New York swears in its first Muslim mayor on a Schomburg Qur'an

On January 1, 2026, Zohran Mamdani takes the oath as New York City's first Muslim and first South Asian mayor, his hand on a centuries-old Qur'an chosen from the New York Public Library's Schomburg collection.

The manuscript was acquired by Arturo Schomburg, the Black Puerto Rican historian who documented Islam's deep ties to Black history, so a single artifact joined the threads this site traces: the Jefferson-to-Ellison Qur'an-oath lineage, the Arabic manuscripts of enslaved African Muslims, and the Latino Muslim story.