America is once again manufacturing a moral panic – this time over a neighbourhood that has not even been built.

In Texas, the mere proposal of Epic City, a Muslim-friendly housing development spearheaded by the East Plano Islamic Centre (Epic), has ignited a political and media firestorm. 

It bears all the hallmarks of a familiar playbook: the “Ground Zero mosque” hysteria of 2010 reborn, weaponised by the same actors and fuelled by the same undercurrents of racism, Islamophobia and white nationalist anxiety.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott launched the initial salvo in February when he posted on X: “Sharia law is not allowed in Texas.” 

His post came shortly after Amy Mekelburg, a far-right agitator known for spreading anti-Muslim disinformation, falsely labelled the proposed development a “Sharia City”. Rather than reject the smear, Abbott amplified it, treating Muslim families building homes as a threat to be taken seriously.

A month later, on 25 March, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton followed suit, launching a formal investigation into Epic City and demanding records from its developers and local officials. 

Though framed as a routine legal step, the inquiry targeted supposed violations of state law – despite no evidence of illegality or any attempt to establish a parallel legal system. That did not stop Texas officials from invoking national security language to criminalise what is, in essence, a housing development. 

Shortly after, Abbott escalated matters further, instructing the developers to confirm “within seven days that they are immediately ceasing any construction of their illegal project”. It was a baseless demand that added fuel to an already manufactured panic.

Once again, Muslim presence is portrayed not as a right to be protected, but as a threat to be investigated

Two weeks later, on 8 April, Paxton announced his bid to unseat Republican Senator John Cornyn. The very next day, Cornyn called on the Department of Justice to investigate the project, echoing the same tired Islamophobic narrative under the guise of preventing “religious discrimination”.

That both men seized on the same Muslim-led housing project to outflank each other in a hardline race to the right reveals just how cynically Muslims are being scapegoated. Once again, Muslim presence is portrayed not as a right to be protected, but as a threat to be investigated.

This isn’t about zoning, infrastructure or legal compliance. It’s about who is allowed to live together – and on what terms. 

The backlash rests on an unspoken but deeply racist logic: that Muslims, by organising a community, are inherently suspicious. The mere act of coming together to live, worship and raise families is framed as threatening, as if Muslim presence itself destabilises the American social fabric.

Criminalising community

The Epic City controversy offers a textbook case of how Islamophobia operates – not just as religious bigotry, but as a deeply racialised system of exclusion. 

The idea that Muslims must prove their loyalty, civic virtue or moderation in order to build homes is not just insulting – it is dehumanising. It reduces Muslim life to a potential threat that must be surveilled, managed or neutralised.

A proposed housing development becomes a site of investigation. A mosque becomes a national security concern. A neighbourhood becomes a battlefield in a political campaign. None of this is new.

Fifteen years ago, Muslims attempting to build the Cordoba House (Park51) – an Islamic centre planned near the site of the 9/11 attacks in New York City – were met with similar outrage. Then, too, right-wing media, politicians and self-styled anti-Sharia activists mobilised fear and conspiracy to turn a local building project into a national threat. 

After years of pressure, the project was eventually abandoned, the property closed for demolition, and a luxury condominium was said to have been built on the site instead. 

What distinguishes the current backlash is how much more deeply it has been institutionalised – no longer limited to political rhetoric and media outrage, but carried out through formal government investigations and threats.

At the same time, this pattern of manufactured outrage reflects a broader strategy of cynical scapegoating aimed at winning elections, one that is not confined to the US. 

In the UK, similar right-wing attacks on Muslim communities erupted during the 2024 general election, when figures including Nigel Farage and other far-right commentators stoked public outrage over unfounded claims that British Muslims were trying to create “no-go zones” or build separatist enclaves. 

As in Texas, these conspiracies drew on long-standing Islamophobic tropes to cast Muslim civic participation as inherently threatening – and were used to rally electoral support by painting Muslims as an internal threat.

It also sits atop a long history of US policy, media narratives and imperial ventures that have conditioned the public to see Muslims – both at home and abroad – as problems to be managed or eliminated. From the surveillance of mosques and Guantanamo to Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programmes and drone warfare, Muslims have been cast as both threat and test subject.

The hysteria now unfolding in Texas is just the latest chapter in that story – one more iteration of a post-9/11 machinery that never stopped running.

A cruel irony

This broader context of anti-Muslim fear-mongering takes on a particularly cruel dimension in the case of Epic City. 

The developers have emphasised that the community would serve, in part, as a refuge for Afghan families seeking peace and stability after fleeing war.

But the war in question was not simply an unfortunate reality – it was engineered and sustained by the very US government now portraying their presence as a potential threat. The same government that destabilised their homelands now questions their presence in suburban Texas.

The cognitive dissonance would be laughable if it were not so dangerous.

And that danger is not theoretical. The climate of incitement that fuels this outrage has already resulted in hate-fuelled violence. From vandalism of mosques  to the October 2023 murder of six-year-old Wadea al-Fayoume in Illinois, and the December 2024 Magdeburg Christmas market attack in Germany, Islamophobic rhetoric routinely spills over into real-world harm.

When state officials signal that Muslim projects are suspect – when governors imply that building homes might be part of a foreign conspiracy – they legitimise and embolden the most hateful elements in society.

But this time, something different is also happening: resistance. Earlier this month, Muslim and Jewish community leaders came together at a joint press conference to condemn the investigations into Epic City. 

Their message was clear: this is not just a Muslim issue, it is a civil rights issue. It is about religious freedom, equal protection, and the right of all people to organise their lives without state harassment or vilification.

This interfaith solidarity matters. In a climate where Muslims are often isolated and scapegoated, standing together with other marginalised groups – particularly those with their own histories of discrimination – can help disrupt the narrative that Muslim communities are “other” or uniquely threatening. 

It also reminds us that the real battle is not just over one project, but over the kind of society we want to live in.

A defining test

Even as solidarity grows, we must be careful not to sanitise this moment. Interfaith alliances are valuable, but they must not distract from the underlying systems that entrench racial and religious repression.

Zionism, as a system of political and institutional power, has helped shape both foreign and domestic policies that criminalise Muslim identity and suppress dissent, particularly through the Islamophobia network and pro-Israel organisations like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). 

In 2010, the ADL was among the most vocal groups to oppose the Cordoba House project, helping to fuel a wave of Islamophobic hysteria that had already gripped much of the country.

Interfaith alliances are valuable, but they must not distract from the underlying systems that entrench racial and religious repression

More than a decade later, its CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, issued an apology, calling that stance a mistake. But the retraction came long after the damage was done – and amid the organisation’s continued support for policies that dehumanise Palestinians and reinforce Islamophobic narratives.

In 2023, a coalition of more than 60 Muslim, Arab and allied groups condemned the ADL for fuelling anti-Palestinian hate, citing its platforming of anti-Muslim speakers and defence of Israeli state violence. This should serve as a reminder that principled solidarity requires discernment: we cannot afford to lean on groups complicit in the very systems we are struggling to dismantle.

The Epic City controversy, like those before it – whether in the UK, New York, or across Europe – is not a legal puzzle or a PR crisis; it is a test. A test of whether the US will continue to treat Muslim presence as inherently suspicious, or whether it will finally begin to live up to the constitutional principles it claims to uphold. A test of whether American Muslims will be allowed to flourish on their own terms – or only under conditions of constant apology, appeasement and oversight.

As with the Ground Zero mosque, this may not end well. But this time, the outrage is being met not just with silence or surrender, but with solidarity, critique and resistance. That alone is worth paying attention to – and building on.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.