Grande Mosquée de Paris

The Grande Mosquée de Paris sits behind high, buff-colored walls topped with intricate, hand-carved stone friezes. Built after the First World War, the mosque honors the seventy thousand Muslim soldiers from French colonies who died fighting for France. In nineteen twenty-six, the French president and the Sultan of Morocco inaugurated the site, creating a sanctuary of courtyards and gardens patterned after the Alhambra. During the Nazi occupation, the mosque’s basement tunnels offered a secret path for resistance fighters and families escaping the city.