AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): A severed pig's head, burning the Quran, warnings about the creation of "Sharia cities," and claims of "Islamization"; extraordinary and unprecedented events are taking place in the US state of Texas, where Islam has become one of the most contentious arenas of political battle.
In December 2025, Jake Lang, a far-right activist, appeared in front of the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC)—one of America's most renowned mosques and the base of the well-known Islamic scholar Yaser Qadhi—carrying a severed pig's head with a copy of the Quran stuffed inside it.
But what happened in front of this Islamic center is only the most naked and ugly manifestation of a much broader battle across Texas. Twenty-five years after the September 11 incident, Texas has emerged as one of the main frontlines in the battle over Islam in America. Texas is now home to more than 300,000 Muslims and prominent Islamic institutions and figures, alongside which mosques, Islamic schools, charities, and thriving Muslim businesses are growing. But simultaneously with this prominent presence and the growing self-confidence of Muslims, a sharp and extraordinarily political reaction has formed that this time is no longer limited to marginal groups.
The East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC) itself has become the center of this battle. This mosque became linked to a plan to build a residential settlement for Muslims in northeastern Dallas; a project initially named "Arthpano City" and then renamed "The Meadow." The project included the construction of residential homes alongside a mosque, school, and commercial spaces, but it quickly became a controversial political subject.
Greg Abbott, the Republican Governor of Texas, warned in remarks, "To be clear: Sharia law is not allowed in Texas. Sharia cities are not allowed either."
State agencies launched multiple investigations against the project, and Abbott accused its developers of seeking to create an exclusive community for Muslims and administer it under Sharia law. The developers strongly rejected these accusations and announced that the settlement would be open to everyone regardless of religion and subject to American laws.
After federal housing authorities also launched other investigations this year, Abbott announced, "The Meadow project will remain what it is: an empty lot!" The Texas Governor claims this dispute is about discrimination and the enforcement of Texas laws, not hostility toward Muslims.
But from Yaser Qadhi's perspective, the fundamental problem is that the "Sharia" attacked by politicians bears no resemblance to the understanding of ordinary American Muslims of their religion. He told PBS, "When I tell an ordinary American Muslim 'Sharia,' he thinks exactly this: well, I should be kind to my mother and be a good person. Their understanding of Sharia is not what the proponents of these accusations claim, but rather an understanding that even American Muslims themselves are surprised by their definition."
Greg Abbott's campaign has gone far beyond the EPIC Islamic Center. In November 2025, he classified the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)—the largest American Muslim civil rights organization—as well as the Muslim Brotherhood as "foreign terrorist organizations" and "transnational criminal organizations" under Texas state laws.
Abbott accused these organizations of seeking to "forcibly impose Sharia law" and consolidate "the supremacy of Islam over the world" and announced, "These radical extremists have no place in our state."
CAIR rejected these accusations and challenged Abbott's authority to issue such orders. However, Abbott asked Ken Paxton, the Texas Attorney General, to revoke CAIR's tax exemption and non-profit status and eliminate its ability to operate in Texas.
From the perspective of Omar Suleiman, founder of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research in Dallas, these actions are a sign of a much bigger issue: "During Abbott's governorship, Islamophobia in Texas politics has been heavily normalized and used as a tool. Muslims have repeatedly been used as easy and accessible targets; not because our community has ever posed a danger, but because creating fear of Muslims has proven its political expediency."
He called Abbott's action against CAIR merely a "political show."
"Don't Sharia Our Texas"
Abbott is not acting in a political vacuum. The Republican Party, which controls the governorship and both houses of the Texas legislature, has adopted the phrase "Don't Sharia Our Texas" as its official legislative priority. In the Texas Republican Party resolution, Sharia is described as a "hostile, incompatible, seditious, and subversive system."
The party has proposed that promoting or implementing Sharia should carry criminal penalties and result in disqualification from public, military, and law enforcement service. In an even more unprecedented move, the party has asked the federal government to "denaturalize and deport supporters of Sharia law."
In the Republican primary in March, 95 percent of Texas voters who participated voted for a proposal stating that Texas should ban Sharia law.
Chip Roy, a Republican congressman who is a candidate for Texas Attorney General, went even further and warned that the state itself is changing identity. He told Steve Bannon, Trump's former adviser, "This is a coordinated political effort to Islamize Texas. We must change the Texas Constitution. Do whatever it takes to protect Texas from Islamization by radical Marxists."
Roy, along with Keith Self, another Republican representative, launched the "America Without Sharia" caucus in Congress.
Burning the Quran to Gather Votes
At the most extreme point of this political spectrum is Valentina Gomez; a far-right activist born in Colombia and a social media personality who made an unsuccessful attempt to win the Republican nomination for Congress.
In August 2025, Gomez released a campaign video in which she set a copy of the Quran on fire using a flamethrower. She shouted in the video, "Your daughters will be raped and your sons will be beheaded, unless we stop Islam once and for all."
She stated in the message accompanying the video, "I will end the presence of Islam in Texas."
Although Gomez holds no elected office and should not be considered a representative of all Texas Republicans, her emergence raises the important question of how far ideas once considered marginal have entered the mainstream of politics. The line between Gomez's Quran burning and Abbott's investigations into a residential project is different, but the rhetoric used about Islam heavily overlaps: Gomez says Islam must be stopped, Abbott says CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood want to forcibly impose Sharia, the ruling party calls Sharia a hostile system, and congressmen warn about "Islamization."
This battle has even extended to Muslims' ablution rituals.
In August, Abbott referred the ablution stations and washing facilities at Dallas Fort Worth and Houston airports to federal authorities for review and investigation, saying, "These ablution stations give a specific group of the population special treatment based on religion. They are not interfaith prayer rooms open to everyone, but exist only for the benefit of the Muslim population."
Houston authorities rejected this claim and announced that these facilities are available to all travelers.
Why Texas?
Why has Texas become such a battlefield?
One answer could be the growth, visibility, and growing self-confidence of the Muslim community. Dallas and Houston have very thriving Muslim communities. Mosques, schools, charities, and specialized organizations have become permanent parts of the state's geography. The EPIC Islamic Center under Yaser Qadhi and the Yaqeen Institute under Omar Suleiman have found international audiences.
Muslims are building institutions, accumulating wealth, and actively participating in the political arena. The "Arthpano City" project made this growth too prominent and visible, because Muslims were no longer just seeking to build a mosque but were proposing the construction of an entire settlement.
Is Texas the Most Islamophobic State in America?
There are no exact statistics to absolutely prove this claim, because hate crimes, discrimination complaints, and attacks on mosques have different criteria. But Texas is distinguished for another reason: the extent to which hostility toward Islam has gone beyond marginal activists and entered the mainstream and institutions of political power.
A far-right provocateur can go to a mosque with a pig's head or a failed candidate can burn a Quran with a flamethrower; but in Texas, the matter is much more serious: the state governor warns against settlements Muslims might build and calls the largest Muslim civil rights organization a "terrorist organization," congressmen speak of "Islamization," and the ruling Texas party calls for the denaturalization and deportation of Sharia supporters.
This is the very point that gives Texas its significance: the story is not just the existence of Islamophobia, but the official expression of ideas that were once marginal but are now heard from the mouths of those in power in governing institutions; all while Texas's Muslim community becomes larger, more consolidated, and more self-confident day by day.
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