As the largest mosque in Africa has just been inaugurated in Algiers, we take a look back at how French colonizers attacked Muslim architectural heritage in the 19th century, unscrupulously recycling places of worship into barracks or transforming them into Christian churches.
On February 25, Djamaâ El-Djazaïr, the Great Mosque of Algiers, opened its doors to the general public. The project, launched in 2012, lasted seven years, surviving the technical challenges delegated to the Chinese state company CSCEC but above all the heated controversies raised by this gargantuan project. Result of the races: a budget doubled compared to what was originally planned, i.e. some 2 billion dollars. A long postponement of its inauguration planned for 2020 postponed due to the health crisis and the contamination of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune by COVID-19.
The figures are dizzying: 30 hectares of surface area, a capacity of 120,000 visitors for what is now the largest mosque in Africa, and the third in Dar al-Islam after those of Mecca and from Medina. The minaret, the tallest in the world at some 267 meters high, is topped by a belvedere offering a breathtaking view of the bay of Algiers and that of Sidi-Ferruch. It is precisely this bay which, almost two centuries ago, saw 37,000 French soldiers land. Which would lastingly modify the history of religious buildings, and particularly that of mosques, in this land of Islam.
Algeria in 1830, like the Cherifian Empire in the West or the Tunis Regency in the East as well as the rest of North Africa, is a country where Islam was established. imposed for a long time. Maghrebi Islam is then very framed which does not stop at the border of a State. It’s not just them. In Algeria as in Morocco, religious worship is also supervised by the Makhzen, that is to say, the central State. Its management is planned through the house, the mortmain assets which have been piously bequeathed.
A well-structured Muslim worship
An entire clerical class watches over the spiritual grain. From the ulemas – teachers of theology – to the cadis – magistrates –, including the muftis – jurisconsults – and the nadirs of the house –, the administrators of pious foundations. However, the French, once landed, ignored this story. They act as if they were on conquered territory as if they had laid their hands on completely virgin territory. The ethnologist Jean Servier interprets The Doors of the Year in his essay. Rites and symbols. Algeria in the Mediterranean tradition (1962), the behavior of the French: “Too often, material underdevelopment has been naively confused with spiritual underdevelopment, and the West wanted to bring everything into unknown lands that it taken for virgin lands, yet fertilized by ancient civilizations. » This will become very clear.
For military and administrative needs, Algiers, in a short time, will become a real urban construction site. We are transforming the Arab city into a European city. “Mr. General Clauzel […] formed a road commission […], The secretary of this commission received the mission of changing the names of all the streets, which he carried out so well that the inhabitants of Algiers did not recognize themselves more in their city,” reports Officer Edmond Pellissier de Reynaud, a witness to the facts, in his Annales algériens. Further on he continues: “The work on the road to the Emperor’s fort, and that of an esplanade built outside the Bab-el-Oued gate, led to the destruction of two Muslim cemeteries.
It’s not the worst. Pellissier de Reynaud still reports that “we also seized, under the Duke of Rovigo, several other mosques for various administrative services”. The French, upon their arrival, had nevertheless sworn to respect religious places, in particular mosques. The promise comes directly from Louis Auguste Victor de Ghaisne, Count of Bourmont. He is the general in chief of the French expeditionary force and, once victory has been won, he hastens to have a notice posted on the walls of Algiers to reassure the civilian population. “I guarantee you […] that your mosques […] will not cease to be frequented as they are now […], that no one will hinder the things of your religion and your worship. » The Count of Bourmont also assures that sacred places will be prohibited to non-Muslims. In reality, this will not be the case.
On the Sidi-Ferruch peninsula, there were three constructions. La Torre Chica, a battery of 14 rooms and a mosque. The whole thing was strictly guarded by a post of janissaries jealously guarding the memory and the tomb of Sidi-Fredj (Ferruch, the holy man who gave its name to the peninsula), buried in an octagonal kouba. “The marabout’s shrine was inlaid with precious wood and covered with ex-votos and amulets made of coral, silver, and glass beads,” describes the writer Henri Klein. After hard fighting, the space was requisitioned by the French army, and, subsequently, the mosque served as a study and dining room for the Count of Bourmont, and the santon chapel served as a bedroom. The worst is yet to come: 17 years later, the sacred place is razed. A military fort was built in its place.
Algiers mosques in pillory
Yet this was only a foretaste of the events to follow. The mosques being the most spacious places in the city, the French general staff decided to install the soldiers there. Thus, places of worship are transformed overnight into dormitories, canteens, arms and ammunition depots, hospitals… “The first monument to be destroyed was Jamaa As-Sayyida […]. The first elements dated from the 12th century and were therefore contemporary with the beginnings of the construction of Notre Dame de Paris,” says historian Alain Ruscio. Then came the Ketchaoua mosque, whose construction dates from the mid-15th century and which would become the symbol par excellence of the metamorphosis of many Muslim places of worship into Christian temples.
The layout could not be more methodical. Outside, visible, the minaret becomes a bell tower. Inside, in the mihrab, a statue of the Virgin takes place. The ablution fountain gives rise to baptismal funds. To top it all off, the new colonial authorities sought the dubbing of Rome. Pope Gregory XVI does not need to be asked. On August 9, 1838, he promulgated the bull “Singulari divinae”. This attests to the recognition by the Church of the bishopric of Algiers whose seat is none other than the ancient Ketchaoua mosque! She is not there alone. Two other mosques in Algiers will suffer an identical fate. The El-Berrani mosque became the Holy Cross Church in 1839 after having served as a military barracks.
Finally, the Ali Bitchin mosque, in the Kasbah, near the famous Bab-el-oued, was renamed in 1842 to “Our Lady of Victories”. So much so that barely two decades after the arrival of French troops, out of nine large mosques existing in 1830, only four were still assigned to Muslim worship. The rest of the country does not escape this policy: Oran, Tlemcen, and Cherchell see their main mosques transformed into bathhouses, military hospitals, etc. The Mohammed el-Kébir mosque in Oran, after many adventures, will however be returned to Muslim worship in 1892. Over time, this destructive frenzy will gradually die out in the face of the commitment of civil society. Politicians and artists like Eugène Delacroix, Ernest Feydeau, and Théophile Gautier, to name just a few, rebel against the destruction and transformations.
Given this history, the erection of Djamaâ El-Djazaïr undoubtedly reflects a historical unconscious. The one through which Algeria wants to assert again and again its Arab-Muslim identity in the face of the former colonial power and its past policy of large-scale alienation.
