Asifa Quraishi-Landes is a professor of law at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
For some Americans, the idea of Muslims following sharia is frightening. Many believe that Muslims want to impose our religious practices on everyone else and that we would use the law to do so if given the chance. This fear has fueled state-level bans on sharia and accusations that Muslim candidates intend to enact it as the law of the land.
I have taught Islamic law for more than two decades, and as the United States heads into the 2026 midterms, I want to explain something about sharia that may even surprise American Muslims.
Classical Islamic legal tradition distinguishes between two types of law. The first is “fiqh” — the rules guiding how Muslims live their lives, including how to dress, whom to marry and how to conduct business ethically. The second is “siyasa” — the means by which a ruler (such as a sultan, caliph or king) maintains safety and order, like setting fair trade practices, establishing building codes and enforcing public health regulations.
Two different kinds of law. Two different roles in society.
Even Muslims can miss this distinction. Too often, I hear American Muslims approach an election by looking for which candidate or policy most closely reflects the religious rules by which they personally live. But from a sharia perspective, that collapses two legal questions that should be kept separate. It also reinforces the misplaced fear that Muslims want to turn their personal observances into law for everyone.
The legal separation goes beyond content; fiqh and siyasa also come from different sources. Fiqh is developed by scholars interpreting the Quran and the traditions of the prophet Muhammad. Siyasa, on the other hand, rests on a governing authority’s assessment of the public good (in Arabic, “maslaha ‘amma”).
Importantly, that “public” includes everyone, not just Muslims. An Islamic legal maxim captures the principle: The ruler’s actions concerning his people are judged by reference to the public good.
Now it is possible to return to the question of what sharia asks of an American Muslim voter. To answer it, first identify which type of law a voter is engaging with. Are they making a personal religious decision (fiqh), or are they helping decide what the state should require of everyone (siyasa)? These legal contexts demand distinct approaches.
Consider abortion. A Muslim woman deciding whether to get an abortion needs a fiqh answer, and (as is true for most fiqh topics) it turns out that different fiqh schools offer different answers.
But if that same woman is deciding whether to vote for criminalizing abortion in her state, she is operating in the world of siyasa — the realm in which government can use its coercive power to enforce a rule on everyone. In other words, she is now standing in the shoes of the sultan. And what is the sultan’s duty when making siyasa law? To serve the public good.
Thus, the key question for an American Muslim in the voting booth is: What law on this issue would best serve the public good?
With abortion, that is a complicated question. It demands serious consideration of a range of potential harms, differing understandings of life and the consequences of state coercion. But Muslims cannot answer the siyasa question (“Should the state ban abortion?”) by invoking the fiqh question (“Should I have an abortion?”). Islamic legal tradition requires them to separate the personal consideration from the public one: “What should the sultan make everyone do?”
For years, American Muslims have responded to fears about sharia by reassuring our neighbors that we respect the Constitution and the rule of law. And we do. But our legal tradition offers something more: a responsibility to consider the public good whenever we exercise public power.
American Muslims in public office have been demonstrating this for decades. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration has focused on affordability. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has brought consumer-protection litigation. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) has introduced legislation concerning school meals and medical debt. Of course, one might disagree with any of these policy goals, or disagree with these politicians for other reasons, but that does not detract from the fact that these Muslim elected officials have concentrated on broadly advancing the public good as they understand it, not on prescribing their own religious practices.
Sharia does not give American Muslims a ready-made political platform. It tells them to seek the public good, but it does not provide a detailed answer about how to achieve it. Muslims who seek guidance from sharia must figure that out for themselves. So, when I cast my ballot this November, I will do so as an American Muslim. And it is precisely because I am a Muslim that, as I vote, I will remember the good of all who must live under the laws we create together.
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