SHARIAsource

Petitioner Muneer Awad sued defendant members of the Oklahoma Election Board seeking to prevent certification of election results of a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have prevented Oklahoma state courts from considering or using "Sharia Law." The Petitioner claimed this state constitutional amendment would have violated his federal constitutional First Amendment rights and sought a preliminary injunction. The Appellate Court determined that the Petitioner asserted the kind of direct injury-in-fact necessary to create First Amendment Establishment Clause standing. Specifically, the Appellate Court determined that because the amendment would have been certified a week after it was passed, the injury was imminent and not conjectural or hypothetical. The Appellate Court also found that the proposed amendment violated the Establishment Clause because it discriminated among religions, and was therefore subject to strict scrutiny. The Appellate Court ruled that the proposed amendment could not pass the strict scrutiny standard because the Oklahoma Election Board could not prove that the amendment was enacted to provide a compelling state interest, and therefore could not prove that the amendment was not “closely fitted” to that interest.

In this circuit court decision, which affirms the district court's judgment striking down the Oklahoman constitutional amendment to prohibit courts from considering "Sharia Law" in their decisions, the Court rules that the constitutional amendment violates Muslim petitioner's right to free exercise, as the ban imposed prevents him from engaging in many religious acts such as executing a will. The amendment also sends an unmistakable message to the Muslim community that they are considered outsiders - a message that is impermissible under the Federal Constitution. 

This paper addresses and critiques the case for state-level legislative bans on courts citing “Islamic law” or the law of Muslim-majority countries. In particular, the paper reviews the most substantive evidence adduced by the bans’ supporters, in the form of a set of state court cases published by the Center for Security Policy (CSP). Very few of these cases, in fact, show courts actually applying Islamic or foreign law, and in none of these cases would the various forms of proposed legislation have been likely to alter the result. Thus even this report does not suggest a need for the state laws purporting to ban sharīʿa. The paper thus argues that even if these bans are not unconstitutionally discriminatory in their effect, they are ineffective at achieving their claimed purpose.