After multiple shooters who reportedly supported the Islamic State attacked Americans amid the Iran war, a Muslim reformer warns that a “seditious” form of his faith poses a grave threat to America, and warns his fellow Republicans need to correctly identify the threat.
Reps. Keith Self and Chip Roy, both Republicans from Texas, established a “Sharia-Free America Caucus.” Roy warned that “Sharia is a direct threat to our Constitution and Western values and seeks to replace our legal system and erode our basic freedoms.”
“I am a supporter of Chip Roy … and see eye-to-eye with [his allies] on the threat of the global Sharia supremacist movement and the threat domestically against the American way of life,” M. Zuhdi Jasser, a medical doctor and military veteran who founded the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, told The Daily Signal in an interview Friday.
Jasser, a Republican running for Congress in Arizona, insisted that not all Muslims pose a threat, however.
“We need to make sure we make a distinction between Muslims and those within the Muslim community that are Islamists, who believe that Islam is a political movement, a legal movement, and a national identity movement in which the flag is Islamist and they are a seditious movement against Western nations,” he explained.
Jasser warned that “if we’re sloppy and we mix those two concepts of Islamism versus the rest of Muslims, we are going to lose that battle.”
The Muslim reformer argued that “the greatest asset that we have against Islamism and political Islam are Muslims that are anti-theocratic.”
He presented his own case as illustrative.
“My American identity is what prevented me from being radicalized and motivated me to defeat theocracy,” Jasser said.
He praised America’s Founders for fostering the possibility of religious freedom—drawing “a distinction between theocracy and the personal practice of Christianity and Judeo-Christian faith.” He suggested this should be a model for Muslim reform.
In December 2024, Jasser argued in an Oxford debate that the current form of Islam needs reform in order to foster representative government.
“I practice Sharia in my personal faith, but what’s Sharia? Is my Sharia a source of law, or the source of law?” Jasser said in the debate.
He told The Daily Signal he is “very sympathetic” to “the visceral response of Americans to this threat,” and he said the onus rests on Muslims, not non-Muslims, to explain and combat it.
“Light a fire under the feet of Muslims, because if my kids are going to be able to thrive in an America that welcomes anti-Islamist Muslims, then Americans need to get a little more savvy with the difference between them, and it’s up to Muslims to define that, not non-Muslims to just sort of give us a pass,” Jasser said.
He lamented that very few Muslims are willing to condemn political Islam.
Jasser cited a study from the German Federal Criminal Police Office showing that nearly half of Muslims under age 40 have Islamist views, showing a preference for Sharia law over the German Basic Law. He said the proportion is likely smaller in the United States, but still too large.
Of American Muslims, he said, “Not only are 30-40% dyed-in-the-wool Islamists, the rest of the 60%, for the most part, have been silent. Yes, Muslims that are anti-Islamist are a minority, as far as vocal ones.”
He highlighted the CLARITy Coalition, which aims to combat Islamist tyranny and which includes other Muslim reformers like Asra Nomani and former Muslims like Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
“We need to flip the script on the Islamists that have said this is anti-Islam, and they racialize our faith,” he urged.
