(RNS) — In their plans to create a neighborhood of 1,000 homes, a K-12 faith-based school, apartments, shops, a community college and a mosque, the developers of a 400-acre planned Muslim community near Dallas made one crucial misstep: They advertised their intentions.
“Welcome to the future of living. Welcome to EPIC City,” said the voice-over on a marketing video. “EPIC City is more than just a neighborhood. It’s a way of life. A meticulously designed community that brings Islam to the forefront.”
That caught the attention of Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas lawmakers, who fired up fierce criticism and Islamophobic tropes about the plan.
Texas state Rep. Jeff Leach, a Republican from Allen, also near Dallas, wrote a letter in February about how “this large-scale real estate development may seek to incorporate elements of Sharia law into its operations. We must ensure that no entity attempts to circumvent state law under the guise of cultural or religious accommodation.”
All it took was the word “Sharia” for Abbott to enter the fray, saying on X in February that “Sharia law is not allowed in Texas. Nor are Sharia cities.”
Since then, Texas has launched five investigations into EPIC City, an initiative of the East Plano Islamic Center that would be developed northeast of Dallas near the town of Josephine. The Islamic center and the Community Capital Partners investment group, a separate entity that is heading the project, also are being investigated. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said in May that, in addition, the U.S. Department of Justice had launched a federal civil rights investigation, citing concerns that EPIC City could discriminate against Christians and Jews.
The East Plano Islamic Center in Plano, Texas. (Photo by Anisa Bhatti/Wikimedia/Creative Commons)
Housing communities, planned or organically grown around a faith community, are nothing new in the United States. Williamsburg, a neighborhood in New York’s Brooklyn borough, has long had a significant concentration of Hasidic Jews and is one of the largest Orthodox Jewish communities in the U.S. The Englewood area of Indianapolis enjoys a large concentration of Christian neighborhoods around Englewood Christian Church. Dearborn, Michigan, has several clusters of predominantly Muslim neighborhoods adjacent to local mosques.
These communities often grow over time, with congregants of a particular house of worship enticing fellow worshippers to buy homes or build in adjoining neighborhoods. It’s not rare for such places to arise from a planned effort of a particular house of worship or faith group.
Indeed, when residents of Irving, Texas, just northwest of Dallas, built a mosque, said Mustafaa Carroll, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Dallas-Fort Worth chapter, “they didn’t advertise anything, and all around it Muslims bought houses without the fear and hate that EPIC is facing.”
So, why the frenzy of accusations about Shariah and discrimination when it comes to EPIC City?
For one thing, said Carroll, “This was advertised before anyone bought a house, before ground was broken. People got wind of it and were like, ‘Oh my god, these scary Muslims are moving to Josephine, Texas.’”
But the fear is nothing new, he said. “The fear is that the Muslims are taking over. That’s always been their fear,” he said, referring to American Christians. “They always had a fear of being taken over by someone.”
The level of anti-Muslim animosity directed toward the proposed EPIC City has caused leadership and worshippers at the EPIC mosque to put the project on hold while investigations play out. Its organizers have also gone silent after initially granting interviews about EPIC City.
“I’ve been doing civil rights work since I was 14 years old, and I’ve never seen the fear I’ve seen now with Muslims here” in East Plano, Carroll said. “They’re afraid to have their faces shown. Fear is overcoming them. I’m not shortchanging that; I don’t make light of threats. You don’t know what people will do.”
In the weeks prior to the launch of the federal civil rights investigation, I reached out to the leadership at the East Plano Islamic Center to talk about the vitriolic pushback to the housing community, engaging in a long Instagram exchange with EPIC Imam Nadim Bashir in hopes of getting permission for an interview.
Bashir is the center’s longest-tenured imam and had previously been quoted in a New York Times story, in which he said Abbott had stoked unnecessary fear based on misunderstandings of things like Shariah. “It’s a personal moral code of life, that’s all it is,” Bashir told the Times. “Standing up for people, serving people, taking care of your family, being honest, this is all part of Shariah.”
What it isn’t, Bashir said, is imposing Muslim religious rule on others, as purported by Texas political figures.
Bashir eventually agreed to an interview over the course of numerous messages and sought approval from EPIC’s board of directors. I also reached out to the board for permission to speak with Bashir and anyone else willing to talk. Ultimately, Bashir had to withdraw after EPIC’s board decided to bar all interviews.
Abbott has directed several state agencies to investigate EPIC City, suggesting that it may be violating fair housing and financial laws and that the mosque has conducted illegal funerals in its building.
Carroll says the allegations are unfounded, and while the proposed housing community is being marketed toward Muslims, there is nothing advertising that it is only for Muslims. In the months after Abbott’s declaration to shut down the housing development, tensions have ramped up in and around the Dallas and Josephine areas.
On May 1, at a Muslim community day hosted at the Texas Capitol in Austin, Valentina Gomez, a Republican candidate for U.S. Congress, approached the podium wearing a hijab to blend with the crowd, which she then removed upon reaching the podium, grabbing the mic and addressing the crowd with anti-Muslim rhetoric. As she hurled insults, she declared, “I will never let Shariah law take over the state of Texas.”
That a candidate for public office would co-opt a piece of clothing worn for religious purposes to be able to grab a microphone and spew anti-Muslim statements to a Muslim crowd and face no consequences for her actions speaks volumes.
One mother wrote in an Instagram comment about the incident: “Our youth came to this day full of hope — ready to engage, learn, and feel proud of who they are. Instead, they were forced to experience Islamophobia firsthand. But even in the face of hate, they held their heads high. … This is exactly why we do this work — so our children can live in a world where they are free to be themselves without fear.”
But for now, plans for EPIC City are on hold, and against a climate of xenophobia, intimidation and fear, no one is talking.
(Dilshad D. Ali is a freelance journalist. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)
