A Muslim of Pakistani origin.. Who is Hamza Yusuf, the new Prime Minister of Scotland?

Hamza Yusuf won the race for the leadership of the Scottish National Party, the ruling party in Scotland, to become the Prime Minister (Prime Minister), succeeding Nicola Sturgeon, who announced her resignation last month.

The winner will have to contest a vote in the Scottish parliament on Tuesday before being installed as first minister for Scotland.

Youssef enters political history not only in the United Kingdom, but also in the West in general, as the first Muslim to hold the position of Prime Minister in a Western country, as he is a Muslim of Pakistani origins, as he was born in Glasgow on April 7, 1985, to a Pakistani father who emigrated with his family to Scotland in 1960.

As for his mother, she was born in Kenya and comes from a family from South Asia. She also immigrated with her family to Scotland and worked there in the field of accounting.

Hamza studied at the University of Glasgow and obtained a master’s degree in political science in 2007. During his undergraduate studies, he chaired the Muslim Students’ Association, in addition to being a member of the university students’ union.

He participated in many charitable campaigns, and became the media spokesperson for the “Islamic Relief” charity, which is considered one of the largest charitable societies in the United Kingdom, in addition to his volunteer work on local radio for 11 years, in order to collect donations and aid for the needy.

Hamza Yusuf entered political work through the parliament gate, through his work as an assistant to Parliamentarian Bashir Ahmed, who was the first Muslim parliamentarian in Scotland in 2007. Prime Minister in 2008, after which Hamza moved to work as an assistant to Sturgeon.

In 2011, he was elected to Parliament at the age of 26 for the Glasgow region, making him the youngest candidate to be elected to Parliament, and he continued in office for a year, until he was appointed to a government position, his first, as a clerk at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Relations, in Almond era, and he worked under the banner of the Ministry of Culture and Foreign Affairs, and was then the first Muslim of Asian descent to hold a ministerial position.

And he continued in this position, after Sturgeon came to the premiership in 2014, and kept him in office until 2016, and he was appointed Minister of Transport, then Minister of Justice from 2018 to 2021, and in the same year he assumed the position of Minister of Health and Social Work in the circumstances of the Corona pandemic.

Over the course of these years, the name of Hamza Yusuf turned into a difficult and important figure in the Scottish political equation, with his holding of a number of important ministerial positions, leading to the leadership of the Scottish National Party.