By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON, May 14 (Reuters) – Muslim American groups said congressional hearings that Republican lawmakers cast as aimed at making the U.S. “sharia-free” are being weaponized against Muslim minorities in the United States by stoking fear against them.
Republicans, who hold a majority in both chambers of Congress, titled a Wednesday hearing by a House Judiciary Subcommittee as “Sharia-Free America: Why Political Islam and Sharia Law are Incompatible with the U.S. Constitution.” A similar hearing was also held in February.
“The radicals pushing political Islam do not want to coexist with America’s culture and political order. They want to replace it,” Republican U.S. Representative Chip Roy said in the hearing.
Critics have said such hearings single out Muslims for ridicule, revive tropes and conspiracy theories against them, and are unnecessary because American laws prevail on U.S. soil.
Sharia is a set of legal and moral principles, interpreted differently across the faith. Installing sharia in the U.S. does not enjoy wide support among American Muslims and community leaders. There is no evidence that any mainstream U.S. Muslim group has advocated for imposing sharia on the United States.
The U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations, which represents over 50 Muslim groups, condemned what it called the “weaponization of government against American Muslims” and said the hearings engaged in “the politics of fear.”
“Anti-Sharia hearings are not about protecting the Constitution. They are about demonizing Islam and portraying Muslim Americans as perpetual outsiders,” the Council on American Islamic Relations’ Maryland director, Zainab Chaudry, said.
Democratic U.S. Representative Jamie Raskin, a ranking member of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, said the hearings were a distraction and attacked religious liberty.
U.S. rights advocates have over the years noted rising Islamophobia, attributing it to the September 11, 2001 attacks; and more recently to anti-immigration policies, white supremacy and the fallout of Israel’s war in Gaza.
CAIR says it recorded 8,683 anti-Muslim and anti-Arab complaints in the U.S. in 2025, the highest since it began publishing data in 1996.
A study in April by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate think tank says anti-Muslim bigotry by Republican elected officials has surged since early 2025, citing over 1,100 online posts by Republican members of Congress and governors.
Republican governors in Florida and Texas have cast CAIR, which has opposed Republican President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration and pro-Palestinian protests, as a “terrorist” group. CAIR and other civil rights groups have denounced the claims.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Stephen Coates)
