Built between 1922 and 1926, the Grand Mosque of Paris symbolizes the eternal friendship between France and Islam. It was also an expression of France's gratitude to the 500,000 Muslims in the North African colonies who fought the Germans in World War I, of which 100,000 Muslims died on the battlefield. Without their sacrifice, there would be no victory at Verdun. The mosque is also dedicated to the death of muslim flintlock regiment members from Algeria.
Member of today's Flintlock Regiment
After the war, many Algerians settled in France. They work mainly in factories and construction sites, then send money back to distant families. They were called Kabul, i.e. Berbers from Kabuliya. They have lived in poor villages near the rugged Atlas Mountains for generations. Since then, the Cabourgs have gradually become the predominantly Muslim population in Paris. Many live in the slums of Belleville, northeast of Paris, and have strong ties with other migrant neighbors: Chinese, Vietnamese, Tunisians, Moroccans, and Jews from North Africa, Russia, and Eastern Europe.
The beginning of the resistance movement
When the Nazis invaded in 1940 and began rounding up Jews, many Cabours joined the French resistance. (Of course, it is also true that many Arabs in North Africa and Paris, like Christians, also cooperate with the anti-Semitic Vichy government and German authorities.) )
The Kabul Resistance was able to successfully be closely associated with the great mosques where they carried out their pilgrimages, as they carried out their clandestine anti-fascist operations in the cellars of the mosques. Thanks to the heroic actions of the mosque's parish diocese, Si Kaddour Benghabrit (1868-1954), Cabourg, who was involved in the resistance, was able to take refuge in the mosque with their Jewish friends and colleagues.
Born in Algeria and having worked in Paris and North Africa, Benghabrit was a cultured diplomat who wrote books, loved Paris salon culture, loved music, and later became the most important Muslim in Paris and the most influential Arab in Europe.
When the Nazi and Vichy governments began to arrest and expel Jews from Paris, Bangabrit himself and his congregation were determined to make the Grand Mosque a refuge for persecuted Jews. He devised a three-step rescue operation: First, he provided asylum to Jews of European and Algerian origin, allowing them to live in apartments of Muslim families; Second, he gave them fake identity cards to prove that they were Muslims and not Jews; Third, he pioneered the use of the mosque's cellars and tunnels as transfer channels.
The Jews hiding there crawled through the sewers under the mosque and dug the tunnel all the way to the banks of the Seine. There, empty wine barges and other ships operated by the Cabourgs were waiting to smuggle them out of occupied Paris. Bangabrit was arrested and interrogated several times by the Gestapo, however, each time a senior German commander ordered his release. The reason was simple: if the German Empire wanted to win over Arab tribes and Muslims in North Africa against the Allies, it could not risk provoking riots among the Algerians in North Africa or Paris, and the arrest of such a respected Muslim parish was clearly not conducive to this attempt.
The Nazi hierarchy accorded such an important Muslim leader courtesy
Thousands of lives were saved
Salim Halali, a Berber Jew from Algeria who is a pop singer who sings North African songs and a friend of Bangabrit, also received asylum at the mosque. The sheikh not only issued him a certificate of conversion to falsely prove that Salim's grandfather had converted to Islam; He also erected a tombstone inscribed with Harari's grandfather's surname at the Muslim cemetery in Bobini. The Nazis believed in Harari's identity, and he spent his entire war years in the mosque. Every time the Nazis searched the mosque, he stayed there as a Muslim and helped others escape. (Bangabrit hid an alarm bell on the floor under the table, reminding every nazi raid.) After liberation, Harari went on to become the most popular "Oriental" singer in Europe.
Albert Assouline, a North African Jew, and a Muslim friend were sheltered by mosque huan after escaping from a German prisoner-of-war camp. While Assolim was hiding in the basement, he saw many other Jews hiding there: children and Muslim families living in upstairs apartments, while adults stayed in the basement. Because North African Jews and Muslims looked alike, had similar surnames, were circumcised, and spoke Arabic, when the Gestapo searched, these Jews could use their fake Muslim identity certificates to fool through the border.
After the war, Assolim testified that he witnessed how 1,600 Jews passed through two-story basements, into dark labyrinthine tunnels, and finally fled to North Africa and Spain via boats waiting on the Seine. In addition to Jewish refugees, Cabourg boatmen also relayed intelligence between the Paris Resistance and the Free French Army in Algeria.
Bangabrit was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Légion d 'Honneur after the war. The heroic leader of the Paris mosque resistance movement died in 1954. Like all Muslims, he was buried in a mosque facing Mecca.