Muslims complain they're frivolous bills meant to spread fears and sow suspicion of their religion in a nation divided.
But supporters of state proposals to prevent Islamic code from being used in American courts argue they aren't overtly anti-Muslim and are needed to safeguard constitutional rights for average Americans.
The bills, variations of which have been around for years, don't specifically seek to ban Islamic law, known as Sharia, even though some lawmakers concede that's their intent.
Instead, the proposals broadly call for banning the application of any foreign law, legal code or legal system that doesn't grant the same rights and privileges as the state or U.S. constitutions.
"I believe very strongly in the values of America to allow for religious freedom," said Connecticut state Rep. Robert Sampson, a Republican sponsor of a bill. "I just don't want our court system to start using what is religious law from other countries to make decisions. I'd like to preserve our way of life."
Muslim leaders say the bills are among a range of proposals and decisions at all levels of government that they're gearing up to fight this year, from President Donald Trump's travel ban to local planning and zoning rulings against mosque projects.
"These are thinly veiled attempts to alienate Muslims in America," said Hazem Bata, of The Islamic Society of North America, based in Indiana, where once such "anti-Sharia" bill has been introduced.
The bills have been introduced in at least 13 states, a number that will likely grow as the legislative year progresses, said Jonathan Griffin, of the National Conference of State Legislatures, who has been tracking the proposals. Anywhere from 15 to 30 states see the proposal introduced in a given year, he said. Ten states already have some version of them on the books since they started cropping up around 2010.
While many of this year's bills likely won't become law, they're gaining traction early in Montana and Arkansas, where the legislatures are poised to approve bills and send them to the governors this month.
Supporters point to a 2014 report by the Center for Security Policy, a conservative think tank whose critics deride as anti-Muslim, that cites nearly 150 cases in which it says Sharia played a role.
The cases, some of which date to the late 1970s, mostly involve divorce, child custody and other family law proceedings where either the plaintiff or defendants invoked Islamic laws and customs to make their case.
"Sharia should be very concerning to all of us," said state Rep. Heidi Sampson, a Maine Republican who has proposed legislation. "It is a way of life and a legal code which is designed to impinge on culture, family life, marriage, equality of the sexes — a whole host of areas."
Sampson and other lawmakers say a 2010 New Jersey case highlighted prominently in the report is particularly troubling.
A Muslim woman accused her husband of sexual abuse and sought a restraining order in 2009, but the judge denied the request after the husband argued, in part, that a wife must comply with her husband's sexual demands in Islamic custom. An appeals court ultimately overturned the ruling.
But Will Smiley, an editor at the Harvard Law School's SHARIAsource, an online collection of academic writings on Islamic law, is skeptical the bills proposed by lawmakers would have made a difference in the initial ruling.
"These new laws don't provide any new safeguards," Smiley said. "Courts can still make mistakes, like most observers agree that New Jersey court did."
Many of the other cases cited in the center's report don't appear to show evidence that U.S. courts based decisions on Sharia or other foreign codes, said Jay Wexler, a professor at Boston University's School of Law who specializes in separation of church and state issues.
"The facts of a case might require a court to consider in some way a foreign custom or law," he said. "But that does not mean that the court is applying foreign law."
Opponents maintain the bills as proposed don't serve any practical purpose.
"The U.S. legal code already states that American courts can only adhere to American laws," said John Robbins, executive director of the Massachusetts chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "It's a stupid solution to a nonexistent problem."
Supporters stress the proposals would impact all religious codes and foreign laws equally.
If parts of Jewish, Christian or other laws ran counter to fundamental constitutional rights, they too would not be applicable in U.S. courts, said Montana state Sen. Keith Regier, a Republican.
"They're saying it's hateful, and I have no idea where they're getting that from," he said of opponents. "Read the bill and tell me what is hateful or distasteful in there."
On Muslims' agenda: Fight US proposals to ban Sharia law
On Muslims' agenda: Fight US proposals to ban Sharia law
Only 4% women on ballot as Bangladesh prepares for post-Hasina vote
- Women PMs have ruled Bangladesh for over half of its independent history
- For 2026 vote, only 20 out of 51 political parties nominated female candidates
DHAKA: As Bangladesh prepares for the first election since the ouster of its long-serving ex-prime minister Sheikh Hasina, only 4 percent of the registered candidates are women, as more than half of the political parties did not field female candidates.
The vote on Feb. 12 will bring in new leadership after an 18-month rule of the caretaker administration that took control following the student-led uprising that ended 15 years in power of Hasina’s Awami League party.
Nearly 128 million Bangladeshis will head to the polls, but while more than 62 million of them are women, the percentage of female candidates in the race is incomparably lower, despite last year’s consensus reached by political parties to have at least 5 percent women on their lists.
According to the Election Commission, among 1,981 candidates only 81 are women, in a country that in its 54 years of independence had for 32 years been led by women prime ministers — Hasina and her late rival Khaleda Zia.
According to Dr. Rasheda Rawnak Khan from the Department of Anthropology at Dhaka University, women’s political participation was neither reflected by the rule of Hasina nor Zia.
“Bangladesh has had women rulers, not women’s rule,” Khan told Arab News. “The structure of party politics in Bangladesh is deeply patriarchal.”
Only 20 out of 51 political parties nominated female candidates for the 2026 vote. Percentage-wise, the Bangladesh Socialist Party was leading with nine women, or 34 percent of its candidates.
The election’s main contender, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, whose former leader Zia in 1991 became the second woman prime minister of a predominantly Muslim nation — after Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto — was the party that last year put forward the 5 percent quota for women.
For the upcoming vote, however, it ended up nominating only 10 women, or 3.5 percent of its 288 candidates.
The second-largest party, Jamaat-e-Islami, has not nominated a single woman.
The 4 percent participation is lower than in the previous election in 2024, when it was slightly above 5 percent, but there was no decreasing trend. In 2019, the rate was 5.9 percent, and 4 percent in 2014.
“We have not seen any independent women’s political movement or institutional activities earlier, from where women could now participate in the election independently,” Khan said.
“Real political participation is different and difficult as well in this patriarchal society, where we need to establish internal party democracy, protection from political violence, ensure direct election, and cultural shifts around female leadership.”
While the 2024 student-led uprising featured a prominent presence of women activists, Election Commission data shows that this has not translated into their political participation, with very few women contesting the upcoming polls.
“In the student movement, women were recruited because they were useful, presentable for rallies and protests both on campus and in the field of political legitimacy. Women were kept at the forefront for exhibiting some sort of ‘inclusive’ images to the media and the people,” Khan said.
“To become a candidate in the general election, one needs to have a powerful mentor, money, muscle power, control over party people, activists, and locals. Within the male-dominated networks, it’s very difficult for women to get all these things.”
