Story Of A Rebel Princess
A romance in Zanzibar that transformed the life of an Arabian Princess
It was a morning full of sunlight in Stone Town, a busy town in Zanzibar. The beautiful Arabian Princess Salme stood by an open window in her new Palace where she moved after returning from Bububu. The flat roof of the neighboring villa was low, giving her a perfect view. Her lips curved a beautiful smile at her neighbor, the handsome and young Rudolph Heinrich Ruete who looked back at her with joyful eyes.
Zanzibar is an island located off the coast of modern-day Tanzania in East Africa. The island has a long history of exchanges between African and Arabian settlers. The local Swahili language of the Bantu tongue had significant borrowings from Arabic. The Portuguese colonized Zanzibar in 1498 after displacing the Imam of Oman, Saif ibn Sultan of the Al Yarubi dynasty. In 1698, Zanzibar fell back under the control of the Sultanate of Oman with an Arab elite and a Bantu population.
The Omanis controlled Zanzibar as well as other regions of the East African coast from their capital Muscat. In 1741, the Busaidi dynasty displaced the Yarubids. Said ibn Sultan made Zanzibar his residence in 1837. Under Arabian control, Zanzibar enjoyed well-connected and growing trade relations with the Arabian Peninsula, Europe, India, Africa, and the United States. Zanzibar was a top producer of cloves, ivory, and coconut palms.
Salme was born in August 1844 in Beit il Mtoni Palace, which means “The Palace by the Stream”. It was among the first palaces of the Busaidis in Zanzibar. It was majestic with many rooms and vast courtyards filled with orchids. Around a thousand people including royal ladies, consorts, children, and maids lived in this palace.
As a child, Salme was instructed in horse riding, Arabic, and Islamic studies where she memorized chapters from the Holy Quran. Although the court language was Arabic, she was bilingual and could speak Swahili tongue. Salme grew up in a harem filled with slaves and eunuchs. She was also exposed to Circassians, Bubians, Persians, Turks, and Abyssinians through her father’s concubines. She observed and participated in many Islamic Holy festivals and knew the Arabian royal customs. Due to her rank, she wore a Zanzibari version of the Omani burqa, a veil that covered the full face except the eyes.
Bet il Mtoni is charmingly situated on the seashore, at a distance of about five miles from the town of Zanzibar, in a grove of magnificent cocoanut palms, mango trees, and other tropical giants. My birthplace takes its name from the little stream Mtoni, which, running down a short way from the interior, forks out into several branches as it flows through the palace grounds, in whose immediate rear it empties into the beautiful sparkling sheet of water dividing Zanzibar from the continent of Africa. ~Memoirs of an Arabian Princess by Emily Ruete
Salme’s father was Said Al Busaidi, Sultan and Imam (hereditary religious title) of the Omani Empire and her mother was a Circassian slave-lady called Jilfidan. When Jilfidan was a young child, a war broke out and her parents were murdered. She was taken away and sold to the sultan’s palace. Over time, Jilfidan learned to read and became distinguished above the other ladies.
Although Jifidan was not good-looking, she captured the heart of Said and became his favorite. At that time, the Sultan had one principal wife, Queen Azza bint Said from the Omani Royal family. Jilfidan had a considerable influence over the Sultan who never denied her wishes. Salme inherited her mother’s black eyes and long hair which reached her knees. Her life drastically changed after both her parents died. She was involved in a political conflict with her elder brother Sultan Majid.
Majid’s mother was another Circassian slave, an intimate friend of Jilfidan. Although he grew up at Bet il Sahel Palace (also known as The Sultan’s Palace), Majid rode every week to check on his siblings in Beit il Mtoni. He was charming, kind, and lovable, capturing the hearts of everyone. When Majid became the Sultan of the Omani Empire, he got into conflict with his brother Barghash. Chole, Salme’s sister, tricked her into supporting Barghash during an attempted coup. After the rebellion was put down, the unfortunate Barghash was sent to exile in Bombay (modern-day Mumbai in India).
The strife with her family led to dark times. Salme, who won Majid’s enmity, withdrew to one of her states in Kizimbani. After returning to Stone Town she made contact with European settlers. Sultan Majid gave Europeans great consideration and they were welcomed guests at palaces and estates. The Princess had already entertained pleasant relations with Zanzibari’s Europeans and was hanging out with them.
During this time, Salme made acquaintance with a German merchant called Heinrich Ruete who arrived in Zanzibar in 1855 as an agent for the trading firm Hansing & Co. During his stay, Salme and Heinrich were neighbors and were often seen taking walks together conversing in Swahili, their common language. The princess often witnessed men’s parties which Heinrich set to show her European meals.
Soon, this friendship grew into deep mutual love and the 22-year-old princess became pregnant. This affair sent shockwaves to the Arab royal family and soon reached her brother the Sultan. The union between a Muslim Princess and a Christian merchant was regarded as scandalous. When Salme received a travel invitation from Majid, she suspected he was plotting her murder.
Salme and Heinrich could not rely on the Sultan’s goodwill. They decided to leave Zanzibar and flee to Europe. The first attempt failed. But another opportunity came when her friend, the wife of an English doctor informed her of Highflyer, a British war vessel. As soon as Salme got on board, the vessel began to move. The Highflyer took North and she landed safely in Aden, a port city in Yemen. The princess was then consorted by a Spanish couple she knew in Zanzibar. It took Heinrich a few months to wind up his affairs and follow her.
At Aden, Salme took the name Emily. This was immediately succeeded by a marriage ceremony conducted according to the Anglican rite. In 1866, Salme and Heinrich sailed to his native town Hamburg. The three-month journey which took place in 1866 was traumatic for Salme and she lost her first child en route. When the couple reached Germany, they were received warmly by Heinrich’s parents and family.
Salme quickly got used to the foreign surroundings. The couple had three children; Rudolph Said-Ruete, Antonie Brandeis, and Rosalie Troemer. But the happy days were not to last.
My unforgettable husband watched the various stages of my new development with keen interest; he took a particular pleasure in observing the first impressions made upon me by European habits and customs.
Yet our happy, contented existence was to last only a short while. A little over three years had elapsed from the date of our settling in Hamburg, when my dearly beloved husband chanced to meet with an accident in jumping from a tramcar. He was run over, and died after three days of intense suffering.
I now stood alone in this great, strange country with three infants, of whom the youngest counted but three months. At first I thought of returning to my home, but fate willed it that my own dreadful loss was followed, in two months, by the decease of my dear brother Majid, who had always treated me so kindly.
He never even resented my secret escape from the island; as a true Moslem he believed in divine foreordination, and was convinced that this had determined my departure. He gave touching proof of his brotherly affection, not long before he died, by loading a ship with gifts, which were to be presented to me at Hamburg. ~Memoirs of an Arabian Princess by Emily Ruete
After Heinrich’s untimely death, Salme’s life became more difficult. From a royal Princess to an exiled lover and a window with three children in a strange land. Salme had a declining fortune and she was unable to manage her finances. The Muslim society in Germany was small in number while the Hamburg society treated her as an exotic immigrant. Due to her alienation, she moved to Dresden, Cologne, Rudolstadt, and Berlin. This was a period of the rise of the German Empire and an increased orientalist view of Arabs and Muslims.
In 1871, the German magazine “Daheim” described the so-called African-European love story in racist terms, writing of Salme’s joy at being rid of the harem and.. walking around freely in European dresses in the beautiful cities of the white man, where women..enjoy the same rights as men. Even after Salme acquired German citizenship in 1872, she constantly faced discriminatory attitudes. In 1885, the “Illustrierte Zeitung” equated her religious conversion with social advancement. She also lost much of her property through the fault of others who cheated her. The place which once gave her so much happiness was now a place of heartache and misfortunes.
Unable to take this pressure, Salme returned to the Arab world. Yearning for her home, she tried to fix her relationship with her brother, the new Sultan Barghash. But Barghash could not forget Salme’s backstab after she resumed relations with his old antagonist, Majid.
As Barghash rendered any prospects of being welcomed by her family, Salme moved to London with her children. In the first months, Salme started learning English.
During those two months, I would often pore over my books until dawn, conning words and phrases by rote. And then there was my growing anxiety about the three children, from whom I had never been separated for long. ~Memoirs of an Arabian Princess by Emily Ruete
She then went to Alexandria, spending a few days at the hotel. There, she started speaking to the Egyptians in Arabic. Confused they would respond: Where did you learn to speak our language so well? You must have lived in Bagdad; how long were you there? She emigrated to Yaffa in 1888 and then to Jerusalem. From 1892 to 1914, she lived in Beirut. Salme even visited Zanzibar one last time between 1850 and 1865.
Salme wanted her children to be proud of their Arab heritage. Her life and immigration experience linked Asia, Africa, and Europe. Salme eventually returned to Germany, living her final years in Jena with her grandchildren. She was buried in the Ruete family tomb in Ohlsdorf Cemetry in Hamburg.
Princess Salme has many descendants who live in Western countries. Michael Bauer Ruete, the great-great-grandson of Princess Salme, a retired deputy sheriff who lives in Florida with his wife and children, told the BBC:
I went down to the beach where Princess Salme was last seen when she left Zanzibar, I took a bottle and filled it up with sand from the beach.
Growing up, I didn’t know much about our family history. My grandmother always kept it a secret but after she died, I found all kinds of items from Zanzibar; documents from the Zanzibar royal family, old photos, chests full of items I had never seen before.. Although her life was not easy, [she] is still remembered and celebrated because of her strong character [and] the difficult decisions and sacrifices she had to make.
Salme’s memory is still alive in Zanzibar. A few years ago, the Princess Salme Museum opened in Hurumzi where she was honored as a local princess and world-famous author. It includes photographs, clothes, jewelry, letters, and papers related to the Princess and the Omani Empire. A room devoted to her memory is kept at the Palace Museum. The remains of the Arabian palaces such as Beit AlSahi, Beit Althani, and Beit Mtoni are unmissable tourist attractions.
Princess Salme Inn is a hotel located on Mizingani Road, Stone Town near the ferry. The architecture and furniture blend Arab, Zanzibari, and European touches to bring wonderful details from Salme’s life. The hotel is located close to the museum and the Forodhani Night Market. The Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIFF) promotes exhibitions about Princess Salme and provides practical assistance to academics, researchers, and visitors working in Zanzibar.
The Princess Salme Spice Tour is a full-day tour that includes the impressive Mtoni Palace, and the Baths (Hamams in Arabic) built for Sultan Said’s second wife Princess Shahrazade, daughter of the Qajar Sultan Muhammad Shah. The visitors can also walk around the spice farm area and the Zanzibar countryside.
In Modern Literature, Princess Salme is a protagonist in Nicole Vosseler’s historical romance Sterne über Sansibar which is a reworking of her memoirs. It is about the magical romance between Salme and Heinrich and the linked histories of Zanzibar and Germany.
Salima cowered in a corner and let the tears stream down her face. […] Soldiers kept watch by her door day and night. They wouldn’t let her out, nor would they let Heinrich in. Despair had settled over the house like a bird with dark wings […]. ’I’m sitting here, trapped! Without Heinrich. Without a hope of ever getting out of here. ~Sterne über Sansibar, pp. 235–236
At the opening of the exhibition Hinter dem Schleier der Geschichte — eine arabische Prinzessin in Sansibar, Oman, Deutschland und Tscherkessien (Behind the Veil of History — an Arabian Princess in Zanzibar, Oman, Germany and Circassia) in Hamburg City Hall during the “Zanzibar Week” (2009), artist H M Jokinen performed the life of Emily Ruete. In 1994, Princess Salme Institute was established in London to raise awareness about her life and writings and promote research related to Zanzibar.
Salme’s memoirs, which became an international bestseller, provide the first known autobiography of an Arab woman. “Memoirs of An Arabian Princess” was originally published in German in 1886. Her “Letters Home” Briefe nach der Heimat was written in German and published in English in 1993. Salme narrates nostalgic stories from her childhood, details of everyday life at an Arab household, and the happy Zanzibar life. She continued to take pride in her father and ancestry, and she passed this to her children and grandchildren.
In June 2019, one of Salme’s descendants visited Zanzibar and planted a small tree in her memory in front of Beit Mtoni Palace. In this same year, a square in a residential neighborhood in Hamburg was named “Emily Ruete”. In 2000, the women’s association Garten der Frauen (Garden of Women” established a memorial in honor of Salme a few meters from the Ruete family tomb. A commemorative stone was erected in 2007 for Salme Ruete during the European Year of Equal Opportunities.
Salme was a rebel princess who broke traditions and gave up her luxurious and privileged life for, Heinrich, who appeared in her life as a hero of old romances. Today, Salme’s story remains largely unknown, a story of a woman who lived between two worlds, Arab and European, struggling for acceptance.
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References
- Hans Christoph Buch. (2008). From Zanzibar to Berlin and Beyond: Modern Engagements with the Life and Work of Emily Ruete. https://staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/en/research/fachgebiete/germanistik/emily-ruete/modern-engagements-with-the-life-and-work-of-emily-ruete
- Katherine Maxwell. (2015). Sayyide Salme/Emily Ruete: Knowledge Flows in an Age of Steam, Print, and Empire. https://escholarship.org/content/qt5vg7n7kt/qt5vg7n7kt_noSplash_3711da0859e071c1eb96dac7e97e5baf.pdf?t=o1vgr6
- Mancheno, T. (2022). Migrating Identities: Salme/Ruete, a simultaneously colonial and colonized subject. https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/47026/migrating-identities
- Memoirs of an Arabian Princess. By Emily Ruete (Salamah bint Saïd; Sayyida Salme, Princess of Zanzibar and Oman) 1844–1924. https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/ruete/arabian/arabian.html#I
- Naima Mahmoud. (2019). Sayyida Salme: The tragic life of Zanzibar’s rebel princess.
- Romance in Zanzibar: Princess Salme. https://topazcrossbooks.com/2020/01/02/romance-in-zanzibar-princess-salme/
