Zohran Mamdani's Qur’an oath was perfectly legal. Christian Nationalists can't handle that.

The backlash to Mamdani's swearing-in ceremony has nothing to do with the Constitution and everything to do with religious privilege

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When Zohran Mamdani took his oath of office to become mayor of New York City, just after midnight, he was sworn in with his hand on a Qur’an. Two of them to be exact, with another one slated to be used at the ceremony this afternoon. And each one is infuriating Christian zealots who falsely think he’s going to impose his religious beliefs onto the city—an anti-Constitutional act that they believe is reserved only for them.

Zohran Mamdani takes his oath of office on January 1, 2026 (screenshot via YouTube)

As the Associated Press reported, the holy books all have significance to Mamdani, but not necessarily for religious reasons:

Mamdani will place his hand on two Qurans during the subway ceremony: his grandfather’s Quran and a pocket-sized version that dates back to the late 18th or early 19th century. It is part of the collection at the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

That copy of the Quran symbolizes the diversity and reach of the city’s Muslims, said Hiba Abid, the library’s curator for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies.

“It’s a small Quran, but it brings together elements of faith and identity in New York City history,” Abid said.

For a subsequent swearing-in ceremony at City Hall on the first day of the year, Mamdani will use both his grandfather’s and grandmother’s Qurans.

It sounds both personal and political—a way to make it about his own improbable journey while also paying homage to a neglected community in the city he’s about to lead.

While I would much rather see politicians do away with the idea of swearing an oath on a holy book altogether, it’s refreshing to see something different. It’s also not the first time we’ve seen something like this. Back when the government was run by professionals instead of right-wing hacks, we saw two separate NASA administrators swear in on copies of Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot and Contact (affiliate links).

In 2023, when the new Congress was sworn in that year, Rep. Robert Garcia took his oath on a handful of meaningful objects, including a copy of Superman #1, which he was able to use on loan from the Library of Congress. Other politicians have used a Dr. Seuss book, law books, and Hebrew bibles. And in 2019, when Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib became the first two Muslim women in Congress, both took their oaths on the Qur’an as well. (It incensed conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene so much that she demanded they retake their oaths on the Bible.)

There’s no law requiring people to use the Bible. And if you’re going to use a book of fantasy, there are far better options than that one.

Perhaps the most memorable reminder of this fact came in 2017 when there was a special election in Alabama for U.S. Senate. The Republican candidate, Christian Nationalist Roy Moore, had already been exposed as a creepy sex predator, but on the day of the election, Moore’s spokesperson Ted Crockett was asked if Moore still believed, as he did in 2006, that Muslims shouldn’t be allowed in Congress.

Crockett defended that position by saying you have to swear an oath on the Bible, so Muslims are prohibited from public office. CNN’s Jake Tapper pointed out that the Bible may be tradition but it certainly wasn’t mandatory.

Crockett was dumbfounded… and remained silent for a remarkably awkward few seconds while reality slowly sunk in.

TAPPER: Judge Moore has said that he doesn’t think a Muslim member of Congress should be allowed to be in Congress. Why? Under what part of the Constitution?

CROCKETT: Because you have to swear on the Bible. When you are before—I had to do it, I’m an elected official three terms. I had to swear on a Bible—You have to swear on a Bible to be an elected official in the United States of America. [Roy Moore] alleges that a Muslim cannot do that, ethically, swearing on the Bible.

TAPPER: You don’t actually have to swear on a Christian Bible. You can swear on anything, really. I don’t know if you knew that. You can swear on a Jewish Bible…

CROCKETT: Oh no, I swore on the Bible. I done it three times.

TAPPER: I’m sure you have. I’m sure you picked a Bible, but the law is not that you have to swear on a Christian Bible. That is not the law.

[Long pause]

You don’t know that?

[Long pause]

CROCKETT: I know that Donald Trump did it when we made him president.

TAPPER: Because he’s Christian and he picked it. That’s what he wanted to swear in on.

Look at this goober. Just look at him.

(And then Moore lost, and for a brief moment, we had hope of a better future in America.)

The point is: No one in public office has to swear an oath on a Bible. For anything.

I thought by now we’ve been through this enough times that even Christian Nationalists would realize it, but apparently not. After news broke about Mamdani’s plans, conservative zealots immediately pounced on the story, declaring that this was somehow un-American and blasphemous.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who’s now running to be governor of Alabama, shared a screenshot of the headline with the phrase “The enemy is inside the gates.”

That’s the sort of blatant racism and bigotry that has become the norm for Republicans across the country.

Other right-wing bigots followed suit, with some even invoking 9/11. One spoke of how “a city scarred by jihadist terror inaugurates its mayor with a Quran oath.” Another called the swearing in on a Qur’an a “shocking sight given New York’s history with Islamic terrorism.”

Needless to say, what Mamdani is doing is neither illegal nor unusual. But conservative extremists with no knowledge of how the Constitution works and no awareness of how more diverse public officials have already been pushing back against the tradition of taking an oath on the Bible for many years now.

The bottom line is that there’s no threat posed by a Muslim mayor who takes an oath on the Qur’an. We should be far more worried about Christian officials who demand everyone else take their oaths on a Bible or else. The Constitution requires officials to pledge to uphold the law, not a holy book, and the insistence that those officials say as much while placing a hand on the Bible has only ever been based on tradition. There’s certainly no reason to keep that tradition alive when we live in a more diverse country where people with no religious affiliation are now the largest single “religious” group.

The outrage against Mamdani also highlights the profound and dangerous ignorance of those who insist he swear on a Bible. They’re not defending the Constitution. They’re proving that they don’t understand it. They don’t get the Establishment Clause. They don’t get the part about having no religious tests for public office. They can’t tell the difference between a personal symbol used in a ceremonial oath and actual governing. That’s likely the result of years of Christian Nationalist rhetoric saying that non-Christians are, by definition, illegitimate office holders.

All the more reason we ought to end the tradition entirely. There’s no compelling reason to place any holy book at the center of a constitutional oath. Want to put your hand somewhere? Do it on the Constitution. Any else sends a message that religious dogma will be taken as seriously as the laws themselves, even if the people doing it have no desire to merge church and state. That’s why religious symbolism should remain only in the private lives of those who choose it.

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