Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas has announced a flurry of steps this week aimed at thwarting Islamic groups in the state, moves that both worry and baffle Muslims and religious experts.
On Tuesday, he declared that the Council on American-Islamic Relations, one of the nation’s largest Muslim advocacy and civil rights groups, was a foreign terrorist organization, an accusation the group said had no basis in fact. The following day, he directed law enforcement officers to investigate an Islamic organization in Dallas, saying the group was illegally enforcing Islamic “Shariah law” in the state.
In a letter sent on Wednesday to district attorneys and sheriffs in two North Texas counties, Mr. Abbott suggested there were multiple entities in the state “masquerading” as legal courts, but he named only one: the Islamic Tribunal, an independent institution that has operated in the Dallas area for more than a decade.
The letter quoted from the tribunal’s website to suggest it was illegally posing as a rival court to the Texas judicial system and speculated that the court could recommend stoning as a punishment.
Other faith groups operate ecclesiastical tribunals in the United States that resolve spiritual matters and disputes that overlap with the traditional court system. In Judaism, rabbinical courts known as beth dins rule on the details of divorce agreements, among other issues. Catholic dioceses, including the diocese of Dallas and others throughout Texas, also operate courts to handle cases of church law, including marriage and annulment.
The governor’s statement said the Islamic Tribunal was different from other faith-based arbitration bodies because it was “purporting to replace actual courts of law to evade neutral and generally applicable laws.”
“The Constitution’s religious protections provide no authority for religious courts to skirt state and federal laws simply by donning robes and pronouncing positions inconsistent with western civilization,” the governor wrote in the letter. He offered no specific examples of resolved disputes that have violated U.S. law but urged the counties to work with the state’s Department of Public Safety and attorney general, Ken Paxton, who had “additional investigative tools at their disposal.”
For experts in Islamic law and culture, the move was puzzling.
“The Islamic Tribunal is not unique in Texas or the United States,” said Robert Hunt, a professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas who has written about contemporary Islam. “They’re part of the complication of living as a religious person in a secular society with secular laws.”
The Islamic Tribunal did not respond to requests for comment. Its website states that it is not a law firm and that it complies with federal and state laws.
There are only a few established organizations providing formal mediation and arbitration services for Muslim Americans, said Abed Awad, a lawyer in New Jersey whose firm focuses on Sharia-compliant estate planning, among other areas of Islamic law.
But ad hoc conflict resolution and mediation is common at mosques across the country, including in family law cases involving the division of assets after a divorce and custody disputes.
An example, Mr. Awad said, is a couple who goes to their imam for help resolving a religious divorce according to Islamic tradition, which a state court cannot grant. The resolution could mean the wife receives fewer assets from the marriage than she would under state law. (Mr. Awad pointed out that fathers carry all the responsibilities of child and family support in the Islamic system.)
“There could be a dispute about that from an American law perspective, but if you are mutually agreeing to it, then it doesn’t violate U.S. law,” he said.
The governor’s office did not respond to questions about whether it was aware of any specific potential violations of state law and whether entities other than the Islamic Tribunal were implicated in its claim.
There were so many things wrong with the governor’s letter, “I’m struggling with knowing how to begin,” said Haroon Moghul, a commentator in Ohio who heads a company that runs Muslim leadership retreats. His objections included the governor’s use of the term “Shariah law.”
“Shariah” is not a specific, unified set of laws so much as a concept of divine guidance that humans must interpret, he said.
“We don’t have a pope. We don’t have a centralized religious authority,” Mr. Moghul said. There are multiple branches of Islam, and several traditionally recognized sources of “Shariah,” including community consensus.
But the term has been used by some for decades in the United States as a catchall signifier suggesting an encroaching Islam that threatens American values.
Mr. Abbott’s letter comes amid an increase in anti-Muslim expressions in the state. Muslims represent about 2 percent of the population in Texas, according to the Pew Research Center.
In September, the governor signed a law banning “Shariah compounds” in the state. The announcement specifically mentioned EPIC City, a proposed development organized by members of a mosque in suburban East Plano that has drawn fierce opposition from Republicans across the state. The developers have said that no laws have been broken.
In 2017, Mr. Abbott signed a law prohibiting the use of any foreign laws in family court cases in the state, legislation modeled after the work of an anti-Shariah activist in Brooklyn.
Mr. Abbott’s declaration this week onthe Council on American-Islamic Relations said that the group, known as CAIR, was associated with Hamas and aimed to “forcibly impose Shariah law.” The governor also gave that designation to the Muslim Brotherhood, a group founded in Egypt that has many international offshoots. The designation will prohibit the organizations from acquiring land in Texas.
CAIR filed a federal lawsuit against Mr. Abbott and Mr. Paxton on Thursday. The suit argues that calling the group a terrorist and criminal organization without due process is a violation of federal law.
J. David Goodman contributed reporting.
Ruth Graham is a national reporter, based in Dallas, covering religion, faith and values for The Times.
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