Briefing
Housing, zoning, and statehouses — written so a mosque is not confused with a court. Updated September 2026.
These are live American stories. We quote officials, developers, and court language. We do not treat mosque growth as an invasion, and we do not pretend exclusive housing rules or private tribunals are imaginary. For the standing argument, read In the U.S. and Policy.
Last updated September 2026.
North Texas · 2024–2026
A 402-acre master-planned community near Josephine, Texas, backed by members of the East Plano Islamic Center, has become the most-watched housing fight in the country. The legal question is not whether Muslims may live near a mosque. It is whether anyone may be locked into a religious housing scheme.
Community Capital Partners, formed by members of the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC) in Plano, proposed more than 1,000 homes on about 402 acres in Collin and Hunt counties, plus a mosque, a K–12 faith-based school, commercial space, clinics, and assisted living. In November 2025 the developer renamed the project The Meadow, saying “EPIC City” had been read as a separate municipality.
Governor Greg Abbott, Sen. John Cornyn, and other Texas Republicans called it a “Sharia compound” or “no-go zone.” Abbott’s office said the developers meant a city open only to Muslims, subject to Sharia, with restricted resale. Developers and local Muslim leaders said the neighborhood is open to any faith and that a mosque-centered plan is no different from a church-centered one. A federal judge in the Western District of Texas later wrote, in a related funeral-rites case, that “no evidence has been presented” EPIC intends to impose Sharia on Texans.
The U.S. Department of Justice opened a civil-rights inquiry and closed it in June 2025 without charges after the developer affirmed that “all will be welcome” and would revise marketing to match the Fair Housing Act. In February 2026 HUD opened its own fair-housing probe. HUD cited a Texas Workforce Commission complaint alleging marketing as an exclusively “Muslim community” and “the epicenter of Islam in America,” lot terms that required owners to subsidize a mosque and Islamic schools, and a two-tier lottery that favored some buyers. The developer denies discrimination.
In June 2025 Abbott signed House Bill 4211, effective immediately. His press office billed it as banning “Sharia compounds.” The enrolled text is narrower and closer to a civil-law rule: disputes over these residential arrangements must go to a Texas or federal court, not a private tribunal; a managing entity may not restrict transfers or refuse otherwise qualified buyers in a way that would violate the Texas Fair Housing Act; owners may transfer their interest without the entity’s approval. It also carves large religious-owned subdivisions out of the Fair Housing Act’s ordinary religious-organization exemption.
Our read
A mosque and school on the plat is worship. Marketing a subdivision as Muslim-only, tying lots to mosque dues, blocking resale, or sending disputes to a religious tribunal is housing discrimination and parallel law. Name those practices. Do not treat every Muslim neighbor as a compound.
Arkansas · 2026
Texas is not the only capitol writing housing rules in the shadow of a small Islamic subdivision. Arkansas lawmakers tried a Sharia-titled property bill. It did not become law.
In Little Rock, the Islamic Center for Human Excellence developed a small subdivision known as New Africa in the John Barrow neighborhood. Viral posts called it an “Islamic compound.” Buyers sign a Bill of Assurance — the same kind of document a homeowners’ association uses. It includes language that the development is “for the purpose of creating a wholly owned residential Al-Islamic community conforming to the social guidelines given in the Quran.” Local reporting found a handful of houses, not a parallel court system.
In the 2026 fiscal session, Reps. Marcus Richmond, Alyssa Brown, and Justin Gonzales introduced House Resolution 1016 to authorize the “Arkansas Property Rights Protection From Sharia Law Act.” The draft would have required residential-property disputes to be heard in U.S. or Arkansas courts rather than a nongovernmental tribunal, and restricted how certain entities transfer ownership. Because it was a non-fiscal bill in a fiscal session, it needed a two-thirds vote even to be heard. It did not become law. Interfaith leaders said the push weaponized fear around an older, modest project. A regular session is due in January 2027.
Separately, Arkansas already restricts some foreign ownership of agricultural land. That is a different statute from a Sharia-named housing bill. Do not mash them into one “Islamic land grab” story.
Our read
Requiring property fights in open civil court is a legitimate rule — for every religion. Titling the bill “from Sharia law” is the First Amendment trap our policy page warns about. Write “no private tribunal, no religious test for a deed.” Then it can survive court.
Zoning · 2020–2026
U.S. mosques have more than doubled since 2000. That is demography and the First Amendment. It is not a second legal system. Several 2026 zoning fights show how quickly “Sharia” is used when the actual permit is a house of worship.
The U.S. Mosque Survey (ISPU / Hartford Institute) counted 2,769 mosques in 2020, up from 2,106 in 2010 and about 1,209 in 2000. Pew’s 2026 portrait of Muslim Americans rounds the same series to roughly 1,200 mosques in 2000 and nearly 2,800 in 2020. The Muslim population is about 5.5 million — still around one percent of the country. Faith Communities Today and Religion News Service note that opposition at hearings has grown even as most projects eventually succeed. Mosques remain well under one percent of U.S. houses of worship.
McKinney, Texas: On August 4, 2026, the City Council voted 7–0 to approve a site plan for the McKinney Islamic Association — a sanctuary, classrooms, and a gym — after more than four hours and 100 speakers. City staff said the plan was fully compliant and asked for no variance. Rep. Keith Self and others framed the vote as stopping Sharia. A recall petition targeting four council members followed. Traffic is a planning question. Islam as such is not.
Mooresville, North Carolina: The Islamic Center of Lake Norman bought land in 2019 in a commercial district where religious assembly has been allowed by right since 1998. Construction is underway, with a hoped-for 2027 opening. Packed Board of Commissioners meetings in August and on September 8, 2026, heard traffic and “way of life” objections and, from some speakers, attacks on Islam. Town officials said the board cannot vote the mosque down without illegal down-zoning.
Islamberg, in the New York Catskills, is a small hamlet founded in the 1980s by African-American Muslims leaving New York City. It is not a new “no-go zone.” It has been a magnet for conspiracy talk and, in past years, foiled plots against the residents. A quiet rural community is not evidence of parallel law.
Our read
A mosque is not a court. Zoning must be the same for a church, a temple, and a masjid. Save the word Sharia for hudud, guardianship, coerced family arbitration, and exclusive housing rules — not for a building permit.