What U.S. cities have elected Muslim mayors historically and when were they elected?
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Executive summary
A recent surge in Muslim electoral success has produced several firsts — notably Zohran Mamdani’s 2025 victory in New York City and a cluster of Muslim mayoral wins in Michigan and elsewhere beginning in 2021 — but the history of Muslim mayors in the United States stretches back at least to the 2010s and includes a mix of large-city breakthroughs and numerous smaller municipal milestones [1] [2] [3].
1. The 2025 wave: major-city milestone and multiple local wins
The November 2025 elections marked a high-profile moment: Zohran Mamdani won New York City’s mayoralty in 2025, becoming the city’s first Muslim mayor [4] [5], while incumbent Abdullah Hammoud retained Dearborn’s mayoralty in the same cycle, reinforcing Muslim leadership in that Michigan city [6] [1]. CAIR and several outlets counted multiple Muslim mayors and top-city officials elected or re-elected in 2025, noting at least five Muslim mayors among a record 42 Muslim American officeholders that year [3] [7] [5].
2. The Michigan cluster: 2021 as a turning point
The Detroit suburbs were an earlier turning point: in 2021 voters in Dearborn, Dearborn Heights and Hamtramck elected their first Muslim and Arab-American mayors — Abdullah Hammoud in Dearborn, Amer Ghalib in Hamtramck, and an Arab-American mayor in Dearborn Heights — marking a notable regional shift in local leadership that was widely reported at the time [2] [8]. Those 2021 wins were the start of sustained Muslim mayoral presence in southeastern Michigan, with follow-up races and re-elections in later years [3] [9].
3. Earlier and individual milestones: Teaneck, College Park and others
The record includes earlier entries: Mohammed Hameeduddin was elected mayor of Teaneck, New Jersey, in 2010, a fact cited as an antecedent to later “firsts” [1]. In Maryland, Faizul Kabir became mayor of College Park in a 2023 special election and is identified in reporting as Maryland’s first Muslim mayor [3] [9]. These examples show that Muslim mayors have appeared both in small and mid-sized municipalities before the larger-city breakthroughs of 2025 [3] [1].
4. New Jersey’s diffuse history: many local mayoral firsts
New Jersey has a longer, if fragmented, list of Muslim mayors across smaller municipalities and townships — reporting names such as Eman El-Badawi (Cranbury), Sadaf Jaffer (Montgomery Township), Fozia Janjua (Mount Laurel), Khizar Sheikh (Mountain Lakes), Tayfun Selen (Chatham), and others have been identified in post-2025 coverage as examples of Muslim mayors in the state, underscoring that many local-level firsts occurred outside major media attention [10]. Local government structures vary in New Jersey — some mayors are directly elected while others are chosen by councils — a detail that affects how those “firsts” are recorded and described [10].
5. Who counts as a “Muslim mayor” and limitations of the record
Reporting emphasizes the 2021 Michigan cluster and the 2025 surge but is not a comprehensive historical registry; most sources compiled lists around specific election cycles and relied on CAIR tallies or local reporting, so there may be additional municipal Muslim mayors not captured in these articles [3] [7]. Some outlets explicitly list five mayors in 2025 and dozens of council and judicial wins, but they focus on notable or symbolic firsts rather than providing an exhaustive chronology of every Muslim mayor in U.S. history [7] [5]. Additionally, municipal governance differences (direct election versus council appointment of mayors) mean “elected mayor” can have different technical meanings across jurisdictions — a distinction noted in New Jersey coverage [10].
6. The bottom line: cities and election years documented in reporting
Based on the provided reporting: Teaneck, New Jersey (Mohammed Hameeduddin — 2010) is an early documented Muslim mayor; Hamtramck, Dearborn and Dearborn Heights, Michigan saw first Muslim mayors in 2021 with continued Muslim leadership through later cycles (Amer Ghalib in Hamtramck, Abdullah Hammoud in Dearborn, Mo Baydoun in Dearborn Heights as noted) [2] [8] [3] [9]; College Park, Maryland elected Faizul Kabir in a 2023 special election [3] [9]; and New York City elected Zohran Mamdani in November 2025, the most prominent single-city milestone reported [4] [5]. Reporting also catalogs numerous smaller New Jersey mayoral examples and emphasizes that 2025 delivered the largest single-year tally of Muslim officeholders to date, according to CAIR [10] [3] [7].