My invocation from today’s inauguration of @zohrankmamdani ________ Ya Allah, Ya Rahman, Ya Arham Ar-Rahimeen – Most Merciful of Those Who Show Mercy, We turn to You on this day from our city with hopeful hearts. Thank you for this moment. Thank you for the amazing individuals You have gathered here diverse in color, language, journey and name, but united in purpose, stitched together by shared hopes, all yearning to build something meaningful, lasting, and rooted in love, dignity, respect and justice no longer for the few, but for all.

We come before You mindful that moments like this do not arrive on their own. They are carried forward by sacrifice, by organizing, by courage, by people who refused to accept that the way things were was the way they had to remain.

We come knowing that this day stands on the shoulders of so many who were told to wait their turn, to quiet their demands, to lower their expectations, but instead chose to believe that another New York was possible.

We recognize that belief is not abstract. It was practiced by tenants organizing against displacement, by workers demanding fair wages, by parents advocating for their children’s futures, by communities who kept showing up even when the odds said they should not.

We gather today with hearts shaped by this city – by its noise and its neighborhoods, by its subways and sanctuaries, by the dreams carried in many languages and the prayers whispered on crowded blocks.

We thank You for New York City. For a place that has taught the world how difference can become strength, how survival can become solidarity, how strangers can become neighbors. And for being a place that taught us that a young, immigrant, democratic socialist, Muslim can be bold enough to run and brave enough to win. Not by abandoning conviction, but by standing firmly within it; not by shrinking who he is, but by trusting that authenticity can move a city toward justice.