A Call to Power: Islamic Leaders See Ballot Box as Path to Paradise

Like Polish, German, Irish, and Italian immigrants before them, American Muslims now control several small cities. These include Hamtramck, which has an all-Muslim city council, as well as midsize cities like neighboring Dearborn. They are also wielding influence in large metropolises like New York City, where Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s top staff is composed almost entirely of Muslims.

In one sense, this is just the continuation of the country’s deep tradition of offering newcomers the opportunity to contribute their own customs to American society. But some critics say this iteration of the immigrant story offers a distinct challenge. A number of leading Muslim candidates for office, for example, are so opposed to America’s longtime ally Israel that their rhetoric veers into antisemitism. And some, such as the Democratic Party candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, are being supported with campaign funds linked to Hamas front groups and the radical, pro-jihad Muslim Brotherhood, which federal authorities say has a secret plan for “destroying” America “from within.” 

El-Sayed won his primary with at least $315,000 in Muslim Brotherhood-tied funds, a RealClearInvestigations examination of Federal Election Commission filings reveals, and he hopes his harsh attacks on “evil” Israel will help him become the first Muslim to sit in the U.S. Senate. Other Muslim candidates have ties to groups that have officially been designated as terror organizations, including al-Qaeda. Adam Hisham Hamawy, the Democratic nominee running for New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District, once maintained close ties to the late al-Qaeda “Blind Sheikh,” who was convicted for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, including acting as his translator, driver and defense witness.

Critics say electing Muslims to public office is freighted with other concerns. Many come from Islamic nations where corruption is the norm, and those ways have carried over to places like Hamtramck, where the majority of the city council is under active investigation for election fraud; and to Minneapolis, where Muslim lawmakers and the Muslim attorney general have been accused of protecting, even enabling, Somali immigrants who stole hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars from state and federal welfare agencies as part of a massive fraud ring, according to the Justice Department. The 2026 Directory of Elected Muslim Officials reports that  there are currently 228 American Muslim elected officials serving across 26 states.

Critics also warn that, unlike mainstream modern Christianity, Islam does not distinguish between the spiritual and political realms. Sharia law, for example, applies to religious and civic life because they are one and the same in Islam.

Based on the Quran and other holy Islamic scripture, Sharia regulates Muslim worship, dress and diet. But it also sanctions practices at odds with not only American culture but also the U.S. legal system – including domestic violence, polygamy, female circumcision, forced child marriage, honor killings, and militant jihad.  

European Warning Signs

Republican lawmakers and counterterrorism experts fear that as Muslims win control of towns and cities, they may weaken the nation’s separation of church and state while creating the kind of dangerous “no-go” areas for non-Muslims that authorities now identify in some 900 enclaves of Europe with heavy concentrations of Muslim immigrants. 

Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Portugal, and Switzerland are among EU members that have passed laws aimed at curbing radical Islam. The French Senate also passed a law in May aimed at countering “Islamist Infiltration” of the country following a 2025 government report, “Muslim Brotherhood and Political Islam in France,” and a poll that year finding a majority of Muslims in France aged 15 to 24 prefer Sharia law over French law.

Many Republicans say Europe offers a warning sign. “Tolerating beachheads of radical Islam in our country is literally civilization suicide,” said Missouri Rep. Bob Onder during a recent House Judiciary Committee hearing on the growing internal threat from Islam. “We’re seeing in many cases a lack of assimilation [from Muslim immigrants]. They join these very closed groups that are committed to imposing Sharia law.” 

“Tolerating that seems to be utter insanity,” Onder added, “especially if we see what’s going on in Europe right now, what’s going on in Germany, in London, in France.” 

Democrats and Muslim-rights groups counter that fears of Sharia creeping deeper into society are overblown and a symptom of “Islamophobia.”

“Actually, it doesn’t appear to be an issue anywhere in this country,” countered Pennsylvania Rep. Mary Scanlon. “In my district, we have a growing cultural center, Africatown, founded by immigrants-turned-citizens, many of whom are Muslim and have made huge contributions to our economic, cultural, charitable and civic life.” 

“There’s no evidence of any plot to impose Sharia law on non-believers of Islam,” she added. “It’s just not happening.” 

Yet Islamic teaching does urge believers to create a world where everyone submits to Allah. While Christian missionaries also proselytize even in Muslim countries, opinion surveys show that Muslims in America and around the world are far more committed to global conversion. An in-depth examination by RealClearInvestigations reveals that Muslim elected officials and spiritual leaders, backed by their own funds and foreign money, some tied to officially designated terror groups, are seeking to carve out their own societies within the United States. And while many Muslims are assimilating more traditional Western values, there is also a strong push to recreate communities based on the values and cultures of their former homelands. 

Vision of the Future

One vision of the Muslim future in America is being carved out of 400 acres of Texas prairie land in an unincorporated area just outside Dallas. Islamic leaders there are planning to build their own “city” to serve as the “epicenter of Islam in North America,” according to court papers filed by Texas’ attorney general, who opposes the project.

The massive East Plano Islamic Center, which is known as EPIC City, has already featured several extremist clerics. One of its imams, Yasir Qadhi, has preached to the Muslim faithful that the Quran calls Jews and Christians “filthy” and condemns them to “hellfire,” and that killing homosexuals and stoning adulterers is part of their religion. Qadhi chairs a powerful Sharia-ruling body, the Fiqh Council of North America, that guides the sermons and actions of clerics at America’s estimated 3,500 mosques. 

Qadhi is helping promote the development of EPIC City, which was recently rebranded “The Meadows” following local backlash over a promotional video that promised the community would bring “Islam to the forefront.” In June, EPIC sponsored a “Muslims only” event at an indoor public water park in the Dallas area – owned by the local government and funded by taxpayers – that was canceled after public outcry over the flyer, which stated: “CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC – MUSLIM ONLY.”  

“Islam is on the march [and] no-go zones are building,” warned Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy, who co-founded the Sharia-Free America Caucus on Capitol Hill. “There are now no-go zones in the DFW (Dallas-Fort Worth) metroplex.” 

Qadhi and EPIC deny building a “no-go zone” and say they are just meeting demand for housing from Muslims in their flock. They point out that Texas is now home to hundreds of thousands of Muslim families, and they say their project is “still going full-speed ahead.”

A similar Islamic compound, built by different developers, is under construction outside Houston. The “Sharia-compliant” Al-Huda Islamic Center in Katy, Texas, features a planned grand mosque, K-12 madrassas for “Quran memorization,” an Islamic university, cricket fields, several apartment complexes, health clinics, and retail shopping centers with halal butchers on more than 30 acres of farmland. “The surrounding area will also be fully constructed to provide a safe place for a community of Muslims,” Al-Huda reveals in a fundraising appeal to Muslim investors.

To accommodate the prayer needs of the growing ranks of Muslims in Texas, both Dallas and Houston airports have agreed to install Muslim foot-washing stations in bathrooms, although DFW is reconsidering its plans following public backlash.

Experts expect this so-called “Islamification” process to only grow as more Muslim refugees resettle in towns and cities across the U.S. – from the suburbs of northern Seattle, where thousands of Afghans are being relocated, to those in northern Virginia, the immigrant-rich backyard of America’s capital. Estimates of the Muslim American population vary widely. The Pew Research Center estimates it at 3.5 million, while the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) puts it at 8 million. There is broad agreement, however, that Islam is by far the fastest-growing religion in the U.S. and around the world. As the recent events in Spain show, where 60,000 Muslim migrants stormed the border early this month, many followers of the faith clamor to come to the West. 

They will certainly gain more power in the U.S. as Muslim leaders become active politically.

Financing Friendly Candidates

To that end, Islamic organizers are advancing a nationwide plan to back Muslim and other Islamic-friendly candidates with financing from a potential political war chest of more than $140 million a year in mosque and other donations from the swelling Muslim-American community.

Earlier this year, the Qadhi-led Fiqh Council of North America issued a legal ruling (fatwah) in coordination with the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America that for the first time unlocks Muslim-American tithing and charitable giving, known as “zakat,” for political use: “[G]iving one’s zakat for influencing political causes is warranted.” The stated goal is to, broadly, “empower” Muslim communities in America, but more specifically, to fund the campaigns of politicians who oppose Israel and support policies such as criminalizing criticism of the Prophet Muhammad and Islam in general.

Qadhi is sympathetic to such censorship: “For us Muslims, an infinitely more amount of respect should be shown to our religious symbols and especially to our prophet.” 

Efforts are already underway at the state level. In Virginia, which now boasts the fourth-highest Islamic population in the U.S., a Muslim Democrat has introduced a bill in the state senate to amend hate-crimes law to criminalize “prejudice toward Islam,” not just Muslims. The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Saddam Azlan Salim, also mandates that state troopers track “Islamophobia” as a new bias-motivated offense category. At the same time, RCI has reported, hateful rhetoric castigating Christians, Jews, and others is common in American mosques.

Legal scholars say any such blasphemy law would likely be struck down as an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment’s free speech clause. Critics say this is lost on such Muslim activists, who use America’s cornerstone civil rights – in this case, the freedom to practice religion – to advance their faith and its influence. In a 2023 talk to American Muslims, Qadhi exulted that they had a blessing most other Muslims lack: “A Constitution that protects our freedoms. We thank Allah for that freedom.”

Also in the past year, Islamic activists have formed their own political super PACs, including one backing El-Sayed – Fighting for Michigan PAC – whose main contributor is a longtime leader in Muslim Brotherhood front groups in America blacklisted by the Justice Department as unindicted terrorist co-conspirators. Another is the Unity and Justice Fund, which Sharia watchdogs claim is part of a highly organized “electoral jihad” to change foreign U.S. policy and push Sharia-conforming laws.

The Unity and Justice Fund, which is aggressively raising money from mosques and Islamic groups to back Democrats in the November congressional election, is connected to the controversial Council on American-Islamic Relations. CAIR, the nation’s largest Muslim-rights group, has a long-term plan to elect 30 Muslims to Congress, including at least two in the Senate. If he wins in November, El-Sayed would be the first Muslim senator. Currently, four Muslims serve in Congress, all Democrats. Surveys show Muslims vote overwhelmingly Democratic.

At the same time, CAIR says it is grooming more than 200 Muslims to run for state and local offices, as well. A “U.S. based Hamas front organization,” according to former FBI agent Lara Burns, CAIR was critical in organizing financial support and getting out the vote for New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The group now has former employees represented in top posts inside his administration. CAIR denies connections to Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet in 2009, after the Justice Department named CAIR an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terror fundraising case in U.S. history, a federal court found “ample evidence” linking CAIR to Hamas. 

Robert Spencer, a senior fellow with the David Horowitz Freedom Center, recently testified in Congress that the ultimate goal of CAIR and other Hamas- and Muslim Brotherhood-tied groups is to turn America into an Islamic nation. “This is all about political power” and Islamic dominance, he maintained.

Quest for Dominance

According to an article in the Fremont Argus, a California newspaper, CAIR founder Omar Ahmad once told a Muslim audience: “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Quran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.” Ahmad, who Burns said was wiretapped in FBI Hamas probes in the 1990s, gave the speech at a 1998 event in Fremont, Calif., organized by the Islamic Study School titled, “How Should We As Muslims Live in America?”

Among other things in its “Muslim Policy Platform,” CAIR is lobbying for a federal law banning “Islamophobia;” a federally designated Muslim heritage month; national Islamic holidays; special civil-rights protections for Muslims; an economic boycott of Israel and end to U.S. military and other aid to the longtime Mideast ally; protection of students to protest Israel on college campuses; increased aid to Gaza; special accommodations for incarcerated Muslims including terrorists – from the right to wear Islamic garb in prison to receiving free copies of the Quran, prayer mats and beads, and halal meals; the restoration of voting rights for released terrorist inmates; a ban on state voter ID laws and expansion of mail-in voting; a prohibition of local police aiding ICE in deportations; guaranteed permanent residency and citizenship for Afghan refugees; protected status for Palestinians seeking refuge in the U.S.; and the issuance of diversity visas for Muslim immigrants.  

Despite the FBI cutting off formal outreach to CAIR over its alleged terror ties, the nonprofit has been receiving millions of dollars in state and federal grants to help resettle thousands of Afghan and other Muslim refugees in cities and towns throughout the U.S. The Trump administration has opened an investigation to ensure these taxpayer dollars haven’t been funneled to terrorists, something CAIR strenuously denies, arguing the allocation of funds undergoes “rigorous” auditing. A number of Afghan refugees have carried out terrorist attacks or planned them in the homeland, including D.C., Virginia and Texas, since President Biden’s 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, which led to a mass evacuation and resettlement of roughly 200,000 Afghan nationals here with minimal security screening. CAIR also provides free legal services to undocumented Muslim immigrants. 

Thanks largely to mass immigration from Arab and other Muslim countries and high birth rates, Islam has become the fastest-growing faith in America – so much so that Muslim leaders are converting empty churches into mosques, which increasingly operate as nodes for political networking and activism. A 2020 survey revealed that 54% of U.S. mosques organized voter registration drives and 51% hosted politicians as speakers that election year. An overwhelming 95% of mosque leaders agree that Muslims should get involved in American politics. 

Even reliably Republican Union County, N.C., birthplace of the late conservative Republican Sen. Jesse Helms, is getting its first mosque. So too is the GOP stronghold of DeSoto County, Miss., ending years of local resistance and litigation. 

Many of these mosques are financed or owned through a trust controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood, which has a secret plan to Islamize America, according to federal agents who discovered its U.S. manifesto in the basement of a terrorist safehouse they raided in a D.C. suburb after 9/11. DOJ designated the North American Islamic Trust, the largest custodian of mosques in the U.S., a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and an unindicted co-conspirator in a 2008 Hamas terror case. Appellate courts have since upheld the designation. And some of the co-conspirators remain top Hamas leaders today.

Rising Enclaves

“Across America, the Brotherhood is buying churches and converting them to mosques,” said Amy Mekelburg, founder of RAIR Foundation USA, during a recent congressional hearing on the growing threat from Sharia law.

Some former FBI counterterrorism investigators point out that because mosques act as the hubs of Islamic enclaves – which include neighborhoods, religious schools (or “madrassas”), medical clinics, halal butchers, grocery stores, restaurants, and Sharia-compliant banks – the roots of 3,500 semiautonomous “exclusionary zones” have already potentially formed inside America. They say Muslim communities expand in a hub-and-spoke pattern out from the anchor mosque, grabbing more and more land and territory for Allah as they grow in numbers. 

In Texas, said Rep. Roy, “We’re seeing the massive expansion of mosques.” He added that this growth has been aided by some 650 Islamic organizations in the state. “These organizations [are] buying up land.” The number of mosques in Texas has doubled to more than 330 in just the past two decades. 

It’s not just Texas. In the nation’s capital, within walking distance of Roy’s office, Islamists are acquiring property, block by block. Through shell entities, terror-tied CAIR itself is quietly buying up land with foreign funding from Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries.

For the past two decades, the Council on American-Islamic Relations has held property just three blocks from the U.S. Capitol where it operates its national headquarters and controls branches in more than 20 states. The deed to CAIR’s national office on New Jersey Avenue is held in part by an Islamic trust DOJ says is controlled by the radical Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas – the North American Islamic Trust, which according to NAIT’s website holds title to land in 42 states. NAIT describes itself as a custodian of "waqf properties established by Prophet Muhammad … to serve Islamic objectives … [and] for purposes that are Shariah compliant, including socio-economic, military or political purposes for the benefit of Muslims.” Waqf properties, NAIT explains, “become restricted on a perpetual basis [and] must not be sold or inherited or given away.” 

And now, through a multilateral bank co-owned by Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar, and Turkey, CAIR is financing the construction by a Muslim developer of “CAIR Plaza” on K Street, a 50-unit apartment complex with retail space catering to “underserved” immigrant Muslims near Union Station. The financier of the nearly $20 million project, the Islamic Development Bank, manages the Al-Quds and Al-Aqsa Funds, which provide financial support to Palestinian intifadas and payments to the families of Palestinian “martyrs,” including suicide bombers. 

Calls to Action

As much as they may want to take over parts of the country and implement Sharia law, however, Muslims living in the U.S. have to operate within the confines of the Constitution, which guarantees no foreign or religious legal system can override American laws and freedoms. And Muslims don’t have the numbers to change federal law. 

But the threat is more nuanced, Sharia watchdogs insist. They worry that as more Muslims are elected to public office, they will increasingly change local ordinances to adhere to Sharia mandates, as they have in the suburbs of Detroit; and even protect Muslims from prosecution for crimes, which has happened in Minneapolis.

In a recent speech, former National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard said that American Muslims are working to impose “Sharia law” and “Islamic principles” across the country by exploiting the democratic process, specifically citing the cities of Paterson, Dearborn, Minneapolis, and Houston.

“CAIR issued a call to action to use American legal and political systems to implement Sharia law. This is already under way in places,” she said. “Paterson, N.J., is proud to call themselves the ‘first Muslim city.’ They [Muslim activists] are working to implement, in their own governments, these Islamic principles that are forced on people through the use of laws or violence.” 

Former FBI agent John Guandolo, who has investigated the radical influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in America, which he says controls the majority of Islamic organizations and mosques in the country, warns that Islamist leaders tied to the Brotherhood are increasingly emboldened and implementing a formula for Islamist political power from coast to coast. He contends American cities are following a pattern seen in the U.K., where Muslim immigrants essentially have taken over at least five whole cities, including Britain’s two largest — London and Birmingham, where Sharia law is encroaching on Western law.

“England is gone. Conquered. Done,” Guandolo said. “And we are next if we don’t stop their advance.”

He notes that London is now so sensitive to “Islamophobia” complaints from its burgeoning and increasingly dogmatic Muslim population that it prosecuted an atheist last year for burning the Quran while shouting, “Islam is a religion of terrorism.” The judge who convicted the defendant scolded him for having “a deep-seated hatred of Islam.”

Free speech advocates said the British government is enforcing a “de facto blasphemy law,” whereby non-Muslims must now respect the blasphemy code of Muslims. They warned the case will have a “chilling effect” on legitimate criticism of Islam, especially in light of the fact that the court let off a Muslim who attacked the Quran burner with a knife to “protect my religion.” Astoundingly, the Muslim man who took the “law” into his own hands by violently enforcing Islamic blasphemy code was spared any jail time.

Critics argue that even though free expression was met with violence, it was the expression that was punished, not the violence. They warn the judges’ rulings flash a green light to other British Muslims who want to silence blasphemers with weapons.

Guandolo points to what’s happening in Texas, where he’s now based, as a good example of Islamification on this side of the Atlantic. He calls it “ground zero for Islamic conquest” in America, because of the number of separatist movements in the state bent on carving out parallel Islamic societies that he and other law enforcement officials worry will one day be outside the reach and control of local authorities. They explain that once these parallel Islamic societies are developed, it becomes difficult for local officials to enter and operate freely inside them.

Walid Phares, a Muslim Brotherhood expert who has advised the FBI and other agencies on the threat from Islamic jihad and Sharia law, agrees.

“We are letting Muslim Brotherhood jihadists set up an apartheid system inside America, a double society that will give them a dangerous foothold when they have the numbers to really push their broader jihadi agenda,” Phares warned.

Muslim-rights groups counter that Muslim communities pose no threat to the U.S., and to say otherwise is just bigotry.

“There is no evidence that American Muslims are trying to impose religious law on the United States,” said a CAIR spokesperson. “But there is clear evidence that some are using misinformation, racism, and anti-Muslim stereotypes to attack our communities.”

Territorial Religion

Nonetheless, even many religious scholars point out that Islam is a uniquely territorial religion that seeks to bring all lands “under submission to Allah,” not just through jihad but also through “hijrah,” which is Arabic for emigration. The largest mosque in the D.C. area, where some of the 9/11 hijackers who attacked the Pentagon worshipped and received help, is even named with that in mind: Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, whose congregation is comprised largely of Palestinian immigrants.

Except for rural areas such as Lancaster County, S.C., where locals recently blocked the development of a mosque (“We do not want Sharia law in this area,” said one protestor; “Islam is not a religion, it’s a takeover,” said another), mosque planners have met little resistance. According to the 2020 Mosque Survey prepared by the Center on Muslim Philanthropy, only one-third (35%) of mosques encountered “significant resistance” from their neighborhoods and zoning boards when they applied for permits to build, though the share was up slightly from the previous decade.

Meanwhile, Sharia arbitration councils tied to mosques are popping up in cities with large Muslim populations. These all-male Islamic tribunals sidestep family courts and handle legal issues internally, including domestic violence cases.

“Sharia councils are the camel’s nose under the tent,” said Guandolo, who now trains local sheriffs and police chiefs about the threat from Brotherhood-run mosques and Islamization. He said as Muslims gain control of city halls and police forces, the Sharia councils could act as shadow courts turning a blind eye to criminal activity, including terrorism. Guandolo pointed to recent terror attacks by Muslims in Virginia, New York, Austin, New Jersey, and Michigan.

Former federal counterterrorism analyst William Gawthrop calls the Islamic councils, which he says work jointly with mosques, “laboratories of self-governance.”

“We’ve seen it in Europe,” said retired Plano (Texas) Police Lt. Doug Deaton, who’s investigated what he calls the “extremist” East Plano Islamic Center masterminding the development of the nearby 402-acre EPIC city. “And now we are absolutely seeing the same pattern of intent and behavior in the United States.”

This is part of a series of articles by RCI on the Rise of Islam. The series so far:

• GOP Battles Sharia: Is Islamic Law a Threat or Dog Whistle?
• Sharia’s Growing Influence on U.S. Finance
• How Hamas’ Attack on Israel Is Transforming American Politics
• The Rising ‘Anti-Zionist’ Funding Network
• Anatomy of the ‘Islamophobic’ Shooting That Wasn’t