Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as New York City mayor early Thursday, becoming the first Muslim and South Asian to lead the US largest city after taking the oath of office on the holy Quran.
\nJust after the last seconds of 2025 ticked away, the ceremony took place at an abandoned Old City Hall subway station, one of the city\u2019s original stations built in 1904 and decommissioned in 1945.
\nNew York Attorney General Letitia James administered the oath alongside Mamdani\u2019s family ahead of a public ceremony Thursday afternoon to be led by Senator Bernie Sanders.
\nZohraan is the son of Mahmood Mamdani, a professor at Columbia University, and Mira Nair, an Oscar-nominated filmmaker whose credits include \u201cMississippi Masala\u201d and \u201cMonsoon Wedding.\u201d He speaks Urdu fluently.
\nAccording to several US media reports, the holy Qurans used during the ceremony included a copy belonging to Mamdani\u2019s grandfather and another once owned by Black writer and historian Arturo Schomburg lent by the New York Public Library.
\nUganda-born Mamdani, 34, who deployed a mix of charm, social media savvy and an unyielding focus on affordability to catapult him to political stardom, is the City\u2019s youngest Mayor, a job which comes with a $116 billion budget and global scrutiny.
\nHe won the mayoral race in Nov. 4 elections, defeating former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa in a historic victory for the Democratic Party\u2019s progressive wing.
\nA democratic socialist, Mamdani ran his campaign focused on affordability and expanded social services, pledging free buses, universal childcare, city-run grocery stores, expanded rent-stabilized housing and raising the minimum wage to $30 per hour by 2030.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as New York City mayor early Thursday, becoming the first Muslim and South Asian to lead the US largest city after taking the oath of office on the holy Quran. Just after the last seconds of 2025 ticked away, the ceremony took place at an abandoned Old City Hall subway […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523177,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-523167","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n