Pakistani woman becomes ‘youngest ever Muslim’ lawmaker in UK parliament

December's general election results in the U.K. set a new record for female Muslim lawmakers, in what international media outlets have heralded as the most diverse parliament ever in the country's history in terms of gender and ethnicity.

The British Parliament now welcomes more female Muslim MPs than male Muslim representatives for the first time in its history.

A record-breaking 220 women (34 percent) --regardless of race, religion or ethnicity--, out of 650 in total, were elected in December, 12 more than the previous number of 208 in the 2017 general election.

In the previous parliament, a total of 16 MPs of Muslim faith won seats in the election— of which eight were women.

After the last general election, the number of Muslim parliamentarians has reached a new record of 21. Of those, 11 are women: six of Pakistani or Kashmiri origin, four from Bangladesh, and one Kurdish.

The six female MPs of Pakistani background who made it to Westminster are Zarah Sultana, Shabana Mahmood, Yasmeen Qureshi, Nusrat Ghani, Naz Shah and Rosena Allin-Khan.

The 27-year-old Kashmiri origin MP, Zarah Sultana, set a new record of becoming the youngest Pakistani and Muslim ever to be elected as an MP.