Hamtramck To Have Nation's First Muslim Majority Council

HAMTRAMCK (AP) - A diverse Detroit enclave known for its Polish heritage will have what's believed to be the nation's first Muslim-majority City Council.

Hamtramck residents on Tuesday elected Yemeni-American Saad Almasmari and re-elected Bangladesh natives Abu Musa and Anam Miah. They join Bangladeshi member Mohammed Hassan.

Muslims now hold four of the council's six seats in a city that was settled by Germans, became predominantly Polish in the early 1900s and now has a slight majority of Muslims from Yemen, Bangladesh and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Almasmari tells television stations WDIV and WXYZ they will "represent everybody."

University of Michigan-Dearborn associate professor Sally Howell, an expert on Michigan and U.S. Muslims, tells The Associated Press she's unaware of another Muslim-majority council. The council in nearby Dearborn has an Arab-American majority but not all are Muslim.

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