How have U.S. federal courts ruled on state anti‑Sharia laws since 2010?
Executive summary
Federal courts have repeatedly rebuffed laws that explicitly singled out “Sharia” as unlawful, finding such measures discriminatory and likely to violate the First Amendment’s establishment and free‑exercise guarantees; the most prominent example is the federal injunction and later appellate affirmation blocking Oklahoma’s 2010 amendment that explicitly targeted Sharia [1] [2] [3]. At the same time, a number of broadly worded “foreign law” statutes modeled on the American Laws for American Courts template remain on state books, and courts have evaluated those statutes under ordinary constitutional and preemption principles rather than issuing a single nationwide rule [4] [5].
1. How the litigation began and what courts asked
The wave of litigation traces to 2010–2011 ballot measures and statutes that either named “Sharia” or barred “foreign” or “international” law from being considered by state courts; Oklahoma’s “Save Our State Amendment,” which explicitly mentioned Sharia and international law, produced the first major federal challenge and injunction in 2010 [1] [4]. Plaintiffs and courts focused on whether these measures responded to any real legal problem in state courts, and whether singling out a religious legal tradition created an impermissible government preference or hostility toward Islam [3] [6].
2. The leading federal rulings: Oklahoma and its lessons
Federal judges enjoined Oklahoma’s amendment and the Tenth Circuit unanimously upheld the injunction, concluding the measure likely violated the Establishment Clause by treating Islam as suspect and noting that proponents could not identify a single instance of Sharia being applied in Oklahoma courts to justify the ban [2] [3]. Reporting and legal summaries consistently treat the Oklahoma outcome as the seminal federal rebuke of explicitly anti‑Sharia measures and as evidence that courts view a “Sharia threat” as a myth unsupported by record evidence [3] [2].
3. The patchwork of other state laws and mixed outcomes
Beyond Oklahoma, several states enacted broader foreign‑law restrictions—Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, South Dakota and Tennessee among them—that avoid naming Sharia and therefore have not uniformly been struck down; Pew’s review notes six states adopted such measures during the initial wave and that only Oklahoma’s explicit ban was invalidated by federal court in 2010 [4]. Independent trackers and investigations show the ALAC model language was introduced in dozens of states and ended up on the books in at least a dozen jurisdictions, producing a legal patchwork rather than a single constitutional conclusion applicable everywhere [5] [7].
4. Constitutional reasoning and mainstream legal opposition
Federal courts’ reasoning in enjoining explicit bans emphasized the Establishment Clause and the absence of a demonstrated governmental need, while major legal institutions warned that blanket prohibitions are unnecessary because ordinary conflict‑of‑law doctrines and public‑policy exceptions already prevent courts from enforcing foreign rules that contradict fundamental U.S. norms [3] [7]. Civil liberties groups framed explicit bans as discriminatory and harmful to religious freedom, and the American Bar Association has formally opposed blanket prohibitions on considering a religion’s entire body of law [6] [7].
5. Competing narratives and what courts have not decided
Proponents of ALAC-style laws, including author David Yerushalmi, assert the measures are neutral safeguards and deny anti‑Muslim intent, but courts have been skeptical when language explicitly singled out Islam or when proponents could not point to real incidents the laws remedied [5] [7]. Courts have not, on the record assembled here, issued a single definitive ruling nullifying all foreign‑law restrictions nationwide; rather, the judiciary has struck down explicit anti‑Sharia language while leaving more neutrally worded statutes subject to ordinary constitutional scrutiny [2] [4].
6. Bottom line and legal trajectory
Since 2010 federal courts have made clear that laws that explicitly single out Sharia are constitutionally vulnerable and have repeatedly found the putative “Sharia threat” meritless in the record before them, yet a number of broadly worded foreign‑law bans remain operative in some states and continue to attract litigation and public controversy—creating a legal landscape where outcomes depend on statute language, state facts, and constitutional analysis rather than on any validated nationwide problem of Sharia supplanting U.S. law [3] [4] [5].