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Michigan city could become first in U.S. under Muslim control

A Detroit-area newspaper says the results of Tuesday's primary could lead to Hamtramck, Michigan, becoming the first city council in the U.S. to be controlled by Muslims.

The Detroit News says there are four Muslims in the Tuesday primary. If they are among the candidates who win and go on to run in the November election, they would have a chance to join a fifth Muslim who already sits on the six-member council and is up for re-election in 2009.

Hamtramck -- historically a refuge for Catholic immigrants mostly from Poland and Ukraine -- was at the center of a controversy three years ago over an initiative allowing amplified calls to prayer from the city's mosques.

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This small city of immigrants is quickly regaining its reputation.

Once a refuge for Catholic immigrants mostly from Poland and Ukraine, who staked their claim to the American dream in this 2.2-square-mile municipality, Hamtramck is now providing the same haven for Muslims from Bangladesh, Bosnia and Yemen.

And the dream is coming to fruition, again. There is a chance that, for the first time in the United States, a majority of members of the legislative body of a municipality will be Muslims, according to national Muslim and Arab organizations.

Four Muslims are in the Tuesday primary. If they are among the six of 12 candidates to emerge for the general election in November, they would have a chance of joining a fifth Muslim, Councilman Abdul Algazali, who is up for re-election in 2009, on the six-member council.

"The new immigrants are getting involved in the American political system," said Shahab Ahmed, a two-term councilman up for re-election. "And the Muslim community is getting the idea that instead of involving themselves only with the politics of their individual communities, they are involving themselves in the local politics with the governments of the city and the state. And we are seeing that process, now, in this election."

Joining recent immigrants who are Muslims on the ballot is incumbent Councilman William Hood, who also is a Muslim. Abusayed Mafuz, publisher of the local Bangla Amar newspaper, and Delawar Hussain are also on Tuesday's ballot.

"This is not about Muslims, alone," Mafuz said. "This is about representing all people. That's my mission. I want to build a relationship with all people to unite, to create opportunities and the sort of city we all want to have."

Indeed, observers are quick to point out that the candidates who are Muslim are not generally allied.

A striking consequence of the ascendancy is that the grandsons and grand-daughters of the previous wave of immigrants are beginning to see it as not only healthy for civic life, but a boon.

Housing prices are up, city officials say. The generation-long trend towards absentee landlords is substantially reversed, they say, with much of the housing stock now owner-occupied again. Crime remains a concern, but neighborhoods are stabilizing, with families intending to stay in their homes the long term.

"That is just the kind of evolution that continues to go on in Hamtramck," said Councilman Robert Zwolak, who seeks re-election. "We had a 25 percent increase in our population from 1990 to 2000 and the new arrivals are all family-oriented people who really added considerably more to the community than we had seen in the previous years of decline."

Zwolak acknowledges that some residents think poorly of him for fighting a ballot initiative that allowed the amplified call to prayer from mosques in the city. But Zwolak stressed his opposition always was based on the issue of amplification -- and excessive noise -- not the actual call to prayer.

Indeed, Mafuz stresses that he tells other residents that "Bob Zwolak is my friend."

Since the divisive ballot issue in 2004, Zwolak says he cannot recall a single issue before the council, or in the city government, that has been fought along religious lines.

"In terms of the politics, the conflicts are more about personalities, now, than anything else," Zwolak said. "In fact, politics being politics, the Muslims have some conflicts among themselves."