Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as Mayor of New York City at midnight on Thursday, taking his oath of office on a centuries-old Quran, marking the first time the city’s mayor uses Islam’s holy text to be sworn in and underscoring a series of historic firsts for the city.
The 34-year-old Democrat became mayor in a long-closed subway station beneath City Hall, the ceremony administered by New York Attorney General Letitia James. He is now the first Muslim, first South Asian, and first African-born person to hold that position.
The first Muslim and South Asian mayor of the United States’ biggest metropolis, Mamdani used his grandfather’s Quran and a 200-year-old copy on loan from the New York Public Library (NYPL) for the private swearing-in event held at a disused subway station under Times Square.
He then plans to use two copies of the Quran that belonged to his grandfather and grandmother for a daytime ceremony at New York City Hall on Friday.
The historic Quran, borrowed from the library, once belonged to Arturo Schomburg, a Black historian and writer who sold his collection of 4,000 books to the NYPL in 1926. His collection became the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Schomburg was born in Puerto Rico in the 1870s to parents of German and Afro-Caribbean descent. He later immigrated to New York and was a key player in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s – a period of intense cultural and intellectual flourishing within New York’s Black community.
The library praised Mamdani’s decision to use Schomburg’s Quran because of its connection to one of New York’s “most groundbreaking scholars and for its simple, functional qualities”.
The small size of the Quran and its black and red ink suggest it was designed for everyday use, the library said. The edition is neither signed nor dated, but its “minute naskh script and its binding, featuring a gilt-stamped medallion filled with a floral composition, suggest it was produced in Ottoman Syria in the 19th century”, the library added.
Mamdani is one of only a handful of US politicians to be sworn in with the Quran. New York does not require mayors to take the oath of office with their hand on a religious text, but many past mayors have used a copy of the Bible.
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg used a 100-year-old family Bible during one ceremony, while Mayor Bill de Blasio used a Bible that once belonged to US President Franklin D Roosevelt. Mamdani’s predecessor, Mayor Eric Adams, also used a family Bible for his oath.
