Anti-sharia legislation aimed to recategorize Islam from religion to political ideology

Evidence

The original bill allowed the attorney general to designate groups as sharia organizations if they consisted of “two or more persons acting in concert in support of, sharia or imposition of sharia” and they committed a terrorist act. Material support for terrorists is included in the list of acts that qualifies as terrorism. A person found knowingly supporting a sharia organization would be guilty of a criminal offense punishable by fifteen years in prison. In effect, the original bill banned Islam and made its practice a criminal offense. Attending a “sharia-adherent” mosque — which is every mosque — could carry a fifteen-year jail term. This version of the bill was amended in such a way as to excise all mention of sharia because of the obvious First Amendment violation. The resulting enacted bill simply restates laws already in place. Although the scrubbed bill is superfluous, the intent of the original bill to redefine Islam from a religion to an alien and violent political ideology is clear. — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 284

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth tracing this bill’s actual sponsors and whether the scrubbed enacted version has any operative effect — the claim it is ‘superfluous’ is a legal characterization worth checking.
• XREF: connects to: Anti-sharia legislation frames Islam as a foreign political conspiracy warranting criminalization; Anti-sharia legislation itself performed the reduction of religion to race — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 280; Anti-sharia bills sought to criminalize mosque attendance by defining Islam as ideology (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Anti-sharia bills sought to criminalize mosque attendance by defining Islam as ideology #expands (0.95)
• Denying Islam religious status legitimizes anti-Muslim state action as religious-freedom protection #expands (0.92) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 743
• Official rhetoric framing Islam as ideology licensed anti-Muslim suspicion #corroborates (0.90) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 864
• Anti-Sharia rhetoric frames Muslim legal practice as inherently subordinating and anti-Constitutional #expands (0.85) — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 375
• Anti-sharia legislation sought to criminalize all mosque attendance as terrorism #exemplifies (0.82)
• Funded think tanks drafted template anti-Sharia laws making belief a felony #expands (0.80) — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 622
• Feminist anti-Sharia arguments reinstalled a secular-religious colour line #corroborates (0.75)
• Once sharia is problematized the whole Muslim identity becomes delegitimized #expands (0.75)