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WaPo columnist rejects the idea that Muslims must assimilate in America

April 9, 2026 | | Print Article

A Washington Post columnist is getting backlash over his argument that Muslims should not be asked to assimilate in America and that they are unable to reject the practice of Sharia law.

In his Wednesday piece titled “I’m Tired of Proving I Belong In America,” Shadi Hamid reacted to recent comments by GOP lawmakers, including Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) who opined that “Muslims don’t belong in American society,” and Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), who said, “I’m ready to get rid of the Muslims.”

Himself an Allah worshipper, Hamid rejected assimilation, which was once embraced by immigrant communities who, while retaining their native heritage, eagerly embraced the culture and values of their adopted homeland.

“The assimilation defense — look how well we’ve integrated — is satisfying to make. But it concedes a premise I no longer accept: that a minority community’s right to be in the United States depends on its willingness to converge with the cultural mainstream. It shouldn’t depend on that. It shouldn’t depend on anything,” wrote Hamid, a senior fellow at prestigious Georgetown University’s Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.

“Over the past decade, surveys have shown that American Muslims are patriotic, civically engaged, and more likely than the U.S. general public to say that political violence is never justified. You’d think that would be enough. Except it shouldn’t have to be. And this is where it gets uncomfortable — for me, at least,” he continued.

“Muslims are different in certain ways. How could they not be?” Hamid wrote. “Islam shapes how its adherents think about family, sexuality, and what it means to live a good life. Simply put, Islam is also a more public religion than Christianity. Muslim prayer is visually striking and often communal. If a Muslim doesn’t drink alcohol or fasts during Ramadan, that will be more noticeable to others.”

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“Moreover, practicing Muslims — despite being repeatedly asked to — can’t disavow ‘sharia’ even if they wanted to. Sharia, roughly translated as Islamic law, includes guidelines on how to pray, fast, and otherwise observe what it means to submit to God in daily practice,” he stated.

Hamid argues that Muslims have “increasingly integrated into American civic life” while honoring their religion, compared to other ethnic groups, citing cherry-picked data about Latinos and Catholicism and the U.S. Jewish population and intermarriage.

“What strikes me about these stories is how much they resemble each other,” the author wrote. “The deal is always the same: You can stay, but you have to become less yourself. Less distinctively Muslim, less traditionally Jewish, less recognizably Latino. The specifics of your faith and culture — the things that make your community a community rather than a collection of individuals — are treated as obstacles on the path to real Americanness. The left and the right enforce this expectation. The right says: Assimilate or get out. The left, more gently: Assimilate, and we’ll celebrate you. But the endpoint is the same.”

Hamid’s piece drew a scathing response from X users, some of whom suggested that he should GTFO and go live elsewhere.

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“America was not founded on the assumption that its citizens would eventually come to agree on foundational questions. It was founded on the more radical proposition that they wouldn’t — that people who disagree about God, religion, and the good life could share a country anyway. Not because they would converge over time, but because convergence was beside the point. The question isn’t whether Muslims, Jews, or Latinos will change. They will. The question is whether America will let them do it on their own terms,” the author concluded.

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Chris Donaldson
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