Zohran Mamdani swearing-in ceremony for New York City mayor

Zohran Mamdani takes oath as New York mayor with historic Quran

Incoming mayor uses edition symbolising New York City history; to use two family Qurans in public ceremony on Friday.

This photo provided by the New York Public Library shows the Schomburg Quran on December 16, 2025, in New York [Jonathan Blanc/The New York Public Library via AP Photo]

ByErin Hale and The Associated Press
Published On 1 Jan 20261 Jan 2026


Zohran Mamdani on Thursday became the first New York City mayor to be sworn in using a Quran.

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”.