New York's new mayor Mamdani swears by the Koran, first to do so

Zohran Mamdani took the oath shortly after midnight on the Koran, Islam's holiest book, becoming the first mayor of New York to do so. One of the Korans belonged to his grandfather, the other - on loan from the New York Public Library - to Arturo Schomburg, an African-American writer and historian.

For the second public ceremony in the coming hours at City Hall, Mamdani - the Big Apple's first Muslim citizen - will again use his grandfather's Koran and one that belonged to his grandmother. The use of the Koran that belonged to Schomburg, the Afro-Latin writer whose work shaped the Harlem Renaissance, underlines the diversity of faiths, races and ethnicities that characterises the city.