WASHINGTON: Muslim American groups said congressional hearings that Republican lawmakers cast as aimed at making the US “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 US 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 US 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 US soil. Sharia is a set of legal and moral principles, interpreted differently across the faith. Installing sharia in the US does not enjoy wide support among American Muslims and community leaders. There is no evidence that any mainstream US Muslim group has advocated for imposing sharia on the United States.
The US 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.”
