Dallas News:

Alia Salem, who directs the North Texas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the Irving council had a choice between diversity and bigotry.

By AVI SELK aselk@dallasnews.com

Staff Writer
Published: 19 March 2015 11:06 PM
Updated: 19 March 2015 11:39 PM

IRVING — The intense national spotlight on Islam has shifted to Irving, where Mayor Beth Van Duyne has accused mosque leaders of creating separate laws for Muslims and the City Council voted Thursday to endorse a state bill that Muslims say targets their faith.

The dispute has made Van Duyne a hero among a fringe movement that believes Muslims — a tiny fraction of the U.S. population — are plotting to take over American culture and courts.

“It fuels anti-Islamic hysteria,” said Zia Sheikh, imam at the Islamic Center of Irving. “Her whole point was to rile up her supporters. ... The problem is we become the whipping boys.”

The mayor stands by her statements, including an interview with former Fox News host Glenn Beck last month, when she said Sheikh and other imams were “bypassing American courts” by offering to mediate disputes among their worshippers according to an Islamic code called Shariah.

The mediation is advertised as voluntary, nonbinding and in harmony with the law.

But it has led Van Duyne to back a bill by state Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, that would forbid judges from using foreign law in their rulings.

While the bill does not mention religion, Leach has singled out the Islamic mediation panel as a “problem” it will solve. The wording is largely identical to that in a previous bill pitched by another lawmaker as a way to stop the influence of “large populations of Middle Easterners.”

Muslims in hijabs, burqas and business suits packed City Hall on Thursday, voicing protests before the council endorsed the bill in a 5-4 vote.

“This bill does not reference Shariah, Islam or even religion. It has nothing to do with preventing any tribunal,” Van Duyne told the crowd. “Why anyone would feel this is hatred or bigotry is absolutely beyond me.”

The tribunal

The Islamic Tribunal, a panel of Dallas-area imams, offers to mediate disputes between Muslims for a fee.

“This is how it starts,” a Breitbart.com writer warned, conflating the service with “vicious, misogynistic, and brutal” systems in other countries.

While the tribunal is headquartered in Dallas, blog posts around the country pegged its home as Irving: the purported ground zero in a Muslim takeover of the U.S. legal system.