Facing midterm wipeout, Arizona Republicans revive sharia law panic

Arizona Republicans and right-wing influencers are dusting off a retro moral panic, claiming that “sharia law” is coming to the Grand Canyon State. While it looks to be the typical frothy right-wing culture war story on first blush, the panic might just be the GOP’s strategy to dig itself out of one of the worst midterm environments it’s ever faced in Arizona.

On Feb. 3, anti-Muslim activist Laura Loomer, who has served as an unofficial advisor to President Donald Trump, posted a screenshot of what appears to be a pitch deck for a proposed real estate development in the Sonoran Desert, referred to in the screenshot as “Qatar City.”

While Loomer received more traction, it was actually just a retread of an early post by the right-wing activist Rabbi Pini Dunner from July 2025. In that thread, Dunner claimed that Qatar funds “anti-Israel and anti-Western activists on U.S. campuses” and was seeking the development in an attempt to buy access to a nearby Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company plant, and with it “AI, defense systems and more.”

Loomer’s innovation, however, was to claim that the development would somehow serve as a way to push sharia in the U.S. Sharia, often called “sharia law” by those on the right, refers to a set of Islamic religious laws, with multiple interpretations that have been invoked in a variety of political strains, ranging from pro-democracy to fundamentalist movements. More importantly for an American context, Republicans picked up the term in the early 2010’s as a way to attempt to capitalize on Islamophobia, with many Republicans pushing laws that would ban sharia in the United States. Republicans have recently picked this strategy back up — for example, as a way to smear New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani or arguing about who is more anti-Islam in the Texas GOP Senate primary.

“The Muslim community is the boogeyman for this cycle,” said Texas GOP consultant Vinny Minchillo. “One hundred percent this message works — there’s no question about it. This has been polled up one side and down the other, and with Texas Republican primary voters, it works. It is a thing they are legitimately scared of.”

Did you know that Qatar is trying to build a 6,000 acre Sharia compound in Arizona called Qatar City???

The land that Qatar City would be built on is next to the Phoenix, AZ location of TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company), a $1.5 trillion company that supplies… pic.twitter.com/xRQQz8umbi

— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) February 3, 2026

Regarding Arizona, neither Dunner nor Loomer provided any evidence for their claims, and that’s probably because the parcel of land labeled “Qatar City” in these posts is, at this stage, a proposal for the North Park development, which was approved by the Phoenix City Council and mayor last year.

The application to develop the land, put forth by PulteGroup, an Atlanta-based construction company, opens an auction that is meant to ensure a level of transparency in the process and to allow other developers an opportunity to bid on the development project. The “Qatar City” proposal was part of a bid put together by Lee and Associates, another real estate firm.

Brent Moser, an executive at Lee and Associates, told Salon in an interview that the screenshots circulated online were part of an internal pitch deck that the company prepared ahead of the auction, which any developer is allowed to bid on. In this instance, the pitch was for Qatari investors.

“I think if we bring an investment from Qatar into the state, it’s a good thing. The U.S. obviously has good alignment with Qatar and other Middle Eastern countries. And what would happen if they bought this property is that it would become a master plan community, ultimately, and it would be governed by the city of Phoenix,” Moser told Salon.

Notably, Trump, the leader of the GOP, frequently boasts about foreign investment, including from Qatar. The White House even claims that Qatar has committed some $1.2 trillion in investment in the U.S. under his leadership. And, although American supporters of Israel like Loomer have complained about the relationship, Qatar remains a U.S. ally, with the Trump administration approving a Qatari Emiri Air Force facility in Idaho and accepting a luxury Boeing 747 jetliner, valued at $400 million, as a gift last year.

All this hasn’t stopped conservatives from whipping themselves into a frenzy over the issue, convincing themselves that the currently hypothetical development is a Trojan horse to bring sharia to Arizona.

Tyler Bowyer, who’s been the COO of both the nonprofit side of Turning Point USA and their political campaign arm, Turning Point Action, picked up the months-old claim within 20 minutes of Loomer’s post, saying “Did you know they’re trying to build ‘Qatar City’ in Arizona?”

“In Arizona they are simultaneously pitching Qatar City and trying to hijack our utilities with Green New Deal slobs,” Bowyer wrote. “This is the most important election in Arizona history this fall. If Arizona goes, the country goes in 2028.”

The issue has also been addressed by the Arizona State Land Department, which said in a statement that the concept “was created by a local real estate brokerage firm without the knowledge, input or approval of the state Land Department. The State Land Department does not have an application related to this concept,” before recounting the details of the North Park development.

Even Rep. Abe Hamadeh, R-Ariz., admitted that the “Qatar City” development was not happening at his juncture, saying in a post “Thank you for sharing your concern about our district. Upon review, this is a real estate proposal from an outside investor. This plan has NO approval or plan to move forward in Phoenix. In fact, the land in question has recently been purchased by TSMC and a separate America First real estate investor.”

Arizona Republicans, however, already ran with the idea of “Qatar City” being a ploy to bring sharia to Arizona. In late January, Republicans in the state legislative panel voted to ban sharia from Arizona, with state Sen. Janae Shamp leading the charge.

“Arizona should not wait for a high-profile case to arise on our doorstep,”’ Shamp said. “Prevention is a far, far better cure.”

In the hearings, which even featured some Republicans questioning whether such a law was needed, supporters of the ban cited claims brought by an Arizona resident, who said that he heard from a real estate agent that the hypothetical Qatar City would be a community governed by sharia.

While all of this appears to be Republicans fighting a nonexistent threat (and to some extent, that seems to be what’s happening), there’s another level that becomes clear when polling in the upcoming 2026 races comes into the picture.

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The incumbent Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, maintains a lead in nearly all public polling done in the 2026 governors’ race, and in some of these surveys, Hobbs is up by double digits, a massive lead for Arizona, a swing state that has historically supported Republicans. This represents a reversal from Trump’s six-point victory in the state last year.

Republicans, however, have been floundering in other races in the state, specifically in recent senate races, in which Arizona Republicans rallied around losers like former Fox News host Kari Lake and Blake Masters, an associate of billionaire Peter Thiel. Both lost their races. Even the political machinations of TPUSA, which is based in the state and carries an outsized influence in GOP politics, hasn’t been able to push candidates like Lake or Masters over the finish line.

A “Qatar City” sharia law panic wouldn’t be the most desperate election strategy from state Republicans. Following the 2020 election, Republicans from the top of the party down collaborated to steal the election in Arizona and to recertify the vote as a victory for Trump, despite his loss. Lake even attempted to recreate Trump‘s 2020 election “Big Lie,” claiming after her 2022 defeat that she actually won, suing the state in an attempt to overturn the results. Her attempts, however, were unsuccessful. The main effect of her suit was that Lake was ordered to pay $33,000 to the witnesses who helped disprove Lake’s false claims in court.

Thomas Volgy, the former mayor of Tucson and a professor at the University of Arizona, told Salon that “As of right now, I believe that the Republicans will have a very difficult time in Arizona this year.”

“Prices in the state continue to rise, especially with respect to the cost of housing and groceries. Just as important, racial profiling, the fear of ICE arresting citizens who are minorities, and their heavy-handed responses to protestors have played very badly in Arizona,” Volgy said. “While Republican voters have lost a bit of confidence in the administration, the real change is among Independents — the largest voting group in the state. And they appear to be dramatically moving away from Republican candidates, while Democratic voters’ enthusiasm to remove Republicans from elected office … That enthusiasm appears to be as high as I’ve ever seen in the state.”

The post Facing midterm wipeout, Arizona Republicans revive sharia law panic appeared first on Salon.com.