Bhatkal celebrates as Abdul El-Sayed prepares to become first Muslim US Senator
The wife of the Senate candidate, Sarah Jukaku, has ancestral roots in the Karnataka coastal town.
Abdul El-Sayed is set to become the first Muslim Senator in the US, a milestone that has prompted celebrations in the Karnataka coastal town of Bhatkal, according to The Indian Express.
The connection to the town comes through El-Sayed’s wife, Sarah Jukaku, whose family is noted for contributing to the regional development 75 years ago, prior to the formation of Karnataka.
The Jukaku family is part of the Nawayath community, an ancient Muslim merchant group from Yemen, Arab, Iran, and Iraq that settled in southern India coastal towns over the last 600 years.
Sarah Jukaku’s grandfather, Jukaku Shamsuddin, was a lawyer who served as the deputy finance minister in the Mysore government under Chief Minister BD Jatti during the 1950s.
Journalist and author Aftab Husain Kola said that during Shamsuddin's tenure, the town saw significant planning regarding roads, electricity, and educational institutions.
The Anjuman Hami-e-Muslimeen, a Bhatkal charitable trust that manages educational institutions, has named its administrative building after Shamsuddin.
Sarah’s father, Dr Jukaku S Tayeb, moved from Bhatkal to Bengaluru for medical studies in 1976 before settling in Michigan as a nephrologist in the 1980s.
Jukaku Shamshuddin Zia, a first cousin of Sarah, told The Indian Express that the family is happy about the Senate candidacy and noted that the family maintains a WhatsApp group for sharing information and conversation.
