Some historical perspective on the election of London's Muslim Mayor
From Juan Cole: London’s Muslim Mayor is nothing New: 1300 yrs of Muslims who Ran Major European Cities http://www.juancole.com/2016/05/londons-nothing-european.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook
Islam is a major European religion and is a nearly 1300 year old tradition there.
Some parts of Spain, and often quite a lot of it, were under Muslim rule 711 to 1492. So for example, Abd al-Rahman I was proclaimed Emir of Cordoba in 756.
The Arab Muslim emirate of Sicily lasted from 831 to 1072. For example, Jafar al-Kalbi (983–985) was emir of Sicily, and therefore mayor of Palermo, the capital.
The Ottoman Empire ruled most of what is now Greece 1458-1832. Here is a picture of the Ottoman governor of Athens in 1815 (a decade and a half before the Greeks won independence).
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The Spanish Muslim rulers were explicitly not "indigenous." Same for those in the SE of Europe, the parts of Italy that had been conquered, or in eastern Europe. Their Islam-in-Europe is like Christianity-in-Burma. Yeah, the invaders took it there, but that's about all. Even Xianity in India has some sort of tradition, if you believe the traditions in part of the country. (Who was the apostle that went to India to build the church there according to tradition ... Thomas?)
You might get political perk points for converting to Islam, but that was about it. You were still part of the inferior conquered, just a step above your former peers and, for the most part, resented by most of the population. Moreover, most of the areas with Muslim invasions also had early adoption of Xianity because they were either proximal or the most Roman--this included N. Africa, S. Spain, Italy, and SE Europe/Turkey.
Cole has a decided bias in his facts and spin, and usually has. Moreover, his conclusions are suited to the situation and moment, and seldom extend anywhere he doesn't like.
For example, one could argue that we should find it completely reasonable to find a Jewish mayor of Mecca or Medinah, given the long history of Judaism in Arabia. However, we are not to infer that the absence of this prediction is in anyway emblematic of racism, unless, of course, there's some Righteous Jew that Cole has identified (which means almost for sure anti-Israeli and pro-something-Cole-likes). You don't hear much about how Turkey was mostly Xian so we should expect a Christian government there, or that the Armenian genocide was paralleled by a kind of Greek genocide, the result being that it was mostly an anti-Christian genocide.
Perhaps that'll be Cole's next column. I doubt he likes Erdogan too much, though. Too anti-Russian and anti-liberal, not sufficiently anti-West (but nicely anti-"Zionist"
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