Has any Texas municipal government ever passed ordinances based on Sharia principles?
Executive summary
No credible reporting indicates that any Texas municipal government has ever adopted ordinances based on Sharia principles; instead recent municipal and state actions have centered on rejecting or legislating against any purported imposition of Sharia, including mayoral proclamations, city council resolutions, and a state law targeting so‑called “Sharia compounds” [1] [2] [3].
1. What the record actually shows: municipalities rejecting, not adopting, Sharia rules
Local reporting and statements document cities and officials taking positions aimed at preventing foreign or religious law from supplanting U.S. and Texas law—Keller’s mayor issued a proclamation rejecting Sharia law and affirming constitutional supremacy, and Keller’s city council ultimately approved a resolution reaffirming “constitutional governance” while removing explicit mentions of Sharia from its text [2] [1]; Irving city council members passed a resolution supporting state legislation to bar foreign law from displacing Texas or U.S. law amid controversy over an Islamic tribunal [4].
2. State government has acted to prohibit the notion of Sharia governance, not to codify it
Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Legislature have moved to block developments or entities they described as attempting to create spaces governed by Sharia, signing a bill aimed at banning “Sharia compounds” and publicly calling for investigations into alleged Sharia tribunals—measures framed as protecting Texans and asserting that Texas law governs, not as acknowledging any municipal Sharia ordinances in force [3] [5] [6] [7].
3. The contested case behind the rhetoric: EPIC City and political frictions
Much of the legal and political activity arose from controversy over a planned development known as EPIC City (later “The Meadow”), which state leaders cited as a hypothetical model for a Sharia‑governed enclave even as developers insisted they would abide by Texas law; the disputes produced state-level legislation and public denunciations despite developers’ claims that no separate legal system was intended [8] [9].
4. Counterarguments, civil‑rights concerns, and political incentives
Civil‑rights groups such as CAIR‑Texas have publicly criticized the governor’s rhetoric and the law’s framing, saying there are no actual “Sharia compounds” in Texas and warning that alarmist language stigmatizes Muslim Texans and can spur discrimination—this perspective highlights an alternative reading of the actions as political signaling or fear‑based campaigning rather than correction of an extant legal problem [10] [8].
5. Limits of available reporting and what cannot be asserted
The reporting reviewed documents multiple municipal proclamations and resolutions rejecting Sharia and a state law aimed at preventing Sharia‑style compounds, and several outlets explicitly state that no Texas neighborhood is governed by Sharia law; however, these sources do not provide a searchable, exhaustive catalogue of every municipal ordinance in Texas history, so absolute proof that no single municipality ever adopted any local ordinance referencing or invoking Sharia principles in some narrow form is beyond the supplied record [11] [12] [8].
6. Bottom line for the question asked
Based on the available reporting, Texas municipalities have not passed ordinances instituting Sharia principles; the documented trend is the opposite—local and state actors have introduced proclamations, resolutions, and state legislation to prohibit or condemn the binding force of Sharia or any foreign religious law within municipal governance [2] [1] [3] [8].