Fear of Shari‘a law proliferated again in 2011, resulting in a series of bills being introduced in states across the country. Capitalizing on the intense Islamophobia spurred by debate over a possible Muslim community center near Ground Zero, the congressional hearings on “Islamic radicalization” called by Representative Peter King, and the extended war on terror, a number of states introduced legislation that sought to ban Shari‘a law. The proposed bills were not standalone or isolated, but part of a broader movement driven by a partnership between conservative think tanks and politicians, which looked to convert the private Islamophobia saturating the country into structural policies adopted on the state level. The movement to ban Shari‘a law, debated within and carried forward by state legislatures, illustrates how structural Islamophobia also unfolds beyond the federal level and within state governments.

XREF: Connects to broader literature on how social prejudice gets institutionalized through legislation and think tank-driven political movements.

Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Unde…, loc. 306