Texas Governor Greg Abbott has escalated his months-long campaign against what he calls "Sharia courts," announcing the deployment of the Texas Department of Public Safety alongside local district attorneys to investigate any entities allegedly attempting to enforce Islamic religious law within the state. "I am deploying the Texas Department of Public Safety to root out any Sharia courts in the state of Texas," Abbott said, adding a blunt warning that his administration would "pursue this until we purge any attempt to impose Sharia law in Texas." He grounded the effort in existing state law, stating plainly that "the Texas Constitution and statutes have banned Sharia law," a reference to statutory provisions barring foreign or religious legal systems from superseding American courts in binding legal disputes.

This latest push builds directly on actions Abbott first took in November 2025, when he sent letters to North Texas district attorneys, sheriffs, the state attorney general, and the Department of Public Safety, specifically naming the Islamic Tribunal in Dallas as an entity he said was "masquerading as legal courts" while issuing binding rulings under Islamic codes. Around the same time, Abbott designated the Council on American-Islamic Relations, better known as CAIR, and the Muslim Brotherhood as "foreign terrorist and transnational organizations" under Texas law, banning CAIR from owning land in the state. The governor has also targeted other perceived symbols of Islamic influence, including a planned Muslim-oriented housing development called EPIC City near Dallas, which state agencies moved to block last year over zoning and environmental concerns, and Texas lawmakers subsequently passed legislation banning religious discrimination in similar developments.

The response from Muslim advocacy organizations and legal experts has been sharply critical. The Islamic Tribunal, the group most directly targeted by Abbott's investigations, has described itself as a voluntary mediation and arbitration service that handles religious aspects of family disputes like divorce, explicitly noting on its own website that it is not a law firm and does not issue legally binding rulings independent of the Texas court system. A representative for the group called Abbott's characterization "factually and legally incorrect" and accused the governor of using the issue to "stoke fear and discrimination against Muslims." CAIR has gone further, suing Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton in federal court over the terrorist organization designation, arguing it violates constitutional protections, while legal experts have separately noted that a Justice Department investigation into similar allegations against a Muslim community in Texas was previously opened and closed without finding any wrongdoing.

The dispute reflects a broader pattern that has emerged among some Republican officials nationally, one that experts say plays on long-standing, largely unfounded fears about Islamic law replacing American legal systems, concerns civil liberties groups argue misunderstand both what Sharia actually refers to and how voluntary religious arbitration functions under existing U.S. law. Supporters of Abbott's approach counter that ensuring no religious body, regardless of faith, can claim binding legal authority over Texans is a legitimate exercise of state sovereignty and consistent with existing anti-Sharia statutes many states have passed over the past decade. With CAIR's federal lawsuit still working through the courts and Abbott continuing to direct new investigations, the underlying legal question, whether voluntary religious mediation services constitute an unlawful parallel court system or a constitutionally protected religious practice, remains far from settled.