Grande Mosquée de Paris
France's oldest mosque, built in 1926 to honor WWI's Muslim soldiers — and a WWII refuge for Jews.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Grande Mosquée de Paris opens with a man crossing this courtyard during the Nazi occupation, carrying a paper from the mosque's rector, Si Kaddour Benghabrit, that could change who he was to the Gestapo. It reaches back to the tens of thousands of Muslim soldiers from France's North African colonies who died at Verdun and the Somme, and to the 1926 inauguration that built this Moorish Revival courtyard as France's answer to that debt. Notice the carved cedar and the fountain still running as you walk through.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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