Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed generated controversy in August of this year when he made a pointed comparison to Islamic sharia law and Catholic canon law.
El-Sayed was responding to a question from Fox News host Jesse Watters about 2022 remarks in which El-Sayed appeared to equate opposition to sharia law with "white supremacy." The Senate candidate said he wishes to "practice my faith as I choose."
"Nobody is trying to push sharia law on anyone else," he said. "Just like I hope nobody is trying to push canon law on anybody else, because we live in America, where you should have the freedom of your religion."
El-Sayed brought the comparison up again during a campaign town hall in Muskegon, Michigan, telling a voter that the Constitution protects the right to live by canon law while barring anyone from enforcing it on others.
The remarks have generated controversy for El-Sayed's apparent equation of sharia law to canon law — two disparate forms of socio-ecclesial governance that help govern the lives of billions of religious adherents worldwide.
Sharia law vs. canon law
Sharia law, which governs Islamic religious practice along with family matters and financial transactions, also deals with aspects of political governance and public law, forming part or all of the political and legal systems in several Muslim-majority countries.
Canon law, on the other hand, regulates only the Catholic Church's internal structure and functions, including rules about clergy, sacraments, and other ecclesiastical and administrative norms. It does not function as a civil or political legal code for the state or for non-Catholics, as sharia can for Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
David Long, dean of the school of professional studies at The Catholic University of America and an assistant professor in the university's school of canon law, told EWTN News that canon law "governs an identifiable ecclesial community and orders the Church's life and mission, including sacramental discipline and the exercise of ecclesiastical office."
Canon law provides a framework for the Church to live out its identity and mission. Sharia, meanwhile — though it is often appended with the word "law" — actually has a broader scope than religious governance, Long said. It directs "life according to God's will," including both worship and moral conduct.
Sharia law is applied in various ways in numerous countries throughout the world through the principle of "fiqh" — Islamic jurisprudence that interprets sharia and puts it into practice. It is seen particularly in the Middle East and Africa, though no local or state government in the U.S. practices it.
There is "no single worldwide Islamic legislator," Long said, and thus there is no "single, universally promulgated code" that can be described as a comprehensive sharia.
Both canon law and sharia can have civil implications, the professor said, noting that Catholic canon law affects issues that cross with civil law, such as marriage contracts.
He pointed to a 2020 Maryland court case, meanwhile, which found that a financial stipulation in an Islamic marriage contract could be enforced, though only if it "satisfied secular contract principles."
Civil courts in such cases "can recognize legal arrangements made for religious reasons without deciding whether a religion's teachings are true or binding on the public."
He noted that Muslims "have the same right as other citizens to bring religious convictions into public debates" and that a law cannot be ruled unconstitutional simply because it happens to agree with a religious teaching.
He acknowledged the appropriateness of being concerned if "a proposal under sharia uses governmental authority to compel religious observance or deny equal citizenship." But he noted that such concerns should apply equally to all religions.
"I would … resist both blanket reassurance and blanket suspicion when it comes to applying religious-law elements in political discourse, including sharia," Long said. "Specific proposals deserve scrutiny on their merits."
"A religious population deserves neither a presumption of political innocence for everything done in its name nor a presumption of collective intent to impose its faith," he said.
