Zohran Mamdani will be the first mayor of New York to take the oath of office using a Koran
The first swearing-in ceremony will take place at midnight at the former Old City Hall subway station, currently out of service.
Zohran Mamdani
Socialist Zohran Mamdani will be sworn in as mayor of New York City at midnight on Jan. 1 in a ceremony that will break with symbolic precedent for the office. As confirmed by authorities, he will be the first mayor of the city to take the oath using a Koran, a fact that coincides with his political and religious profile.
An unprecedented swearing-in at City Hall
Mamdani will also become the first Muslim to lead the New York City government. According to his spokesman, the new mayor will employ at least three different copies of Islam's holy book during private and public ceremonies scheduled for Thursday. Among them is a Quran that belonged to his grandfather, as well as another by African-American writer and historian Arturo Schomburg and currently in the safekeeping of the New York Public Library.
The first ceremony will take place at midnight at the former Old City Hall subway station, now abandoned. At that private event, the state attorney general, Letitia James, will be in charge of swearing him in. Later that day, Mamdani will again take the oath of office during a public ceremony in front of City Hall, this time before Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
Political context and historical background
The use of religious texts with personal or historical value has a history in the city. Eric Adams was sworn in 2022 on a family Bible while holding a portrait of his deceased mother. Bill de Blasio, in 2014, used a Bible that belonged to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Michael Bloomberg swore on the same Jewish Bible he used at his bar mitzvah following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
At the federal level, the most cited precedent is Keith Ellison, who in 2007 became the first congressional lawmaker to use a Quran during a swearing-in ceremony.
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