Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
- 8,826
The gratitude of the foreign nation...!
On July 15, 1926 - deliberately right after the national holiday! - French President Gaston Doumergue...
...and the Sultan of Morocco, Moulay Yussef...
...inaugurate the "Great Mosque" at Paris - the first Islamic house of worship on French soil!
The building is intended as a thank you to all Muslims who fought on the French side during the First World War, mostly as so-called "Tirailleurs Senegalaises" - although most of them actually came from Morocco...:
70,000 Muslim "Senegalese" died in the service of the French army, 28,000 of them alone during the Battle of Verdun...:
They had no opportunity to decide for themselves whether they wanted to go to war or not - the foreign nation that had "colonized" their homeland gave them no choice...!
The Grande Mosquée de Paris in the Latin Quarter (15th Arrondisement) is rather plain from the outside...
...but beautifully furnished inside...:
The first congregational prayer in the presence of the President...
...the new building is headed by Ahmad al-Alawi, an Algerian Sufi and a world-renowned Islamic scholar.
Here he is with President Dommerque and Sultan Moulay Yussef entering the prayer room...:
The Grande Mosquée de Paris is today a national monument of the French Republic.
On July 15, 1926 - deliberately right after the national holiday! - French President Gaston Doumergue...
...and the Sultan of Morocco, Moulay Yussef...
...inaugurate the "Great Mosque" at Paris - the first Islamic house of worship on French soil!
The building is intended as a thank you to all Muslims who fought on the French side during the First World War, mostly as so-called "Tirailleurs Senegalaises" - although most of them actually came from Morocco...:
70,000 Muslim "Senegalese" died in the service of the French army, 28,000 of them alone during the Battle of Verdun...:
They had no opportunity to decide for themselves whether they wanted to go to war or not - the foreign nation that had "colonized" their homeland gave them no choice...!
The Grande Mosquée de Paris in the Latin Quarter (15th Arrondisement) is rather plain from the outside...
...but beautifully furnished inside...:
The first congregational prayer in the presence of the President...
...the new building is headed by Ahmad al-Alawi, an Algerian Sufi and a world-renowned Islamic scholar.
Here he is with President Dommerque and Sultan Moulay Yussef entering the prayer room...:
The Grande Mosquée de Paris is today a national monument of the French Republic.
