Meditation around Mint Tea

A Mint Tea in Paris

The Mosque in the 5th arrondissement is home to one of the most pleasant tea rooms in Paris. With its winding, leafy courtyards, it's a lovely spot to sip mint tea with delicious Moroccan pastries.

Its patio creates an atmosphere of calm and serenity, surrounded by its finely sculpted arcades. The tea room and the presence of olive and fig trees make it a true change of scenery in the heart of the Latin Quarter.

Very popular with Parisian families on Sunday afternoons, it is open until midnight to enjoy a mint tea under the stars while contemplating the fascinating history of its walls.

Next time, ask the server for a Mouima or Green City Mint Tea to taste the difference and share the best Mint Tea experience in this unusual place.

The Great Mosque of Paris

With its 33-meter-high minaret, it is the first and largest in France, built on a plot of more than one hectare. It is of Arab-Islamic architecture, inspired by the Alhambra Palace.

A first mosque project had been envisaged as early as 1895 by the Committee of French Africa, led by Théophile Delcassé, Jules Cambon, Prince Bonaparte and Prince d'Arenberg, among others. The Wikipedia encyclopedia very aptly quotes what the journalist Paul Bourdarie relates in the newspaper La Revue indigène :

" Such a proposal could not be forgotten and disappear. It corresponds too well to the policy that France owes itself to follow towards its Muslim sons, and which must translate sometimes into acts of political or administrative fairness and sometimes into gestures of sympathy or benevolence. "

Journalist Paul Bourdarie is the true father of the Great Mosque of Paris project, thanks to his consistent efforts to ensure its construction. The political decision to build it was made after the First World War, in tribute to the more than 100,000 Muslim dead who fought to liberate France.

Financed by Arab-Muslim countries , the Great Mosque of Paris was built and decorated by Moroccan craftsmen on the site of the former Pitié Hospital. Its first stone was laid in 1922. It was inaugurated on July 16, 1926, in the presence of President Doumergue and the Sultan of Morocco Moulay Youssef. Mr. Doumergue then celebrated the Franco-Muslim friendship sealed in blood on the European battlefields, and he affirmed on this occasion that the Republic protects all beliefs.

The Forgotten Righteous Arab-Muslims

Did you know that the Paris Mosque protected Jews during World War II?

And here's a fact history teachers should be teaching in middle school... A French film, "Les Hommes Libres," directed by Ismaël Ferroukhi, highlights the remarkable true story of how Muslims gave refuge to Jews in Nazi-occupied Paris during World War II.

The film is inspired by true events and in this case, our "Schindler" is Si Kaddour Benghabrit, the rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris until 1954.

Beneath the fortress of mosaics and peaceful gardens occupying an entire city block in the Latin Quarter, it is revealed that the mosque's underground caverns once served as a refuge for resistance fighters and French Jews, where they could receive certificates of Muslim identity.

Meanwhile upstairs, Si Kaddour Benghabrit , an Algerian and Moroccan theologian and senior civil servant, was giving tours of the Mosque to Nazi officers and their wives, unaware of what was happening beneath their feet.

The most notable case of the mosque refuge was Simon Hilali, a Sephardic Jew who survived the Holocaust by posing as an Arab named Salim with the help of Benghrabit and later became the most popular Arabic-language singer of the era.

Ismaël Ferroukhi, the film's director, is still lobbying the Ministries of Culture and National Education to have his film shown in schools.

"It pays tribute to the people in our history who were invisible. It shows another reality, that Muslims and Jews existed in peace. We must remember that - with pride."

In case you'd like to learn more about something your textbooks couldn't bring to your attention, the film "Les Hommes Libres" is available on all VOD platforms.

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