Humza Yousaf

Humza Haroon Yousaf is a Scottish politician of the Scottish National Party, born in Glasgow on 7 April 1985. He served as First Minister of Scotland and leader of his party from March 2023 to May 2024. ^{1 2 3}

On taking office he was the youngest First Minister in Scotland's history, and the first Muslim and the first person from an ethnic minority to hold the office. ^{1 2}

This record is for the Scottish politician Humza Yousaf, a different person from the American scholar Hamza Yusuf; the Arabic article distinguishes him by the qualifier "politician" in its title. ²

Humza Haroon Yousaf was born in Glasgow, the son of first-generation immigrants. His father, Mian Muzaffar Yousaf, was born in Mian Channu, Punjab, Pakistan, emigrated with his family in the 1960s and worked as an accountant. His mother, Shaaista Bhutta, was born in Nairobi, Kenya, to a family of Punjabi descent. ¹

He was educated at Hutchesons' Grammar School in Glasgow, where his Modern Studies lessons inspired him to enter politics. He studied politics at the University of Glasgow, where he was president of the Glasgow University Muslim Students Association, and graduated in 2007 with a Master of Arts degree. ¹

He worked as a parliamentary assistant for Bashir Ahmad, the first Muslim elected to the Scottish Parliament. After Ahmad's death in 2009, Yousaf worked as a parliamentary assistant for Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, and before his election worked at SNP headquarters as a communications officer. ¹

He was elected to the Scottish Parliament in 2011 as a regional member for Glasgow, at twenty-six the youngest member of that Parliament, and has represented the Glasgow Pollok constituency since 2016. ¹

He was appointed Minister for External Affairs and International Development in 2012, then Minister for Europe and International Development, then Minister for Transport and the Islands in 2016. In 2018 he was promoted to the cabinet as justice secretary, becoming the first non-white and first Muslim member of the Scottish cabinet. In 2021 he was appointed health secretary during the COVID-19 pandemic, responsible for the NHS recovery and the mass vaccination roll-out. ^{1 2}

After Nicola Sturgeon announced her intention to resign, Yousaf won the 2023 SNP leadership election on 27 March 2023, defeating Kate Forbes by 52 per cent to 48 per cent in the final stage, and was appointed First Minister on 29 March 2023. ¹

After he ended the governing cooperation agreement with the Scottish Greens and faced motions of no confidence, he announced his resignation as party leader and First Minister on 29 April 2024, formally resigned on 7 May 2024, and was succeeded by John Swinney. ¹

This section sets out different positions as reported in the sources; it is not a verdict by the museum. The article records that Yousaf, described as a practising Muslim, said he does not legislate on the basis of his faith, and that he has vocally supported marriage equality and LGBT rights; his stated view that gay sex is not a sin drew criticism from prominent Muslim figures reported in the article. ¹

As justice secretary he introduced the bill that became the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021, which the article describes as controversial. ¹

The museum records only what is needed to understand his public work: Yousaf has been married twice and has children, and the sources' account of his immigrant family is given in the early-life section above. ¹

His public significance lies in being the first Muslim, the first person from an ethnic minority and the youngest person to lead the Scottish Government, and in his path from parliamentary assistant to First Minister in twelve years. ¹

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.