Which English cities or towns currently have Muslim mayors and when were they elected?
Executive summary
The clearest, verifiable fact is that London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, is Muslim; beyond that, current lists circulating on social media are inaccurate or incomplete because mayoral religion is often not recorded and there are two different kinds of mayoral offices in England (directly elected executives and ceremonial civic mayors) which the posts conflate [1] [2] [3]. Brighton and Hove’s council unanimously elected Mohammed Asaduzzaman as a Muslim ceremonial mayor on 17 May 2024 [4]. Other claims about multiple English towns and cities "currently" having Muslim mayors are disputed by primary local offices and fact-checkers [3] [2].
1. The hard facts: who is confirmed and when
Sadiq Khan is publicly known to be Muslim and is the mayor of London, a fact repeatedly used as the anchor for viral posts and fact checks [1] [2] [3]. Brighton and Hove councillors unanimously elected Mohammed Asaduzzaman as their city’s mayor on 17 May 2024; his office is described as a largely ceremonial “first citizen” role [4]. Those two are the clearest, source-backed examples in the provided reporting.
2. Why the viral lists mislead: types of mayors and patchy public records
Several viral posts list London, Birmingham, Leeds, Blackburn, Sheffield, Oxford, Luton, Oldham and Rochdale as all having Muslim mayors, but that assertion overlooks two essential facts: England and Wales have both directly elected executive mayors and ceremonial civic (or lord) mayors, and the religion of civic mayors is frequently not publicly recorded — which means past or occasional holders of ceremonial office who were Muslim are not proof that the current office-holder is [2]. Full Fact’s investigations stress that while all the places named have had Muslim mayors at some point, they do not all currently have one [2].
3. Conflicting reporting: local offices versus social posts
Reuters’ reporting directly queried the mayoral offices of several areas and reported that some offices — including those tied to the directly elected metro mayors of West Yorkshire (Leeds), South Yorkshire (Sheffield) and Greater Manchester (covering Oldham and Rochdale) — said their incumbents did not identify as Muslim, undermining blanket social-media claims [3]. Full Fact likewise notes a mismatch between “have had” and “currently have” and cautions against conflating ceremonial historic holders with current executive mayors [1] [2].
4. Places flagged by fact-checkers as ambiguous or outdated
Some local council communications and community reporting indicate that places such as Blackburn and Oldham have had Muslim civic mayors recently or historically, and Full Fact’s 2017/2023 checks acknowledged those past office-holders; however, Full Fact and Reuters both stress that being a past Muslim mayor does not mean the current mayor is Muslim, and Reuters specifically verified that several of the named mayors did not identify as Muslim around the May 2024 social-media spike [1] [2] [3].
5. What can be stated confidently — and what cannot
Confident, source-backed statements: London’s mayor Sadiq Khan is Muslim [1] [2] [3], and Brighton & Hove’s Mohammed Asaduzzaman was elected mayor on 17 May 2024 [4]. Less certain or contested: assertions that Birmingham, Leeds, Blackburn, Sheffield, Oxford, Luton, Oldham and Rochdale “currently” have Muslim mayors — these claims are contradicted or qualified by Reuters and Full Fact enquiries and by the fact that religion is often not public record for civic mayors [1] [2] [3].
6. Why this matters: agenda, context and the danger of overreach
The viral lists have been used to imply a coordinated or rapid demographic change and to stoke alarmist narratives; fact-checkers (Full Fact, Reuters) show that those narratives rely on mixing past and present office-holders and different kinds of mayoralty, and on treating incomplete public records as comprehensive evidence — an implicit agenda that inflates symbolic representation for political effect [1] [3]. The reporting available for this analysis does not provide a comprehensive roster of every civic mayor’s religion at this moment; where local offices were queried, they sometimes contradicted the viral claims [3].