[1] The history of the Paris mosque is inextricably linked to France's colonization of large parts of the Muslim world over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

[3] A French Prefectorial decree of 29 November 1856 permitted the Ottoman Embassy in Paris to construct a special enclosure that was reserved for the burial of Muslims in the 85th division of the Parisian Cemetery of the East, called Père Lachaise.

The enclosure measured about 800 square meters, and in it the Ottomans built a structure labeled as a 'Mosque,' in order to give shelter to funerary services and the prayers for the deceased.

However, it was not the first in Western Europe since the disappearance of Muslims from the south of France in the ninth century, because there was an earlier mosque that had long been used in Marseille within the boundaries of the Cemetery of the Turks, but it had been destroyed during the French Revolution.

In 1914, an architectural design was put forward for a more prominent building with a dome and clear "Islamic" characteristics evident, but the First World War blocked the implementation of the project.

The journalist Paul Bourdarie justified the construction of the Paris Mosque in the newspaper La Revue indigène: Such a proposal cannot be forgotten and lost [to history].

From its foundation in 1906, La Revue indigène has put forward plans to resume this project from which the reforms which she proposes will be recommended and completed with success.

La Revue indigène believed that the project for the Parisian mosque was one that French citizens knew "to be in accordance with their spirit and their heart's love of their country and the respect of Islam."

And in the summer of 1916 a certain number of Muslims living in Paris and their friends met several times at the headquarters of La Revue indigène in order to examine and, if need be, critique the sketches of the architect.

Among them I recall were the Emir Khaled, having come from the Front and passing through Paris; Dr. Benthami; the mufti Mokrani; Dr. Tamzali and his brother; Halil Bey; Ziane; the painter Dinet; the Countess d'Aubigny; Lavenarde; Christian Cherfils; the deputy A. Prat, etc.

The first concept for the project was worked up by the architect Maurice Tranchant de Lunel, who was the Director of Fine Arts under Hubert Lyautey from 1912 onwards and a friend of Rudyard Kipling, C. Farrère, and Queen Elizabeth of Belgium.

This association, created in 1917, had the goal of organizing an annual pilgrimage to Mecca for residents of North Africa and insuring that the pilgrims followed regulations of security and hygiene during their travel to the Hejaz.

[15] On the eve of the inauguration, Messali Hadj held the first meeting of the Etoile nord-africaine (North African Star) and criticized the "mosque publicity stunt."

[21] Doctor Albert Assouline recorded some 1600 ration cards (one per person) that had been furnished by the Great Mosque of Paris for the Jews who had found refuge there.

[22] This little-known history was recounted in Karen Gray Ruelle and Deborah Durland DeSaix's, The Grand Mosque of Paris: A Story of How Muslims Rescued Jews During the Holocaust, a book for ages 8–12, published in the U.S. in 2009 (also in French and Japanese editions).

"[25] The Franco-Moroccan director Ismaël Ferroukhi made a 2011 film entitled Les hommes libres (The Free Men), about the forgotten history of the Muslim resistance fighters during World War II, with Tahar Rahim and Michael Lonsdale as the leading actors.

[32] In December 2013, the group Les Femmes dans la Mosquée (Women in the Mosque) demanded from the administration the right to pray in the same room as men, having been excluded from it and relegated to the entrance foyer.

[33] The spokesperson of the movement, Hanane Karimi, stated, "The previous policy reflects the organization of the Muslim community along certain conventions today, that women have no place there; they have become invisible.

"[34] During the administration of Bertrand Delanoë, some controversies have arisen, such as those who want to give an emphyteutic lease to the Société des Habous and sacred places of Islam.

In 2015, a man attempted to drive a truck into the mosque, but was stopped by barriers of police officials put outside by the government to prevent racist incidents.

[38] Dr. Dalil Boubakeur is the official face of Islam in France and does everything in his power to provide access to his beliefs through books, interview, and is even a prominent social justice figure.

[39] Since 1921, the Great Mosque has been under the authority of the Société des Habous et lieux saints de l'Islam, an association regulated by the Law of 1901, owner of the building following its donation by the City of Paris.

The Institut musulman exercises the religious prerogatives in the matter of Islamic ritual sacrifice while the SFCVH is charged with overseeing the technical, administrative, and commercial aspects of control and certification of the processes of slaughter, such as electrocution and inert gas asphyxiation.

[29] The mosque is open for tourists every day of the year (except for Fridays), outside of the rooms of imams and those for instruction, and the spaces reserved for reading of the Koran, prayers, and meditations by Muslims.