Over a dozen Sharia finance companies with connections to foreign Islamist organizations operate across Texas, controlling billions of dollars in financing and services, according to testimony delivered to the state House Committee on Homeland Security and Public Safety in 2027. Sam Westrop, a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and director of Islamist Watch at the Middle East Forum, told lawmakers that these firms have ties to movements including Jamaat-e-Islami, Qutbists, Deobandis, Salafis, and the governments of Malaysia and Iran. The testimony argues that while some businessmen operate free of radical agendas, the clear majority of Sharia finance firms work deliberately to build infrastructure designed to encourage de-assimilation among Muslim communities.
Just 232 of Texas Islam's 700 nonprofit organizations have submitted 990 tax returns, yet the most recent filings for this subset show over $544 million in yearly revenue and nearly $400 million in assets, the testimony states. Seven Islamist movements and their subsects control almost two-thirds of the assets reported each year by those filing returns. Since 2009, these nonprofits have registered almost a quarter-billion dollars in planned or finished mosque-building costs with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation's Architectural Barriers Projects database. The testimony identifies specific firms operating in the state, including Guidance Residential, which claims over $2 billion in issued mortgages and maintains offices in Dallas and Houston, and University Islamic Financial, which operates Texas offices in a building owned by the East Plano Islamic Center. IjaraCDC, ShariaPortfolio with over $3 billion in globally managed assets, and Amana Mutual Funds are among other entities named as active across the state.
Westrop told the committee that Texas served as the birthplace of Sharia finance in North America, tracing the industry to Yahia Abdul-Rahman, who moved to Dallas in 1971 and established LARIBA in 1987, the first Sharia financing firm in the United States. Abdul-Rahman also helped found the Islamic Association of North Texas, a mosque that in 2002 hosted fundraising events for Hamas financing operatives later convicted in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism trial, with several foundation officials serving as leading members of the organization, according to the testimony. The witness described Abdul-Rahman as "a determined anti-Semite" whose Facebook page featured "unpleasant jokes about Jews, support for the Muslim Brotherhood's struggle against Israel and links to neo-Nazi websites." Abdul-Rahman's book on Islamic finance asked, "When were we going to stop 'begging' and start building the financial muscles of our community?"
The testimony argues that Sharia finance serves as a component of radicalization infrastructure, citing reformist Muslim scholar Dr. Zuhdi Jasser's statement that "Sharia-compliant financing is neither about religion nor about God. It is about Islamist control and collectivization of Muslims." Westrop detailed foreign financing streams, including millions of dollars provided by the Islamic Development Bank—a multilateral governmental bank whose top shareholders include Iran, Qatar, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia—to Texas institutions including the Brighter Horizons School in North Texas, which reportedly received almost $1 million, and the $3.5 million expansion of Austin Peace Academy. The Irving-based Islamic Center received a $7 million pledge from the bank for a residential and commercial project. The testimony recommends creating a Texas Engel List, a state-level sanctions and transparency roster targeting individuals and organizations tied to corruption, extremist activity, terrorist networks, or hostile foreign influence, as a policy solution to push back against what the witness describes as seven major Islamist networks and their supporting Sharia financial institutions.