| Mosque of the Bois de Vincennes | |
|---|---|
French:Mosquée du Bois de Vincennes | |
 Bilingual postcard picturing the former mosque with soldiers, 1916 | |
| Religion | |
| Affiliation | Islam(former) |
| Ecclesiastical or organisational status | Mosque(1916–1926) |
| Year consecrated | April 13, 1916 |
| Status | Destroyed |
| Location | |
| Location | Bois de Vincennes,Paris |
| Country | France |
  Location of the former mosque ingreater Paris | |
| Coordinates | 48°49′42″N2°25′59″E / 48.8283°N 2.4331°E /48.8283; 2.4331 |
| Architecture | |
| Architect | M. Péni |
| Type | Mosque architecture |
| Completed | 1916 |
| Demolished | 1926 |
TheMosque of the Bois de Vincennes (French:Mosquée du Bois de Vincennes), also known as theMosque of the Colonial Garden Hospital orNogent Mosque was a formerIslamicmosque, located in the grounds of theBois de Vincennes, in greaterParis,France. It was the first mosque built on theFrench mainland since theUmayyad invasion of Gaul in the 8th century.[1]
The mosque was constructed in early 1916 on the grounds of the Bois de Vincennes, as acounterpropaganda project and to serve some of the Muslim soldiers who came to France duringWorld War I.[2] The mosque was destroyed just four years later, in 1920.
Mosques have long existed on French ground overseas, not least inAlgeria which became legally part of the French territory when converted into threedepartments in 1848. In 1897, a mosque was also established in a private home inRéunion.[3]
In 1899, atrial garden was created at the eastern end of the Bois de Vincennes to experiment with plants from theFrench colonial empire. Several pavilions were built there on the occasion of thecolonial exhibition in May-October 1907.[2]
During World War I, the Colonial Garden was repurposed as a hospital in late 1914. Between 1914 and May 1919, the hospital in the former Colonial Garden cared for nearly 5,000 wounded soldiers, mostly North African and Muslim.[2] At that time, the Colonial Garden / war hospital was on the territory of theNogent-sur-Marne municipality, from which it took its name (French:Hôpital du jardin colonial de Nogent-sur-Marne). These grounds were later transferred on 18 April 1929 to the12th arrondissement of Paris together with the rest of the Bois de Vincennes.
The decision to build a mosque on the hospital's grounds was made in reaction to Germanwar propaganda that attempted to turn Muslims from the British and French colonies against their colonial rulers. TheGerman Empire was allied with theOttoman Empire, which claimed global leadership of Islam through itsCustody of Mecca and Medina andCaliphate. This strategy was the brainchild of GermanOrientalistMax von Oppenheim who had published a "memorandum on bringing revolution to the Islamic lands of our enemies" (German:Denkschrift betreffend die Revolutionierung der islamischen Gebiete unserer Feinde) in October 1914. Von Oppenheim, whose nicknameAbu Jihad was posthumously popularised byWolfgang G. Schwanitz,[4] was given charge of a newly createdIntelligence Bureau for the East which sponsored theprisoner-of-war camp named "Half Moon" (Halbmondlager) inZossen-Wünsdorf nearBerlin.
As its name suggests, the Halbmondlager was specifically intended for Muslim soldiers from British and French colonies and included a monumental mosque, the first ever built in Germany, completed in July 1915.[5] The German authorities distributed stories about the inappropriate treatment of Islam in the French military, illustrated with images of the Halbmondlager mosque.[2]
In turn, the war imperative to demonstrate that France was friendly to Islam, against the German claims, broke the prior taboo against an Islamic place of worship (other than in cemeteries) on the French mainland.[1] DiplomatPierre de Margerie [fr], then director of political affairs at theFrench Foreign Ministry, promoted the initiative to build the mosque and orchestrated the wide distribution of a picture of it by French agents in the Muslim world, even before the building had been completed.[1]
The wooden mosque was swiftly erected on designs by the Colonial Garden's architect M. Péni[2] and inaugurated on 14 April 1916 byGaston Doumergue, thenMinister of the Colonies.[6] Dedication prayers were read by twoimams, Bou-Mezrag El-Mokrani ofChlef (a descendant ofCheikh Mokrani) and Katranji Sid Abderrahman ofAlgiers.[2]
Following the end of the war, the mosque was disaffected in 1919 and demolished in 1926,[7] around the time when theGrand Mosque of Paris was inaugurated.[2]
A number of commemorative monuments were erected nearby during theinterwar period and dedicated to the memory of fallen soldiers from various French colonies, most of them non-Muslims.[8][9] The former Colonial Garden is now known as theJardin d'agronomie tropicale de Paris [fr]. Some of the pavilions and monuments have been renovated in the 2010s.[10] A commemorative stonestele and explanatory panel perpetuate the memory of the former mosque on the site.[6]
![Gathering for the Eid al-Adha in front of the mosque on 16 September 1918[1]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aMosqu%25C3%25A9e_dans_le_Jardin_Colonial_%25C3%25A0_Nogent-sur-Marne%2c_1918.jpg)
![Stela commemorating the location of the mosque at the Jardin d'agronomie tropicale de Paris [fr]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aStele_Mosquee.jpg)
Media related toLa mosquée du Jardin Colonial at Wikimedia Commons
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