Michigan State University assistant law professor Asma Uddin writes at The Conversation that Sharia “has no independent legal authority” in the United States, after President Trump accused U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed at an Oct. 25 rally in Port Huron, Michigan, of being a “jihadist” who wants to impose Sharia law. Uddin said Muslims follow the same laws as other Americans and that courts enforce religious agreements, such as Islamic marriage contracts, only under secular standards, as they do with Orthodox Jewish and Christian arbitration. She cited a June 2026 bill from U.S. Rep. Keith Self of Texas to bar federal courts from enforcing foreign or religious laws that conflict with the Constitution, asking what additional protection it would provide. Uddin said the debate “is also about whether Americans are willing to extend the same understanding of religious freedom to Muslims that they extend to other faiths.”