Where there was a roof there is always a story to tell
© arcomai I Memories of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar.
There is something in human being that binds she/him to a place more than any other being on this planet. The life of Emily Ruete, Princess Sayyida Salme (1844-1924), daughter of the Sultan of Zanzibar, who lived between the last two centuries of the last millennium, confirms the rule. Emily wrote an autobiographical book entitled Memoirs of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar (1886), describing her life at court and documenting, among other things, the Palace of Beit el Mtoni, the residence where she was born and lived the first years of her troubled life. This work, in addition to having great historical value, is also an extraordinary and unique document of its kind because it tells the life of the monarchies of Zanzibar and Oman, in a period in which reading allowed to women was limited to the Koran.
The palace was the oldest Omani building on the island of Zanzibar, now downgraded to ruins. Salme was the daughter of Sayyid Said (1804-1856), Sultan of Zanzibar and Oman, and the Circassian concubine Jilfidan. His father confiscated the building in 1828 from its owner, Monsieur bin Haramil Al-Abry. He was a merchant originally from Oman who had violated the Treaty of Moresby (1822), signed by the Sultan and Fairfax Moresby, a senior officer of Mauritius on behalf of Great Britain, which sanctioned the abolition of the slave trade. Assisted by his eldest son Sayyid Khalid (1819-1855), the sultan enlarged the residence, transforming the complex to the rank of royal court.
After a childhood spent in the palace where she was born, she moved with her mother to Beit el Watoro, in the residence of her brother and future Sultan Majid ben Said. In 1853, due to frequent conflicts with her sister-in-law, the two women moved to Beit el Tani, another residence of the sultan. In 1856 the sultan died and Salme inherited a palace and a clove plantation, of which Zanzibar became the largest export center in the Indian Ocean. Shortly thereafter, her mother also died and she was assigned other land properties. In this period Zanzibar became an independent Sultanate. While Thuwaini ibn Said al-Said, one of Salme’s many brothers, became Sultan of Oman, Majid became Sultan of Zanzibar.
© arcomai I Internal view of the Beit El Mtoni Palace.
Due to internal family disputes over power, the woman moved in 1866 to Mji Mkongwe, today’s Stone Town. There she met Rudolph Heinrich Ruete, a German businessman with whom she had a relationship that cost her a death sentence by stoning by her brother Majid, because the woman became pregnant. She was thus forced to escape with the man who would become her husband. After several vicissitudes in 1868 they reached Hamburg where they settled. In 1870 Rudolph died. Meanwhile the sultan confiscated all Salme’s assets. Those were difficult years for her and her family which in the meantime had grown.
Salme never stopped thinking about her native land. In 1885, thanks to the intervention of Otto von Bismarck, she managed to organize a visit to Zanzibar with her children. Once she arrived at her destination she found the affection of the locals – much to the disappointment of the sultan – who showed her respect befitting a princess, although she had escaped and changed her identity, social status and religion. After a few months spent on the island, Emily and her children returned to Germany where in 1886 she concluded and published her autobiography.
General plan of the Mtoni Palace and 3D reconstruction of the complex (source: “Architectural family ties, Zanzibar and Oman in the 19th century” by Antoni Folkers and Frank Koopman).
The complex consists of the original square-plan building (belonging to the slave trader) and two wings later added by the sultan: to the east the “Persian baths” wing and to the north the wing with the portico and bedrooms, forming a general plan (also “square”) with a large “L” shaped courtyard inside. The external walls are about 70 cm thick, made of coral stone typical of Stone Town houses. This depth was based on the Omani constructive tradition that preferred “robust” buildings to guarantee high stability to horizontal loads, but also to protect its inhabitants from the winter cold and enemies. Along its perimeter development, the masonry was cut out inside by high niches or “rawzanah”, which were intended to house windows and wardrobes, but also to reduce the use of material.
The Arabs had certainly brought with them the use of flat roofing. However, this solution was not suitable for the Zanzibar climate. The accumulation of heat through exposure to the tropical sun and infiltrations caused by frequent torrential rains were incompatible with that type of roof. By the end of the 19th century, practically all the buildings in Stone Town would be covered with traditional pitched roofs covered with “makuti” (dried palm leaves) and later (from the early 1900s) replaced by corrugated panels brought by European colonizers. It is therefore presumed that only the “Persian baths” area remained flat-roofed or covered by a system of domes.
© arcomai I Internal view of the Beit El Mtoni Palace.
Ms. Ruete, in her memoirs, mentions an unusual round structure near the beach entrance. It’s important to note that the family mainly traveled by sea, not by land. This was likely a portico structure with a square base on the ground floor and a terrace on the upper floor, covered by an octagonal roof. This type of roof is known as a “benjile,” a kind of wooden pagoda probably adorned with decorations and inlays. According to Emily Ruete, this structure was entirely painted. The etymology of “benjile” may be related to the “barjil” of Oman, the “badgir” of Persia, and the “bardiyya” of the United Arab Emirates, all of which mean “wind tower.” Indeed, the purpose of the benjile was to cool the building by channeling the breeze. This construction must have been the most pleasant place, as confirmed by the princess. It was directly adjacent to the sultan’s private rooms and perhaps his favorite place to observe his fleet, retreat to work, perhaps even to pray, and certainly to have coffee with his family.
Today, little or nothing remains of the palace, although there is a pretense of considering it still a historic building instead of mere abandoned ruins. Everything that could be taken has been taken away. Until the mid-20th century, the British used it as a storage place for fuel and then soon after became a cement depot during the revolution (1964); and this until the 1980s, despite the fact that since 1957 the property was on the list of buildings to be protected according to the “Decree on the conservation of ancient monuments” operational since 1924. The ramp of earth at the entrance where the benjile once stood testifies to the industrial use of the property. If it were not for the intrinsic love that Princess Sayyida Salme carried with her throughout her life for the place where she was born and from which she had to separate, today it would not even be known that the Palace of Mtoni once stood here.
© arcomai I Internal view of the Beit El Mtoni Palace.
NOTE
Part of the historical reconstruction of the Beit El Mtoni Palace is based on a study titled “Beit el Mtoni: The House at the Creek” by Gerrit Smienk and Antoni Folkers of the non-profit consulting organization African Architecture Matters, based in Amsterdam, Netherlands.