Randy Fine’s proposed U.S. legislation, H.R. 5512, titled: No Shari’a Act, promises to prohibit U.S. courts from enforcing any ruling “based in whole or in part” on Sharia if it violates constitutional rights [1].

Hope is not strategy.

The bill is well-intentioned but doomed. Remarkably, the bill never once defines the word “Shari’a” — leaving judges to guess what qualifies. Without that definition, and without fixing the deeper constitutional blind spot on what actually qualifies as a protected “religion,” the legislation is unenforceable and, frankly, meaningless.

H.R. 5512, Section 5. Main Provisions

• 5(a) Prohibition: No court shall enforce a judgment, decree or arbitration decision if it relies in whole or part on Shari’a or any foreign law that violates constitutional rights.
• 5(b) Contracts: a contract choosing foreign law is valid only if enforcement doesn’t violate constitutional rights.
• 5(c) Family Law: Matters of marriage, divorce, child custody, adoption, inheritance — no court may apply foreign law inconsistent with fundamental rights or public policy.

All of this simply restates what American courts already do.

The Real Problem: The Constitution Never Defined “Religion”

The U.S. Constitution does not define religion. It protects the free exercise thereof — but nowhere does it say what qualifies. This omission is now being ruthlessly exploited.

Sharia is not a set of private religious beliefs. It is an all–encompassing socio/economic/political system that has been in force for 14 centuries but is now expanding Westward. It governs criminal law, contracts, warfare, taxation, speech, inheritance, dress, sexuality, marriage, and much more. It classifies the world into Muslims and non-Muslims, and it mandates different legal rules and treatment for each.

Yet under current U.S. law, Sharia is treated as a protected religious expression — a fatal misunderstanding.

What Sharia Is — And Isn’t

Koran 45:18 defines Sharia explicitly:

• “Then We put you, [O Muhammad], on an ordained way [Arabic: shari’a] concerning the matter [of religion]; so follow it and do not follow the desires of those who do not know.”

Sharia is the commanded path, the ordained way [2]. It is Islam itself, not a human interpretation or external add-on. Attempts to separate “Islam” from “Sharia” misunderstand the foundational texts.

Any law claiming to ban “Sharia” while still protecting “Islam” is attempting the impossible. The two are doctrinally inseparable.

No Definition, No Teeth

Will H.R. 5512 stop:

• workplace prayer breaks or gender-segregated events?
• Sharia-compliant finance?
• public or private schools teaching that Jews and Christians are “cursed” (Qur’an 5:60, 9:30)?
• private Islamic towns built explicitly around “Hijra-minded” Sharia living?

None of these clearly “violate constitutional rights,” but they are all expressions of Sharia — and they are changing America every day [3].

Dearborn and Epic Ranch: Legal, Peaceful, and Doctrinal

Would this bill have stopped the Islamic political capture of Dearborn, Michigan? No. That happened through legal immigration, political organizing, and religious accommodations.

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Dearborn’s Muslim-majority city council operates under Michigan law, not Sharia courts — yet many of its policy priorities (e.g., amplifying the adhan over loudspeakers, funding Arab-American museum exhibits that critics say whitewash Islamic history) flow directly from mainstream Islamic doctrinal positions that would be unthinkable in a secular or Christian-majority city of similar size [4].

Would it stop the new Islamic community EPIC City (aka Epic Ranch) in Texas — a planned Muslim-centric development targeting Muslim families with Sharia-compliant amenities like a central mosque, halal retail, and interest-free financing [5]?

Both are perfectly legal under current First Amendment and property-law.

What Actually Works: A Legal Threshold for “Religion”.

The real solution is to do what the Founders never did: establish an objective legal threshold for what qualifies as a “religion” eligible for tax exemptions, institutional recognition, public funding and special accommodations.

Pre-1960s American courts (Reynolds v United States 1879, Davis v. Beason 1890, Utah’s inclusion in the republic — Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v U.S. 1890 [6]) and current European jurisprudence (e.g., ECtHR cases such as Refah Partisi v. Turkey (2003) [7] and Dogru v. France (2008) [8]) already recognize that a belief system can forfeit protected religious status when its authoritative doctrines:

(a) seek to replace the secular legal order,

(b) deny equal rights on grounds of sex or belief, or

(c) authorize violence or coercion against non-adherents or apostates.

My own proposed legislation — fully drafted for the United States, Canada, the U.K., and France — translates these principles into clear statutory language [9]. To earn public privileges, a belief system must demonstrably affirm:

• equality before the law (including testimony, inheritance, and divorce),
• rejection of violence or coercion to enforce belief,
• rejection of slavery and polygamy or FGM as religious rights [10],
• protection of children and freedom to leave the faith, and
• the supremacy of civil law over any competing legal code.

Peaceful, private belief remains fully protected. Public privilege, however, is conditional — and rightly so.

Without this, well-meaning legislation will never survive judicial review — and Sharia will continue advancing one accommodation at a time, protected by the very constitutional freedoms that classical Sharia doctrine explicitly seeks to restrict or replace.

Until Congress or the courts are willing to define both ‘Sharia’ and the outer boundaries of what qualifies as a protected ‘religion’ in a secular republic, every new anti-Sharia bill will die in committee or in court. The accommodation train will keep rolling — one prayer room, one halal cafeteria, one gender-segregated swimming hour at a time — until the destination is no longer recognizable as constitutional America.

SOURCES:

[1] H.R. 5512 https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/5512 [2] Koran 45:18 https://legacy.quran.com/45/18
[3] CAIR press release https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-sends-congressional-briefing-memo-urging-lawmakers-to-reject-unconstitutional-anti-muslim-anti-sharia-bills/
[4] Dearborn https://www.wxyz.com/news/dearborn-residents-complain-about-outdoor-calls-to-prayer-from-mosques-throughout-city
[5] Epic Ranch https://ca.news.yahoo.com/know-sharia-city-development-planned-100000653.html
[6] Utah https://archives.utah.gov/2021/05/27/utahs-road-to-statehood-the-obstacle-of-polygamy/
[7] Refah v Turkey https://www.refworld.org/jurisprudence/caselaw/echr/2003/en/18976
[8] Dogru and others v France https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2008-12-16/european-court-of-human-rights-french-ban-on-headscarves-in-sports-classes-upheld/
[9] Ellinger, E. ‘A Civilizational Reckoning: Understanding the Threat, Reclaiming the Future’ 2025 Chapter 10.4 and Appendices.
[10] FGM: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/religious-freedom-claims-used-defend-fgm-courts-four-countries/

Elaine Ellinger‘s New Book

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