[3] The harsh conditions of trench warfare were a particular source of suffering to the un-acclimatized African soldiers and, after 1914/15, the practice was adopted of withdrawing them to the south of France for training and re-equipping each winter.

Fréjus welcomed, on the initiative of General Joseph Gallieni, then military governor of Paris, the first overseas troops in 1915 and became a transition site for these soldiers, allowing them to acclimatize before their departure for the front.

As early as 1925, the military imagined building a community center for the colonial troops so that the soldiers would not feel too isolated outside their home country and to combat homesickness and improve moral.

[4] They decided to build the Missiri after tensions with their comrades-in-arms, the Tirailleurs indochinois who had built in Fréjus, as early as 1917,[5] the Hông Hiên Tu pagoda dedicated to Vietnamese Buddhism of the Mahayana tradition.

[4] During the interwar period and after the Second World War, the military camps around Fréjus developed their role as training centers, before departure for external operations for the French Far East Expeditionary Corps in Indochina, Madagascar and later North Africa.

Captain Abdel Kader Mademba, supported by Colonel Lame, then commander in arms, took the initiative for the project and built a mosque in the Caïs camp on the road to Bagnols-en-Forêt.

At the time, it was embellished with African huts and reconstructed termite mounds with the aim of, according tho Captain Abdel Kader Mademba "giving the black skirmishers the illusion, as faithful as possible, of the materialization of a setting similar to the one they had left; that he finds there, in the evening, during interminable palaver, the echoes of the tam-tam echoing against the walls of a familiar construction, evocative of visions likely to soften the feeling of isolation from which he is sometimes afflicted, placing him, as it were, in a native atmosphere."

Il faut prévoir, nous écrit le lieutenant-colonel J. Ferrandi, secrétaire général de "La France militaire", une dépense d'environ, 50 000 francs.The future mosque, of that same red color, dark and bright at the same time, which the French West Africa Pavilion at the Decorative Arts had, will be made of agglomerates and cement.

Already, the mayor of Fréjus has offered a part of the materials (sand and stones) for nothing; on the other hand, the maritime aviation has taken care of the transport; finally, the labor, abundant and free, will be provided by the garrison and the colonials from there.

The Missiri does not include a wall directed to Mecca, a mihrab or a covered prayer area, which are important architectural elements of a proper place of worship for Muslims.