Does Sharia Law = Canon Law And Judaic Law?

The jihadists are determined to force Sharia on the West, even though it is totally incompatible with our laws and customs. Resist!!!

From the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights

By Bill Donahue

Michigan Senatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed recently defended sharia law by saying it was the equivalent of canon law in Christian law. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the leading Muslim civil rights organization, goes further, equating halakha (Judaic law) with sharia law and Christian law.

On June 8, 119 House Democrats agreed with CAIR, and used the alleged similarities as support for a resolution condemning a bicameral “Sharia-Free America Caucus.” “Sharia, like Catholic canon law and Jewish Halakha, is a system of personal religious guidance developed through centuries of religious scholarship.”

The analogy fails.

Canon law is the name that is used to describe governance in the Catholic Church. Halakha is the name that is used to describe the totality of Jewish laws that have evolved since biblical times. Sharia has personal and political meaning, and is thus not the equivalent of Canon law and Halakha. It can also have consequences for those who are not Muslim.

The New Jersey affiliate of CAIR maintains that “Sharia is a moral and ethical guide for personal faith and daily life for Muslims,” and is not some “political tool.” The CAIR affiliate in Georgia agrees, saying, “sharia simply refers to the rules Muslims follow, from praying five times a day to tithing annually to fasting during Ramadan.”

If that is all sharia is—a personal guidebook—why did 95 percent of those who voted in Texas last March agree that “Texas should prohibit sharia law”? Either they are ignorant of its true meaning or their perspective is warranted by events. The evidence shows they are not overreacting.

Last year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called for investigations into alleged attempts to enforce sharia law in the state. He cited the Islamic Tribunal in Dallas which he said “purports to exercise jurisdiction over all aspects of life—even over non-ecclesiastical legal disputes—and to subject them to ‘Islamic Jurisprudence and its Shari’ah or Law.’”

Also in 2025, Texas Senator John Cornyn publicly criticized the East Plano Islamic Center, saying it is “designed as an exclusive religious settlement where Islamic principles govern not only daily life and education, but commerce.” He added, “Religious-based discrimination is a constitutional violation as well as a federal rights violation.”

Earlier this year, there were two congressional hearings on the application of sharia in the United States, focusing on Texas. The testimonies were startling.

Krista Shield is the Texas State Director for the RAIR Foundation USA. She provided evidence from the Muslim Brotherhood detailing their master plan to infiltrate the nation. The 1991 Explanatory Memorandum spelled out their goal, bragging how “their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

CAIR agrees, calling mosques “our infrastructure.” Shields offers as examples of this strategy, as outlined by imams, the following: “Islam is not a religion. Islam is a system of governance”; “Democracy is silly. Human beings should not make laws.” “Sharia is the legal framework for laws across America.”

Muslim lawmakers in Texas want to create Islamic holidays and promote Islamic traditions, using the law to advance their cause. Copies of the Quran are being passed out in the schools and hijabs are being given to school children without parental consent. Sharia patrols are monitoring Muslim businesses in Houston. Worse, Muslim young women have been killed by their father for dating non-Muslim men. In Dallas, two imams who promote hand amputation for crimes, sex with captives and stoning adulterers, are suing to seize a Christian megachurch.

There is another view of sharia which contends that it is open to interpretation, and that it is a combination of traditions that use multiple texts.

It is not the job of the Catholic League to probe the hermeneutics of this controversy. We are not primarily interested in the interpretation of sharia—we are interested in its application.

Canon law has no bearing on any nation, save for those who live within the Vatican City State. No nations are under halakha, or Jewish law, including Israel. But many nations are under sharia law. Even those who contend that sharia is open to interpretation admit that it is often used to justify oppression in Muslim-majority nations.

Just a few months ago, we released our study of civil liberties in countries with sharia. We found that the stricter the adherence to sharia that a Muslim-majority nation practiced, the more severe the oppression. As I wrote at the time, “Sharia is wholly incompatible with the tenets of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. But Christianity is not.”

In short, those who want to put a happy face on sharia need to explain why its practice in Muslim-majority nations typically yields barbaric results, and why what is going on Texas can be justified.