How Did It Get This Far?
A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI
The current conflict in Texas did not begin with a lawsuit, a school incident, or a campaign speech. It began quietly—years earlier—when the East Plano Islamic Center expanded from a conventional mosque into something far more ambitious: a comprehensive, self-sustaining religious community encompassing worship, education, housing, commerce, and social life.
From within the community, this growth appeared lawful, ordinary, and even responsible. Religious communities in America often expand to meet the needs of their members. From outside, however, the expansion crossed an invisible threshold. The concern was not size alone. It was institutional completeness—the sense that an internal system of life was forming alongside, and potentially insulated from, the surrounding civic order.
That distinction—between religion as belief and religion as governance—explains almost everything that followed.
I. Why EPIC’s expansion triggered concern before it triggered opposition
EPIC did not announce itself as a “city.” It developed incrementally: land acquisition, planning documents, internal fundraising, architectural concepts. Each step complied with zoning and nonprofit rules. No single action demanded statewide attention.
But when the full scope became visible, neighbors asked a different kind of question:
If disputes arise inside this community, what authority ultimately governs—civil law alone, or something more?
That question would not arise with a megachurch or a Catholic school. Not because Christianity lacks doctrine, but because American civic life already assumes that Christian institutions are subordinate to constitutional law.
With Islam, and specifically Sharia, that assumption is not automatically shared.
II. Sharia versus Sunni: the distinction that must be made clearly
This is where public debate often collapses into confusion, and where this essay must be precise.
Sunni Islam is not the concern
Sunni Islam is a theological identity, not a governing program. It encompasses the majority of Muslims worldwide and includes diverse schools of thought, cultures, and practices. Most Sunnis—especially in the United States—publicly oppose violence, reject terrorism, and live comfortably under secular constitutional law.
A Sunni community that:
- affirms the supremacy of U.S. civil law
- rejects coercive religious courts
- condemns violence unequivocally in word and action
- operates transparently within public institutions
does not trigger the same concern.
That must be stated plainly:
Sunni identity alone is not what alarms Texans.
Sharia-as-governance is the concern
Sharia, in its broad sense, refers to Islamic guidance for personal religious life—prayer, fasting, charity, family rituals. In that sense, most Sunnis support Sharia, just as Jews support halakhah and Catholics follow canon law in personal matters.
But Sharia also exists as a jurisprudential system addressing governance, criminal punishment, civil authority, and relations between believers and non-believers. Within classical Islamic jurisprudence are doctrines—real, documented, historically applied—concerning apostasy, blasphemy, jihad, and the subordination of non-Muslims under certain conditions.
Most modern Muslims reject coercive applications of these doctrines. But the doctrines exist, and history shows that a minority is sufficient to activate them.
This is the fault line.
The concern is not faith. It is governance.
Not belief, but systems.
III. Why Sunni diversity does not, by itself, reassure skeptics
Appealing to the fact that “most Muslims are Sunni” does not resolve the concern—not because Sunnism mandates violence, but because Sunni Islam is not a single moderating authority.
Sunni jurisprudence contains multiple schools of law, ranging from flexible and contextual to literalist and rigid. Modern jihadist movements arise almost entirely from Sunni contexts—not because Sunnism commands violence, but because its interpretive breadth allows extremists to selectively extract, absolutize, and weaponize certain doctrines.
This is not an indictment of Sunnis. It is a structural vulnerability.
Thus, when Texans react to the word “Sharia,” they are not reacting to their Muslim neighbors’ intentions. They are reacting to the worst-case potential embedded in a governing system, filtered through historical experience.
IV. The 9/11 lesson Texans did not forget
This reaction is not abstract. It is shaped by hindsight.
The 9/11 attackers did not announce their intentions. They entered ordinary systems—flight schools, airports—under normal rules, with benign appearances. The danger was invisible until the moment of catastrophe.
That experience permanently altered American risk perception:
Threats are not always visible at the point of entry.
They often look ordinary until they are not.
So when Texans observe:
- a religious community scaling quietly into permanence
- a legal-religious system that, in some interpretations, subordinates civil law
- outreach touching public institutions
they do not ask, “Is this illegal today?”
They ask, “Is this the early stage we would miss again?”
That reaction is not hysteria. It is memory-driven vigilance.
V. Wylie East High School: what happened—and why it mattered anyway
The incident at Wylie East High School illustrates how this vigilance plays out.
An outside Muslim group distributed Qur’ans and offered hijabs and henna during lunch. Participation was voluntary. The problem was procedural: the group had not been properly vetted or approved under district policy.
Wylie Independent School District acknowledged the failure, placed a staff member on administrative leave, apologized publicly, and tightened access rules. Administratively, it was treated as a compliance breakdown.
That explanation is accurate—and still incomplete.
To neighbors already unsettled by EPIC’s expansion, the incident felt like pattern completion:
- an outside religious organization
- operating inside a public institution
- with minimal friction
Not indoctrination.
Not coercion.
But ease of access.
In a climate shaped by Sharia-as-governance anxiety and post-9/11 hindsight, the event did not read as a paperwork error. It read as boundary testing.
VI. Texas turns toward prevention—and why that instinct is rational
When Dan Patrick elevated “preventing Sharia law” as a legislative priority, critics dismissed it as fear-mongering. But politically, it resonated because it named an anxiety others avoided:
What if tolerance today becomes submission tomorrow?
Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton then moved from rhetoric to preemptive action—investigations, lawsuits, and nonprofit challenges aimed at Muslim-linked institutions, including Council on American-Islamic Relations.
From their perspective, waiting for overt illegality would be irresponsible. Prevention is the point.
And that instinct is not irrational.
VII. The strategic problem: prevention without predicates
Here is where the effort becomes clumsy—and legally vulnerable.
American law does not punish potential.
It punishes conduct.
Preventative instincts born of intelligence failures do not translate easily into civil litigation. Courts require:
- specific statutory violations
- demonstrable unlawful conduct
- clear nexus between actions and prohibited outcomes
Absent that, the state faces a structural dilemma:
If no law is being broken, prevention becomes punishment for belief, association, or scale.
That is constitutionally untenable.
VIII. What are the chances Texas loses?
If EPIC, CAIR, or related institutions are complying with zoning, nonprofit, and criminal law, the odds of Texas losing in court are high.
Not because judges are naïve.
But because American law is designed to resist preemptive suppression of lawful activity, even when fear feels justified.
This creates a paradox:
- Texas’s vigilance is shaped by hindsight.
- That same hindsight has strengthened constitutional protections against overreach.
The result is a strategy that is emotionally coherent but legally fragile.
IX. The harder path Texas is avoiding
The durable preventative strategy is not broad lawsuits or symbolic bans. It is:
- strict, neutral enforcement of existing law
- transparency requirements tied to conduct, not creed
- early public clarification that civil law is supreme
- federal intelligence cooperation where warranted
This path is slower, quieter, and less satisfying politically—but far more likely to hold up in court.
X. The real balance Texas must strike
Texas is right to be alert. History earned that vigilance.
Texas is wrong to act as though alertness itself is evidence.
The lesson of 9/11 was not “act first.”
It was “see clearly before it’s too late.”
Seeing clearly requires discipline—especially when fear feels earned.
If Texas can distinguish Sunni faith from Sharia-as-governance, belief from systems, and risk assessment from guilt, it can protect both its citizens and its constitutional authority.
If it cannot, it risks losing—not because it worried too much, but because it acted before the law could follow.
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