In case you were wondering if sharia law would ever have any influence on US or US state law, Eugene Volokh of The Volokh Conspiracy reports that a Minnesota appellate court rebuffed just such a possibility. Here’s his summary after discussing the particulars:
Sometimes American law does allow the implementation of foreign legal rules, or religious legal rules. A contract might, for instance, call for applying the law of Sudan, or a will might specify that the property be distributed one-fourth to the widow, one-sixth to the parents, one-sixth each to the three brothers, and one-twelfth to the one sister (whether or not that’s the sharia-mandated split). A court may well enforce such provisions, subject to any constraints imposed by American public policy. (For instance, a contract calling for the cutting off of a person’s hand would be unenforceable; a will calling for a court to apply a legal rule that requires the court to distinguish males from females might be unenforceable, though a will calling for a court to distribute property to named parties would be enforceable.)
But there, too, the principle is simple: American courts apply American law, including when an American law principle calls on American courts to enforce a foreign judgment, to apply foreign law or to follow terms in a contract or a will that deliberately track foreign or religious law. But there has to be an American law principle calling for such application of foreign law. And in this case, there was no such principle.
In other words, the secular law of the United States trumps is supreme to all religious laws. This is really the only way to keep the peace.
