Mtoni Palace Zanzibar Town

Mtoni Palace Zanzibar Town is one of the main Omani palaces of the island of Zanzibar, originally called Beit el Mtoni. One of the most famous inhabitants of Zanzibar was Sayyida Salme. Beit el Mtoni is strongly connected with her story since it is the place where she was born. Salme, one of the many daughters of Sultan Said, became world famous as Emily Ruete, the Arabian princess who fell in love with the German merchant Rudolph Heinrich Ruete. The couple eloped to Hamburg, which meant that Salme had to say farewell to Zanzibar. In her beautiful book Memoirs of an Arabian Princess Salme, or Emily as she was called later after being baptized a Christian, wrote down her memories of the bristling Mtoni Palace during her youth, and the decay she encountered many years later when she returned to Zanzibar one last time.