Texas is becoming a major battleground over political Islam as growing Muslim communities, mosque projects, and proposed developments encounter increasingly organized opposition from residents and Republican leaders.

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The conflict has become especially visible in Collin County, north of Dallas, where disputes over a mosque expansion, the proposed Muslim-centered development formerly known as EPIC City, and concerns about sharia have spilled into protests, lawsuits, political campaigns, and an effort to recall local elected officials.

From The Epoch Times:

Several commenters spoke about their experiences living abroad under sharia, saying it’s not compatible with America’s Constitution and that should give the council pause. Women are not treated as equals under sharia, and homosexuality is not tolerated, they said.

​Sandra Sammons said she grew up in a Muslim country. She said Westerners don’t understand that mosques are more than religious centers; they’re Islam’s center of power.

Sharia operates under a different set of rules than Western Judeo-Christian values. ​“It dictates marriage, dietary laws, government, criminal and civil law, education—every area is governed by sharia law,” she said. “In Islam, there is no separation of church and state.”

The debate came to a head in McKinney after the city council unanimously approved a site plan for an approximately 5.6-acre mosque expansion. More than 100 people signed up to speak at a meeting lasting over four hours. Supporters argued that Muslims have the same constitutional right to worship and build religious facilities as other Americans, while opponents raised concerns ranging from traffic and transparency to sharia and political Islam.

The vote helped fuel a recall campaign targeting Mayor Bill Cox and council members Ernest Lynch, Geré Feltus, and Justin Beller. Organizers said the campaign was about a broader “loss of public confidence” in city leadership, not simply the mosque. According to organizer Ashley Marie Louden, the petition drive gathered approximately 7,600 signatures, exceeding the 5,805 required before certification.

Meanwhile, the proposed Muslim-centered development originally known as EPIC City—and since renamed The Meadow—remains on hold. Plans included roughly 1,000 homes alongside a mosque, school, sports facilities, senior housing, businesses, and other amenities. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued EPIC and others in 2025, alleging violations of state securities laws and claiming the housing development would illegally discriminate by reserving homes for Muslims. The project’s backers deny the allegations and have characterized opposition as Islamophobic.

The controversy has also moved squarely into state and national politics. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has made opposition to sharia a significant part of his reelection campaign, declaring at the state Republican convention, “We are not waiting on Washington, D.C. We will fully ban sharia law in Texas.” Rep. Keith Self, co-founder of the Sharia-Free America Caucus, has similarly argued that Americans must distinguish protected religious beliefs from conduct that functions as a competing political or legal system.

That distinction is crucial. America’s constitutional protections for religious liberty apply to Muslims just as they apply to Christians, Jews, and people of other faiths. But religious liberty does not require Americans to ignore legitimate debates about political ideology, competing legal systems, extremism, or whether any movement threatens constitutional freedoms. As these tensions intensify in Texas and elsewhere, let’s pray for our leaders to have wisdom to protect genuine religious liberty while courageously defending America’s constitutional system and resisting any ideology that would undermine it.

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(Excerpt from The Epoch Times. Photo Credit: Adam Thomas on Unsplash)