Labour Party politician Sadiq Khan, a practicing Muslim, created history by getting elected the first Muslim mayor of London. Khan’s election is being viewed as a political landmark in the Western world.
45-year-old Khan will take office in a city where Muslims comprise about 12% of the population.
Khan’s historic win came after an unusually heated campaign against Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith, whose father is a billionaire.
Born in London, Sadiq Khan is the son of a Pakistani immigrant. Khan grew up with six brothers and sister in a three-bedroom, public housing apartment. He then studied law, became a university lecturer and the chairman of a civil liberties group, and was elected to Parliament in 2005.
Khan will take the place of Boris Johnson, a very colorful and popular figure who became mayor of London in 2008, being a rare Conservative mayor in the Labour-leaning British capital.
It should be noted here that Johnson leads the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union at a referendum on June 23.