By Siegfried Mortkowitz - Paris - The Great Mosque of Paris occupies an area of about a city block on the French capital's Left Bank. Built in 1926, it is the oldest mosque in France and has a distinctly North African atmosphere, appropriate since the vast majority of France's Muslim community, estimated at about 5 million, has North African roots.

Inside the mosque lies the tomb of its first Imam, or prayer leader, who during Hitler's conquest of the city hid more than 200 Jews, most of them children, in the mosque's basement, saving them from Nazi concentration camps and almost certain death.
Source: Deutsche Presse-Agentur


This Ramadan, as during every holy Muslim month for many years, the mosque has become a different kind of refuge.

Every evening, it opens its doors to the city's homeless and poor, whether they are of the Muslim faith or not, offering them a serving of chorba, a nourishing soup usually made with lamb meat, chickpeas, coriander and a wide variety of vegetables, which is traditionally eaten on Ramadan after sunset to break the day-long fast.

Well before sundown, unaccompanied men of various ages cross the mosque's elegant open courtyard, past beautifully carved woodwork and well-kept gardens, to form a queue along a covered corridor, below the slender minaret that rises some 35 metres into the sky.

'This is our obligation,' explains the mosque's rector, Dalil Boubakeur. 'To share our food with those less fortunate pleases God.'

The 65-year-old Boubakeur, who has been awarded university degrees in four countries, is arguably the most influential man of his faith in France today. He heads the French Council of the Muslim Faith, an umbrella group comprising several of the country's largest Muslim movements.

As a result, his mosque has received a number of distinguished visitors who wished to participate in the breaking of the fast during this year's Ramadan, including Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe. Defence Minister Michel Alliot-Marie was scheduled to visit on the evening of October 10.

But Boubakeur values as much the visits of the city's poor, for it expresses a crucial element of his faith.

'This symbolizes a social vision of Islam,' he explains. 'In suffering together and in eating together, we are all the same. The rich and poor are equal. A Muslim cannot be happy when another person is going hungry.'

At sundown, the waiting men are ushered into a narrow L-shaped corner room with long tables bearing steaming pots of chorba ranged along both sides. As the men file in, the cook, Karim, examines every table with the grave attentiveness of a maitre d'.

He says the room seats about 90 people and that he serves four different groups, or about 350 people, every night, and will continue to do so throughout the winter, until March 15.

'We are happy to do it,' he says. 'We do it with our hearts.'

In northeastern Paris, in a working-class, mostly minority neighbourhood as far from the mosque as you can get without leaving the capital, several hundred people have gathered to take chorba in a car park under yellow and black banners wishing them 'a good Ramadan.'

One corner of the area has been reserved for families, but here, too, most of the visitors are solitary men. Many have come with plastic bags and containers to take their portions home.

This meal is provided by the charitable association A Chorba for Everyone, whose president, Lakhdar Smadhi, says: 'Our slogan is 'Come share our meal during this holy month, whatever your belief may be'.'

The chorba is prepared at a nearby restaurant and delivered in large containers aboard a mini-van. Every evening, some 1,200 people travel to the car park to eat the soup, while another 500 take their servings home.

The association is supported by funds from the Paris City Hall and the European Union. An Algerian soft drink manufacturer, Ifri, contributes the beverages. The group hopes to continue serving the chorba throughout the winter in the city's railway stations, because the number of poor has grown.

'We have been serving two seatings every night this year. Usually, it is only one this early in Ramadan,' said 35-year-old Islam, who took a month off from his job in a clinic to help out.

Like those they serve, the volunteers come from different religions and backgrounds. A practising Catholic, Marie first came to the car park with her three daughters eight years ago, after a Saturday evening mass. She was penniless at the time.

Now, with her daughters grown up, she is more than happy to help out.

'Ramadan has been truly a blessed month for me,' she says.