The Learner

Mamdani and El Sayed: When Excellence Speaks Louder Than Prejudice By Muhsin Ibrahim If you are that good at your job, your detractors will struggle a lot to pull you down or turn people against you. Mr Zohran Mamdani and Dr Abdul El-Sayed are two excellent examples. They share the same faith: Islam. Mamdani was born in 1991 in Uganda to Indian parents, and El-Sayed was born in 1984 in the US to Egyptian parents. Beyond the duo's faith and immigrant background, they are too good to be easily criticised. Hence, their opponents have struggled to persuade voters to reject them. El-Sayed and his wife are both medical doctors. She practices; he does not. However, he holds a DPhil (i.e. PhD) from Oxford. He also has a very clean record in Michigan's public sector.  In 2007, Bill Clinton praised El-Sayed during a commencement speech at the latter's university. It's quite prophetic that he would later contest and win an election, becoming the first Muslim senator in US history....