Texas Gov. Greg Abbott orders criminal investigation into mosque behind proposed Islamic community
Christians, residents speak out on fears of Muslim call to prayer 'five times a day' in rural community
MCKINNEY, Texas — The governor of Texas has directed the state to launch an investigation into “potential criminal activities” of a Dallas-area mosque behind a proposed 400-acre Islamic compound.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott released a statement Monday directing the Texas Rangers, the state’s primary criminal investigative branch, to “fully investigate” the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC) and any of the mosque’s affiliates for “potentially violating criminal law.”
EPIC, located about 20 miles north of Dallas, is the mosque behind the ambitious EPIC City and EPIC Ranches project that aims to establish a self-sustaining neighborhood with over 1,000 homes, a mosque, Islamic schools, clinics, stores, parks and a nursing home on a 402-acre site spanning Collin and Hunt Counties.
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Abbott said any charges “will be brought to the appropriate prosecutorial authorities for further action” once the investigation is completed.
“Texas is a law-and-order state, and those scheming to evade law enforcement scrutiny must know justice is awaiting them,” said Abbott. “That is why I directed the Texas Rangers to fully investigate the group behind the proposed EPIC compound for potentially violating criminal law. Texas will ensure that anyone affiliated with EPIC who is breaking the law is brought to justice.”
The latest investigation into EPIC comes amid a flurry of state investigations into potential violations, including by the Texas Workforce Commission, the Texas State Securities Board, the Texas Funeral Service Commission and Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office.
Last week, Abbott announced that a dozen state agencies are investigating potential illegal activities conducted by EPIC and its affiliated entities.
Meanwhile, county officials held a public hearing Monday where residents expressed frustration, concern and even some support for the proposed EPIC development in Josephine, located about 20 miles northeast of Dallas. The turnout for the hearing at the Collin County Courthouse in McKinney quickly grew beyond capacity and forced officials to open an overflow room where attendees could watch the proceedings.
Collin County Judge Chris Hill chaired the commission hearing, which was initially said to include a presentation by Community Capital Partners (CCP), the investment group behind the EPIC project. However, Hill later said the board had not heard back from CCP and they would not be making a presentation.
Officials told attendees at the hearing that as of Monday, the county has not received any applications for development of the proposed site, nor has CCP given any indication when an application will be submitted.
However, the board clarified that CCP has finalized its acquisition of the land and the group is “studying the project” without any timeline for further action.
Upon inviting the public to weigh in on the project, Hill urged attendees to deliver their remarks in a civil manner.
“We are a community that lives together, and today, we’re a community that’s working through issues together,“ Hill told attendees.
Brandon Burden, pastor of Kingdom Life in Frisco, said he had “very grave concerns” about the EPIC project, including potential violations of the Texas Fair Housing Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1965.
Resident Sasha Scoto said she believes others are afraid to speak out for being labeled “racist” or against “inclusion,” when, in fact, she accused the group behind EPIC of being exclusive, not inclusive. “Why else would they want their own community? What is the purpose of them having their own community?”
A woman from neighboring Denton County said, “We’re very compassionate people and we’re very kind, but at some point, we gotta draw the line and say, ‘This nation and this state was built and founded on the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and there is only one God and one Father in this country.”
A longtime Josephine resident said her quiet rural community could be subjected to loud and repeated calls to Islamic prayer throughout the day.
“One of my concerns is the loudspeakers, which, as I understood, have been approved for a call of prayer,” she said. “This will be five times a day, at sunset it will be two hours continuous.”
Another resident who said she lives just “a couple miles” from the proposed mosque site also shared concerns about the Islamic call to prayer posing a disturbance to the peace.
“Our neighborhood has been listening to their videos trying to recruit people to purchase and invest for quite a while now, many, many months,” she said. “One of the first videos we heard was that they wanted to install a loud system, a speaker system, that would blast their music to call them to prayer and they could do it as loud as they wanted to because they specifically chose this site outside of the city so they could do that.
“My question is, why do they have to build a compound? Why not just build a mosque? Why not become our neighbors, go to our schools?”
Those fears, resident Jeremy Sutka, who is the Collin County Democratic Party Chair, told commissioners, are unfounded. “When a mosque is opposed for reasons never raised against a megachurch, it’s not about logistics, it’s about bias.”
Others, like resident Darryl Evans, said the backlash against EPIC was part of a “troubling pattern” in the state of Texas, and took aim at the faith of many who attended the hearing. “It’s disappointing that these so-called Christians with American values are so quick to abandon those values and the Constitution,” Evans said. “My hope is that this commission will remember that they represent all residents, not just folks with ‘Christo-fascist’ ideologies.”
Since development plans have yet to be submitted, the county commission could not provide its final decision on the project.
Just days earlier, Yasir Qadhi, a Houston-based Islamic scholar and the public face behind EPIC City, delivered a Ramadan message in which he claimed Muslims, not Christians, are the “true followers of Jesus.”
“They claim that they're following the prophets of God and Jesus, but we are the true followers of Jesus and Muhammad. […] We will show them what it means to be the followers of the prophets, and we will do so through our dignity, through our courage, through our manners, through our honesty,” he said in a March 28 message. “We will demonstrate for them what it means to be believers in God, and when we do so […] everybody of pure conscience will see who is spreading lies and who is speaking the truth.
Well known among the Muslim community and with millions of followers on social media, Qadhi, who also studied at the Islamic University of Madinah in Saudi Arabia and Yale University, has played a key role in the promotion of the EPIC project: he’s said the latest offering, EPIC Ranches, is a “limited time opportunity” that aims to “change the entire dawah scene by showing the world what it means to be a Muslim living in the West.”
