Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran

First published as a play in 2001, the novella Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran is part of Franco-Belgian author Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt’s Cycle of the Invisible series consisting of unrelated stories on the themes of human connection, the transition from childhood to adulthood, and spirituality. Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran has been performed on the stage and was adapted for the screen in 2003. This study guide refers to Marjolijn de Jager’s translation of the work published by the Other Press in 2003.

The novella’s main character is Moses, a young Jewish boy who lives in Paris. His Ninth Arrondissement apartment is gloomy and drab; its uninviting atmosphere mirrors his father’s stingy, unloving demeanor. The latter, an unsuccessful attorney and the son of deceased Holocaust victims, expects Moses to assume a spate of adult household responsibilities—grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, etc.—and constantly berates him by comparing him to his exemplary older son Popol, whom his ex-wife purportedly took with her upon abandoning the family.

As the work opens, Moses recounts smashing open his piggy bank at age 11 to fund his first visit to a brothel. While tall and well-developed for his age, he initially encounters difficulty in convincing the women on the Rue de Paradis that he’s 16—the requisite age for such visits in the 1960s, when the story takes place—but eventually finds a willing participant who’s happy to take his money. Afterwards, the young woman reminds him that he forgot the supplemental small gift that customarily accompanies payment for services. Panicked, Moses runs home and grabs the first item he sees: his teddy bear.

As Moses begins to frequent prostitutes, he meets Monsieur Ibrahim, the owner of the only “Arab”—a French derogatory slur that refers to a small grocery mart with the assumption that its owner is most likely a poor, immigrant speaker of Arabic—on Rue Bleue, a primarily Jewish street. To keep for himself some of the meager food allowance his father leaves him every day, Moses begins shoplifting canned items from the grocery, justifying his theft by telling himself “After all, he’s only an Arab” (8). As if reading his mind, Monsieur Ibrahim tells him that, though he’s a Muslim, he’s not an Arab—he hails from the Golden Crescent (Turkey/Iran). The grocer begins affectionately to call Moses “Momo,” and friendship between the two solidifies when the boy watches Monsieur Ibrahim artfully swindle the iconic 1960s French actress Brigitte Bardot, who, on a break from filming a movie set in the neighborhood, enters the shop in search of water. Having earned Moses’s admiration through his expert ability “in the art of screwing the world” (12), Monsieur Ibrahim urges the boy to shoplift only from his store. Surprised, Moses agrees and also accepts Monsieur Ibrahim’s advice on devising even more clever strategies to embezzle his father’s money.

Over time, the bond between Moses and Monsieur Ibrahim deepens, with the grocer regularly offering the boy simple yet effective gems of wisdom for living a happy life. For example, he teaches Moses the art of smiling, which the boy adopts in an over-the-top manner, and which benefits him with everyone except his father, who only sighs with aggravation and notices that his son is cursed with buck teeth.

Monsieur Ibrahim also seeks to expand Moses’s horizons. One day, the grocer takes Moses to “the Paris that is pretty, the one in the photographs” (21), which, though not geographically far from the Rue Bleue, might as well be a world away. Though impressed with the many bridges spanning the Seine, Moses is puzzled to glimpse designer shops that appear practically empty. At this point, Monsieur Ibrahim teaches him the true meaning of luxury: purchasing very little at a high price. Upon seeing the grocer sip an anise apéritif, Moses’s preconceptions change as he learns that not all Muslims refrain from drinking alcohol.

Shortly after their jaunt, Moses’s father is fired from his firm. Leaving his son only a short note citing his sense of failure and enough money for a week’s expenditures, the man flees Paris, leaving Moses doubly abandoned. Initially, the boy is in denial, cooking for two and angling his reading chair near a window as his father would do. To convince himself that he’s worthy of love, Moses decides that he must fall in love, so he courts the concierge’s daughter Myriam, to no avail. Though he doesn’t breathe a word of his father’s absence to Monsieur Ibrahim, the grocer intuits what has happened and takes Moses on a trip to Normandy.

Shortly after their return, Moses experiences a shift in attitude. Though his apartment remains dark and dingy, he freshens up his surroundings to alleviate some of its gloom. Having spent what little funds his father had left him, be sells books from the father’s extensive law library. One day, the police arrive, shouting and pounding at his door. Moses is certain they’ve discovered his elaborate web of lies constructed to hide his situation, but they are there to tell the boy that his father has died by suicide, throwing himself under a train in Marseille. When they ask Moses to identify his father’s body, Moses shrieks so loudly that Monsieur Ibrahim hears his cries from his store and volunteers to travel to Marseille instead.

Notified of her ex-husband’s suicide, Moses’s mother reappears. Moses introduces himself as Momo, or Mohammed, and lies that Moses left in search of his brother Popol. The mother is confused at this, and it becomes clear that Popol was an invention of Moses’s father. At this juncture, Moses’s mother expresses her regret at having left the family; she married Moses’s father only to escape her parents, she subsequently met another man with whom she fell in love. Devastated, Moses’s father insisted that she leave Moses with him.

Monsieur Ibrahim legally adopts Moses. The two then head east across Europe to the grocer’s homeland. Along the way, Monsieur Ibrahim teaches Moses the art of living mindfully: “Slowness, that’s the secret of happiness” (43). Wherever they go, Monsieur Ibrahim calls attention to their surroundings in breathtaking detail, always invoking the senses. As the grocer teaches Moses the practice of spiritual dance, an element of Sufism—a branch of mystical Islam that stresses divine love through seeking a direct experience with God—Moses consciously recognizes his nascent happiness and lets go of his anger towards his parents.

Near the grocer’s native village, Monsieur Ibrahim asks Moses to wait under an olive tree while he locates his friend Monsieur Abdullah. After waiting until midnight, Moses walks into the village. There, he finds chaos—in the central square, Monsieur Ibrahim has crashed the car into a wall and is dying. In his final moments of life, Monsieur Ibrahim emanates contentedness, sharing with Moses that his wife died long ago and that he’s blessed to have had a thriving business, to have met Moses, and to have seen his best friend prior to dying. Before leaving the village, Moses dances with Monsieur Abdullah.

Back in Paris, the boy discovers that the grocer had foreseen the trip’s events and had legally emancipated Moses and bequeathed him his grocery mart, his money, and his Koran, in which Moses finds two dried flowers and a letter from Monsieur Abdullah. Moses—now Mohammed—kindles a relationship with his mother. In adulthood, he, his wife, and his children regularly dine with her and her husband.