Most Texans are good neighbors to Muslims, but far-right Republicans in the state are making life difficult for them, three speakers said at the Texas Tribune Festival Sept. 24.
The panelists — Fahad Ahmed, an Irving City Council member; Mohammed Hussein, a Texas-based Muslim community member; and Abdullah Antepli, a Muslim scholar who recently moved to Houston to lead Rothko Chapel — discussed their experiences with discrimination, the political climate surrounding Islam and the need for greater understanding among religious communities.
The panel was moderated by Yasmeen Khalifa of The Texas Tribune.
Each panelist gave examples of hostilities they or their family members have experienced because of their religious identity, but each was quick to note that kind of hate is perpetuated by a minority in the state — even though top Republican leaders are egging it on.
“I am heartbroken, disappointed and saddened that my faith, Islam, and my identity as an American Muslim is under threat, under constant dehumanization, collective character assassination.”
“I’m a proud American Muslim. I’m a proud Muslim historian, proud Texan. But I have to say I am heartbroken, disappointed and saddened that my faith, Islam, and my identity as an American Muslim is under threat, under constant dehumanization, collective character assassination,” Antepli said. “But I’m not sad and upset because I’m a Muslim. If we only talk about Islamophobia as a Muslim issue and somehow all the antisemitism rising as a Jewish issue, homophobia as a gay issue, we will lose this battle. … Americans are awesome. We believe in civil religion. We believe in religious freedom as the foundational pillar of American identity, values and principle — almost 99% of Americans and 96% believe that is the case.”
Ahmed, who moved to Texas in 2015, described Texas as generally welcoming while recounting incidents that left him and his family feeling threatened because of their religious identity. For example, during a visit to a well-known Austin restaurant, a man confronted his family, berated them and threatened violence against them. They were forced to flee through the kitchen and out a back door.
More recently, Ahmed said, he experienced Islamophobia while coaching children in youth sports through the YMCA.
After a game, he said, a group of children chanted “Free Palestine.” A woman who was not involved with the YMCA complained to the organization’s leadership all the way up the chain of administration, characterizing the chant as hate speech.
The children were expressing themselves in accordance with their First Amendment rights, he said. But they were labeled as engaging in hate speech because one person complained.
Fear about Sharia
Support for Palestinians is just one way American Muslims get labeled and targeted, the panel said. In Texas and elsewhere, another current example of fearmongering is talk about the dangers of Sharia.
Gov. Greg Abbott speaks about a school voucher plan during a rally Tuesday March 21, 2023, at Cypress Christian School in Houston. (Jon Shapley/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott is the instigator of much anti-Muslim rhetoric.
Fears about “Sharia law” are ill-founded and misguided, all three said. Sharia is not a book of laws or even an agreed-upon set of requirements, they said. Ahmed compared it to Catholic common law. Sharia “usually governs mostly family or certain commercial practices,” he said. “It’s not parallel to the Constitution.”
For American Muslims, the U.S. Constitution is “the law that trumps all other laws,” he explained.
Hussein added that Sharia is the heart of Islam. “It’s the whole system from the theology, the creed, the value system to the jurisprudence. … It’s impossible to ban Sharia because you can never ban what someone believes.”
Thus, attempts to ban Sharia are nonsensical, Hussein said. “I view it as anti-American. The First Amendment protects all creeds. So when I hear ‘ban Sharia’ or anti-Sharia, I hear something incredibly un-American, something that tramples upon something that we as Americans consider sacred, the First Amendment.”
Antepli said Sharia summarizes for Muslims “what is a good life, what is an ethical life, what is a moral life. Sharia is a general term of the remarkable amount of ethical moral imagination and conversation. Is not a frozen set of rules and regulations. It’s not a law. For those who are losing sleep over Sharia, please ask them, ‘Have you seen Sharia? Have you met Sharia? Have you ever seen a Sharia book between two covers that is aiming to rule even part of Austin or the entire United States? There is no such thing as somewhat qualified, frozen, divinely mandated by Allah that all Muslims are asked to obey. There is no such a thing at all.”
“Have you ever seen a Sharia book between two covers that is aiming to rule even part of Austin or the entire United States?”
Even Muslims can’t agree on what constitutes Sharia, he explained. “If you think two Jews, three synagogues, three opinions is a good Jewish thing, you haven’t seen Muslim disagreement. … Muslims wouldn’t agree whether or not today is a Thursday or any rules and regulations.”
At the Texas GOP convention
The most compelling story from the panel came from Hussein, who gained national notoriety when he attended the Texas GOP convention in June. He is a self-described conservative but also a Muslim.
“What brought me to the convention was a desire to seek some common ground, a desire to find a place within the party,” Hussein said. “I’m a conservative guy, generally speaking, and that was our intention by being there. I myself was not a delegate, but we had a number of Muslim delegates who were there and who from the beginning of the convention … were immediately targeted and many attempts were made for their removal.”
“I’ve never been in a setting that demonized Islam so viciously.”
Hussein said: “I’ve never been in a setting that demonized Islam so viciously. I mean just lies. The entire program was just fabrications about my religion, about Islam, about my community to the point where I don’t believe they left any Muslim institution not attacked.”
The irony, he added, is that a session on “coming together along Judeo-Christian values” was the most offensive thing he experienced. “I attended that session in that spirit of attempting to find some common ground with Jews and Christians. And that was maybe some of the most vicious language at the convention in that session about how Muslims would engage in these crimes. And the second a Muslim has the opportunity, they will do X, Y, Z to you and all this.”
When Hussein objected to the vilification of his religion, he was told by Texas Republicans to convert to Christianity.
“I still struggle with trying to understand what he meant by convert. What if I don’t? I’m at a political convention. Will this group attempt to leverage the power of the states to remove me if I do not convert?”
Moreover, the allegedly evangelical Christians who were berating him gave him no compelling reason to convert to Christianity. “I’m open to considering it if you have something better for me. Share it and I will consider it. But none of that was presented. It was just hostility. It was, ‘Convert so you’re not Muslim anymore.’”
One thing he learned at the Texas GOP convention is that these Republicans are not advocating for true conservatism, Hussein said. “What boggles my mind is it’s not real conservatism. It’s dogma. Where’s the conservative party anymore? There’s nothing, at least to me, I can’t recognize conservatism when I see the Texas Republican Party or this language. How do you dehumanize a religion and be a conservative?”
Equally concerning, he said, is the isolation he and other American Muslims feel. “There’s been so much silence. Nobody’s really come to have our back, so to speak, and especially on the right (in) Texas.”
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