The Paris Grand Mosque, an iconic cultural landmark located in the heart of the city, is . Built as a war memorial to honor Muslim soldiers killed during World War I, it was the first permanent mosque in the French capital and remains its only mosque built with a minaret and a dome. The story behind its construction reflects the politics of colonialism in interwar Paris.
While estimates vary, scholars generally agree that more than , including , fought for France between 1914 and 1918. These troops were deployed in critical areas and suffered . Muslims represented approximately 70% of the 100,000 colonial soldiers killed in battle. During and after the war, France sought ways to recognize the sacrifices of its Muslim subjects.
As a , I regularly offer classes on war and society in 20th-century Europe. I teach my students how to that appeared across the world in the 1920s and ’30s to mourn the dead. Their symbolic messages often tell us more about politics and society than they reveal about the soldiers killed in battle. The Paris Grand Mosque is no exception.
Origins of the Grand Mosque
During the war, a former colonial agronomy school on the outskirts of Paris was converted to a temporary hospital for soldiers from the empire. A , known as the Nogent Mosque, was added to the site in 1916 to serve the large number of Muslim patients at the hospital.
The French minister of foreign affairs as a way to recognize the sacrifices made by Muslim soldiers, but it was not meant to be permanent. It closed in 1919 after colonial soldiers returned home and was demolished in the 1920s. By then, construction of the Grand Mosque had begun with support from the French government and African colonial administrations.
On paper, a North African religious association would be responsible for building and managing the Grand Mosque as well as an attached Muslim educational institute. The was founded in 1917 to facilitate North African Muslims’ annual pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina during the war. By 1920, the private society headed the state-supported project of creating a new monument in Paris.
French politicians supported this arrangement for several reasons. First, it created . Supporters emphasized that it was designed for and by Muslims with little government intervention. Second, it allowed officials to avoid violating the law separating church and state.
The , recognized freedom of religion, but it prohibited using public funds to support religious entities. Instead, French politicians provided 500,000 francs to the for construction costs to protect the appearance of religious neutrality.
Building the mosque
With partial funding in place, the Society of Habous needed a building site. Original proposals placed the Grand Mosque near , a set of buildings that serve as a shrine to France’s military heroes. But rather than building it near the existing complex, on vacant land in the Latin Quarter, the intellectual heart of the city.
This new location was chosen for its availability, but it provided supporters with additional talking points. French politicians claimed that the prime location in central Paris reflected . Additionally, its proximity to the , the country’s oldest and most prestigious university, further underlined nature of the endeavor.
The locale also reflected French colonial thinking. A book published after the mosque’s inauguration by a French civil servant named René Weiss argued that Muslims visiting Paris would benefit from “” through its location in the neighborhood “from which French thought shines.” In other words, French culture, he hoped, would positively influence Islam.
Built between 1922 and 1926, the Grand Mosque housed a prayer room, a library, a hammam – or public bath – a hostel and a restaurant. It was both a religious and secular site that was open to Muslims, the Parisian public and tourists. As author and journalist argues, it put Islam on display. But the recognition of Muslim soldiers’ sacrifices was less visible.
A war memorial
Government officials regularly described the Grand Mosque as a war memorial. In 1921, Albert Sarraut, the , called the mosque a symbol of “Franco-Muslim fraternity … sealed on the battlefields.” At the groundbreaking ceremony in 1922, Paris municipal councilor Paul Fleurot said the new “will exist as a commemorative monument raised to the memory of those Muslim soldiers who died for France.”
After the war, appeared across France. More than 35,000 war monuments reinforced the secular values of the French Third Republic in public spaces by focusing on equality of sacrifice and drawing on republican symbols. These monuments did not include religious symbols and were built outside of cemeteries and churches. Hundreds of similar monuments were built in colonial Algeria during the interwar period.
Historian argues that the colonial monuments were meant to between France and her empire after the war through similar forms of commemoration. But he also explains how the monuments deliberately marked the differences between French citizens and colonial subjects: Monuments erected in Algeria, for example, featured statues of French soldiers and listed the names of European soldiers separately from indigenous soldiers.
The building of a North African mosque in the French capital was also a way to recognize Muslim soldiers, but this message is often hidden to visitors. The located outside the entrance does not mention World War I. of , a common postwar commemorative practice.
It was not until 2014 that French President dedicated two wall plaques inside the Grand Mosque recognizing the Muslim soldiers who fought for France in each of the world wars.
One hundred years after its inauguration, the Grand Mosque of Paris still tells a story of politics and society – as a Muslim war memorial built in the context of a secular, colonial state.
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