Unguja. In the spice-scented alleys of Stone Town and the sweeping white beaches of Zanzibar, a remarkable woman once walked the corridors of royal palaces—and later the crowded streets of Hamburg.
Her name was Princess Salme bint Said, later known to the world as Emily Ruete, the first Arab woman to write an autobiography and a symbol of both cultural defiance and reconciliation.
Her memoir, ‘Memoirs of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar’, remains one of the most insightful personal accounts of life in the 19th century, revealing the rhythms of palace life and the emotional journey of a woman who broke the rules of her world.
A royal childhood in Zanzibar
Born on August 30, 1844, to Sultan Said bin Sultan Al-Busaid and a Circassian concubine, Jilfidan, Salme was the youngest of 36 children in a royal household that spanned Zanzibar and Oman.
She spent her formative years in the Mtoni Palace, a vast complex nestled by the sea, where flamingos, gazelles, and peacocks roamed and where the young princess first developed her lifelong curiosity.
Though raised in opulence, Salme’s early life was shaped by self-education and observation, not the structured schooling afforded to her brothers.
She taught herself to write in secret—an act of quiet rebellion that would later become her greatest legacy.
“I learned to write with the help of a boy who taught me in secret. We wrote on palm leaves, and I practiced by copying verses of the Koran,” she writes in her memoir.
Defying tradition and facing exile
Salme’s life changed dramatically following her mother’s death in 1859 and the political succession struggle between her brothers, Majid and Barghash.
Despite her limited political power, she acted as secretary to Barghash during the conflict due to her limited literacy.
After Barghash’s defeat and exile, Salme was left politically isolated, and her emotional turmoil would only deepen.
In the early 1860s, she fell in love with Heinrich Ruete, a German merchant living in Stone Town.
Their relationship, scandalous and forbidden under royal and Islamic law, became even more dangerous when Salme discovered she was pregnant.
To avoid disgrace, she fled Zanzibar aboard the British warship HMS Highflyer in 1866, first to Aden, where she converted to Christianity and married Ruete, and eventually to Hamburg, where she lived under the name Emily Ruete.
Alienation and advocacy
Salme’s marriage to Ruete, though loving, was short-lived. In 1870, Heinrich died in a streetcar accident, leaving her widowed with three young children in an unfamiliar and often unwelcoming Europe.
She struggled with financial instability, cultural dislocation, and grief, all while attempting to maintain a connection to her homeland.
“In Europe, I was a stranger among strangers; in Zanzibar, I had become a stranger to my own family,” she laments.
Salme made several unsuccessful attempts to reclaim her inheritance in Zanzibar and often found herself drawn into the imperial intrigues of the time.
During the Scramble for Africa, Germany’s interest in East Africa rose sharply, and her royal background briefly made her a diplomatic asset.
Her daughter was even suggested as a potential puppet figurehead for Zanzibar under German control—an idea that never materialized but underscored the colonial manipulation of identity.
Memoirs of an Arabian Princess: A groundbreaking work
In 1886, Salme published Memoirs of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar, the first known autobiography by an Arab woman, written originally in German.
The book became a sensation in Europe, offering an insider’s view of the royal courts of Zanzibar and Oman.
She described the opulent architecture of palaces, the daily life of royal women, the complexities of slavery, and her struggles with faith and identity.
Her candid reflections challenged European Orientalist stereotypes and gave voice to the emotional and political inner world of a Muslim royal woman.
On polygamy, she wrote, “A man who has four wives is neither happy nor at peace; he is like a man with four beehives, all of which he must tend.”
The memoir is not merely a personal tale—it is a vital historical document that offers insights into the gender roles, religious customs, and colonial dynamics of the time.
Her dual identity as an Arab-African princess and European exile gave her a unique vantage point from which to critique both cultures.
Legacy and reflection
Salme died in 1924 and was buried with a small bag of sand from a beach in Zanzibar, which she reportedly always carried with her.
But even then, her life continued to inspire debates about identity, feminism, colonialism, and cross-cultural understanding.
In Zanzibar, where her actions were once viewed as betrayal, her legacy is being reassessed.
She is now recognised as a pioneering voice, not only for her courage in defying norms but also for preserving a vivid account of Zanzibar’s pre-colonial world.
“My thoughts often wandered back to the coral islands of the Indian Ocean… the scent of cloves, the call to prayer at dawn,” she writes in a letter near the end of her life.
Modern scholars hail her memoir as essential reading for understanding the intersection of personal agency and historical upheaval.
Her life was defined by boundaries—cultural, political, and geographic—but her words transcended them, connecting continents and generations.
A woman ahead of her time
Princess Salme’s story is not just about royal intrigue or forbidden love—it is about a woman who claimed her voice in a world determined to silence her.
In today’s Zanzibar, efforts to restore the Mtoni Palace and promote her writings reflect a growing appreciation of her complex legacy.
As the world continues to wrestle with questions of migration, identity, and women's rights, Princess Salme’s journey from the palace to exile and finally to literary immortality offers a powerful reminder: even in the face of exile, one’s story can endure—and illuminate the path for others.
For those seeking a deeper understanding of Zanzibar’s history, gender dynamics, and colonial encounters, Memoirs of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar remains a must-read.
Through it, Princess Salme—Sayyida Salme bint Said—lives on as one of the most compelling and courageous voices in East African history.
“The pen I took up in secret became the voice I never knew I had,” she once wrote. And what a voice it was.
