Have any U.S. states or localities legally barred Muslims from office and were those laws challenged?

1. A century of religious tests and the modern gap between hostility and legal exclusion

U.S. history includes explicit religious tests in several states that excluded Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and others from office in the 18th and 19th centuries, but these tests largely predate substantial Muslim immigration and were dismantled over time; the federal Constitution and later jurisprudence foreclosed religious-qualification regimes ^[3]. Modern scholarship and encyclopedic histories emphasize that while states once imposed denominational barriers, the trajectory of American law moved away from formal religious tests toward constitutional protections for free exercise and equal protection. The important legal frame is that hostile popular sentiment or piggyback statutes aimed at foreign religious law (e.g., “anti-Sharia” measures) can operate as functional exclusionary tools, yet they differ legally from explicit officeholding bans and thus generate distinct constitutional challenges ^[3].

2. Oklahoma’s “no Sharia” amendment became a courtroom battleground — not an outright ban on Muslim officeholders

Oklahoma’s 2010 constitutional amendment barring courts from “considering” Sharia or international law drew successful litigation by Muneer Awad, who argued it violated the First Amendment and singled out Muslim faith practices, and the district court and later the Tenth Circuit upheld injunctions against enforcement ^{[1] [2]}. The amendment did not enumerate a prohibition on Muslims running for or holding office, but courts found its purpose and effect cast Muslim religious practices as political outsiders and raised a credible chill on religious exercise; the litigation established that measures targeting Islamic law are subject to strict judicial scrutiny and can be enjoined ^{[1] [2]}. This outcome illustrates how ostensibly neutral constitutional amendments can functionally exclude and stigmatize a faith community, prompting constitutional remedies rather than statutory criminalization of officeholding.

3. Federal and appellate litigation shows a pattern of contested government actions affecting Muslims beyond elections

Circuit court litigation such as the 9th Circuit en banc matters referenced (Khatib v. County of Orange) and litigation over discriminatory questioning at the border reveal a broader set of government practices that single out Muslims for special scrutiny, detention, or intrusive questioning rather than formal exclusion from public office ^{[5] [4]}. Recent law-review analysis highlights inconsistent judicial approaches to religious questioning and calls for doctrinal refinement to protect free exercise rights while accommodating security interests; scholars argue that practices of religious interrogation and doctrinally suspect measures can impose barriers to civic participation even absent explicit franchise bans ^[6]. These cases show that administrative or procedural discrimination often becomes the battleground for civil‑rights challenges, not statutes that state “no Muslims may serve.”

4. The “Muslim ban” and national-level exclusions illustrate different, but related, legal issues

Executive actions restricting entry from majority-Muslim countries — widely litigated as the “Muslim ban” — raised constitutional and statutory issues distinct from state-level officeholding rules but reflect the same pattern of government policy that treats Muslims as politically suspect ^{[7] [8]}. Cases challenging the travel restrictions prompted sweeping litigation, injunctions, and ultimately Supreme Court review; the debate and rulings centered on national security deference, discriminatory purpose, and statutory authority rather than a domestic law barring Muslims from municipal or state office. The policy and litigation record demonstrates that religiously targeted governmental measures have repeatedly triggered legal challenges, reinforcing the principle that actions singling out Islam face strong judicial scrutiny even when framed as neutral security measures ^{[7] [8]}.

5. Synthesis: no documented statutory bans, but a legal landscape of exclusionary policies and active challenges

Across the sources provided, there is no direct evidence of a state or locality law expressly forbidding Muslims from holding public office, but there is substantial documentation of anti-Muslim measures (e.g., anti-Sharia amendments, intrusive religious questioning, and exclusionary immigration policies) that have been challenged and frequently enjoined or narrowed by courts ^{[1] [2] [7] [4]}. The litigation record shows courts are willing to block measures that target Islam’s practices or treat Muslim identity as disqualifying; activists and civil‑rights groups pursue relief under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The practical effect is that while explicit office bans are absent from the modern record, numerous governmental actions have operated to stigmatize or impede Muslim civic participation and have provoked successful legal pushback ^{[1] [6]}.

6. Bottom line — what the evidence proves and what remains unresolved

The evidence proves that U.S. courts have repeatedly confronted and often rejected laws and policies that disproportionately target Muslims — with the Oklahoma Awad litigation standing as a clear example — but it does not prove that U.S. states or localities enacted explicit, enforceable statutory bans on Muslims holding office; rather, hostile measures and practices have been the vehicle for exclusionary intent and have been litigated successfully ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Ongoing scholarship and appellate decisions continue to refine protections against religious targeting, and the enduring legal test is whether a law or practice places a religious burden or manifests a discriminatory purpose that violates constitutional guarantees ^[6].