in prison

Alam, 32, has started a GoFundMe to cover his legal expenses. He said that he lost his job after police showed up to arrest him in March 2024.

“I’ve always spoken out in favor of people that are oppressed,” Alam told The Guardian. “It’s something that’s just truly embedded in my core. When I see people that are treated unfairly, I believe it’s my duty to use my voice for those people that don’t have a voice to speak or that don’t have a platform to speak.”

Khan, 23, also started GoFundMes to pay legal expenses for herself and Venzor, 26. “I am now currently facing up to a decade in prison in Tarrant County for political graffiti and speaking up against the genocide going on in (Palestine),” Khan wrote. “I have an upcoming trial for my case in which I must pay off some additional attorney fees and possibly a fine after the trial. Anything that is remaining, I swear to donate it to the children that are being systematically starved.