Muslim Prayer on Picture Postcards of French Algeria, 1900–1960

Abstract

From 1900 to 1960 French soldiers and visitors to North Africa sent home striking postcards showing Muslims in prayer. As inscribed objects they linked separated family and friends, and were collected, compiled and stored. Based on 2500 of these cards offered on an Internet auction site, this study examines the senders, the receivers, and the attitudes to the prayers in the messages. The latter range from indifference, apprehension, and ridicule to respect and a profound fascination that points to a desire to imagine a shared humanity (“union in prayer”). Like the widely popular Angelus images in France at the time, the Muslim prayer images fed a sustained interest in piety in the natural, public space and offered a visual counterpoint to France’s emergent secularism.