Grande Mosquée de Paris

Mosque · Jardin des Plantes quarter (5th)Paris,France

Mainland France's oldest working mosque, its tiled courtyard and water gardens built in 1926 as thanks for the Muslim soldiers killed for France.

The Grande Mosquée de Paris hides a marble courtyard behind a plain white wall. A band of hand-cut tile runs round the lower walls, under arcades roofed in green glazed tile, and no two pieces are quite the same size. Gardens take up half the site beyond the courtyard. Water leaves the fountains in narrow channels, drops among the columns and runs past fig trees, apple trees and roses. A minaret stands over it all, though it never calls to prayer. The mosque was raised as a thank-you to the tens of thousands of Muslim soldiers who died fighting for France in the First World War. Parliament voted the money soon after, the city gave the ground, and it opened in 1926 as the oldest mosque still in use in mainland France. Craftsmen came from Fez and Meknes to lay the tile. During the German occupation the rector, Kaddour Benghabrit, told his staff to give Jews false papers naming them as Muslims; survivors testified to this, and historians still dispute how many were helped. It is a working mosque, so the prayer hall is not always open to visitors.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Come on a weekday morning, and not on a Friday — The mosque closes to visitors for the main congregational prayer that day and on Muslim festivals, and the courtyards are emptiest before noon.
The visitor door is on the small forecourt — It opens onto Place du Puits-de-l'Ermite, while the tearoom and the women-only hammam sit round the block with their own street door on rue Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire.
Dress as you would for any working place of worship — Cover shoulders and knees, keep your voice down in the courtyards, and never photograph anyone at prayer.
Look up at the carved verses over the main gate — The lettering is Kufic, an early Arabic script built from straight strokes and right angles, with almost no curves.
Pick a sunny hour for the marble courtyard — It is open to the sky, and the colours in the tilework only stand apart from each other in direct light. Under cloud the whole wall looks flat.

Things to do

1
Follow one tiled star all the way round the courtyard wall
Walk all four sides of the marble courtyard, close to the wall. Pick one eight-pointed star in the tiled band and follow the lines running out of it until they close into the next star. The browns and jade greens repeat along the whole band, and the pattern only resolves when you stop and hold one star.
2
Follow the water channel down into the garden
Leave the marble courtyard for the gardens and keep your eyes down. Follow the water channel to the point where it ends, then look up. This half of the site is planted, shaded and almost always empty, because most visitors turn back at the tilework.
3
Find the war memorial in the east gallery
Take the covered walk down the east side of the second courtyard. Marble panels on the wall there remember the Muslim soldiers who died for France in the world wars. Steps at the end drop into the garden, where the mosque's first rector, Kaddour Benghabrit, is buried. Almost nobody stops.
4
Drink mint tea in the tearoom courtyard on the other side of the block
The tearoom opens straight onto rue Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, on the far side of the block from the visitor door. Sit outside at one of the low brass-topped tables under the trees and order mint tea, which is poured from a height into a small glass.