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The New York Times devoted an advance article to the iconic scriptures used in today's NY mayor's inauguration: "Mamdani Is First New York Mayor to Use the Quran at His Swearing-In." Zoran Mamdani used three different copies in two ceremonies: "One of the Qurans was from Mr. Mamdani’s grandfather. The other once belonged to Arturo Schomburg, the Black writer and historian. It was lent to the mayor by the New York Public Library." The third was one owned by Mamdani's grandmother. Schomburg's Qur'an was carefully chosen: "Showcasing the Quran that belonged to Mr. Schomburg, an Afro-Latino writer whose work shaped the Harlem Renaissance, underlines the city’s blend of faiths and racial and ethnic backgrounds."
Though using a Qur'an is a first for New York city, Mamdani was following the lead of many Muslim office holders in the U.S., including in Congress, as well as abroad as this blog has noted before. The thought put in to the selection of scriptures shows that politicians have proven much more adept at consciously manipulating the iconic dimension of scriptures than scholars, who have been slow to recognize, much less understand how the ritualizing scriptures in this way bestows legitimacy on those who hold them and on the religious communities that venerate them. For more examples, click the label OATHS at left. For the effects of ritualizing the iconic dimension, see my How and Why Books Matter, chapters 1-2.
