Nazir Ahmed, Baron Ahmed

Nazir Ahmed, Baron Ahmed (born 1958) is a member of the House of Lords, having become the United Kingdom's first Muslim life peer in 1998. Many of his political activities relate to the Islamic community both in the UK and abroad, and he has often attracted controversy. He is a member of the Labour Party.

Early life

Baron Nazir Ahmed was born in a Jat family of Mirpur (Azad Kashmir, Pakistan) and is a nephew of late Kalyal Mohammand Yousaf who was also a member of Mahraja Hari singhs's perjah Sabah in 1944, but soon after his birth, at the age of 7, his family migrated to the UK, where he was brought up. He attended Spurley Hey Comprehensive school, then Thomas Rotherham Sixth Form College. He studied Public Administration at Sheffield Hallam University and joined the Labour Party when he was 18 years old.

Politics

While he worked during the week-day as a greengrocer in a local market, he began his political career as a local councillor, with most of his activity centred around the North of England. He founded the British Muslim Councillors' Forum in 1992. Ahmed was also made a Justice of the Peace in the same year and chaired the South Yorkshire Labour Party for some years.

In 1998 Ahmed was appointed to the House of Lords, becoming the first Muslim life peer as Baron Ahmed, of Rotherham in the County of South Yorkshire. Lord Ahmed took his oath on the Qur'an. At the age of 40, he was also one of the youngest peers to achieve this position. As a Muslim peer, much of...
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