Among the important houses that passed to Mas'ud bin Sayf bin Nasser in the heart of Zanzibar city is Hansing House, located on the Zanzibar seafront (Forodhani) beside the Old Fort. The house is imposing and spacious, and is considered one of the largest houses in the city in terms of the number of rooms — reaching more than forty. It was built by Sheikh Qadi (Judge) Mohamed bin Sulaiman bin Said Al Mandhari (d. 1916) in the year 1270 AH, corresponding to 1853 CE, as is evident from the inscription visible above the door. From the time of its construction it was rented by the German company Hansing & Co., which traded in many goods, including ivory and spices.

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When the events of 1896 occurred — with Sayyid Khalid bin Barghash ascending the throne of Zanzibar in defiance of the British colonial administration — Sheikh Mohamed bin Sulaiman Al Mandhari was among the most ardent defenders and staunchest supporters, like many Arabs of that period. When Lord Mathews — or "the enemy of God," as the Arabs used to call him — sentenced the defenders to imprisonment until payment of the fine imposed upon each of them, Qadi Al Mandhari's fine amounted to 40,000 qirsh.

As he did not have the sum in cash, he mortgaged the house, the warehouse (bakhkhar) beside it, and a property (shamba) on the Green Island to his nephew Mas'ud bin Sayf bin Nasser, who paid the amount on his behalf — the mortgage standing as security for the debt. After two years had passed, and following the Qadi's retirement, he chose in 1898 to redeem the mortgage and transfer the house, the warehouse, and the shamba to Mas'ud bin Sayf. The three properties were valued at 45,000 qirsh; Mas'ud paid the difference to his uncle, and the properties passed to him.

"Who do we have? When you are here, if we call out or stretch out our hands, you hear us."— Sultana bint Ali bin Mohamed

The German company remained in the house until the end of the Second World War — after the death of Mas'ud bin Sayf and the house's passing to his grandson Mas'ud bin Ali bin Mohamed (Al Udi) — after which the British administration's Public Works Department rented it.

Owing to the house's grandeur, strategic location, and spaciousness, Mas'ud bin Ali bin Mohamed (Al Udi) wished to move into it on two occasions, without success. The first was in 1943, coinciding with the marriage of his two sons, Ali and Mohamed, to the two daughters of Sheikh Mohamed bin Nasser Al Lamki — the wedding ceremonies and celebrations were held in the house — after the end of the first British lease. However, this was prevented by the entreaty of his sister, Sultana bint Ali bin Mohamed, that he not leave their grandfather's house — the New House — in the Baghani quarter. So he chose not to move, and the rent was raised under the lease from 500 to 550 shillings.

The second occasion was in late 1956, when the lease ended once again and he wished to move in, but the colonial administration refused. The Resident threatened that if he asked again, the administration would nationalize the house for public benefit. He therefore appealed to Sultan Khalifa bin Harub — at the private evening majlis (barza) held after the evening prayer until eleven at night in his palace, of which he was a permanent member — to intervene. The British administration was given six months, until March 1957, to vacate the house, with Al Udi intending to move in. This was prevented by his death in January 1957, and he was deprived of the house a second and final time.

After the coup, the house became the seat of three government ministries, and continued until 2023 as the headquarters of the Zanzibar Ministry of Housing — until, at last, it was reclaimed by the family's heirs.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Sulaiman Al Mandhari was one of the most distinguished Omani-Zanzibari scholars, jurists, and statesmen of the nineteenth century. Born in the Baghani district of Zanzibar to the prominent Al Mandhari family, he rose through the ranks of Islamic scholarship to become Chief Judge (Qadhi) of Zanzibar during the reign of Sultan Barghash bin Said. As head of the judicial establishment, he played a central role in administering Islamic law, advising the Sultan, and maintaining legal order in a rapidly changing society. His reputation for learning, integrity, and statesmanship made him one of the most trusted officials in the Sultan's court.

During Sultan Barghash's ambitious programme of modernization, Sheikh Mohammed accompanied the ruler on important diplomatic missions abroad, including the historic visit to London in 1875 — when Barghash became the first Arab ruler to make an official visit to Britain. As a senior member of the delegation, he witnessed firsthand the political institutions, industry, and technological achievements of Victorian Britain — experiences that influenced Zanzibar's modernization efforts upon their return.

He also accompanied the Sultan's representatives on subsequent diplomatic missions to Europe during a period of growing international competition in East Africa, when the Sultanate sought to protect its interests amid increasing pressure from European powers. In 1888 an official Zanzibar delegation travelled to Berlin and the United Kingdom to press the Sultanate's claim over East and Central African territories that were being detached from it during the "Scramble for Africa."

Throughout his long career, Sheikh Mohammed served as a vital link between Zanzibar's religious, judicial, and political institutions. His influence extended beyond the courtroom, as he provided counsel on matters of governance and diplomacy during some of the most significant events in the Sultanate's history.

A jurist and a statesman — a vital link between Zanzibar's religious, judicial, and political life.

A final notable episode in his public life occurred during the constitutional crisis that culminated in the Anglo–Zanzibar War of 27 August 1896, remembered as the shortest war in recorded history. Following the death of Sultan Hamad bin Thuwaini, Khalid bin Barghash proclaimed himself Sultan without British approval. Sheikh Mohammed was among the senior advisers associated with Khalid's court during the tense confrontation with British authorities. Drawing upon decades of experience in government and Islamic law, he formed part of the circle that sought to uphold the sovereignty and legitimacy of the Sultanate. Although the British bombardment quickly ended Khalid's rule and forced him into exile, Sheikh Mohammed's role in these events demonstrated the continued importance of Zanzibar's learned judicial elite at a decisive moment in the island's history.

According to local accounts and Al Mandhari family tradition, the events of 1896 marked a turning point in Sheikh Mohammed's life. Deeply affected by the political transformation that followed the defeat of Khalid bin Barghash and the growing dominance of British influence in Zanzibar, he withdrew from public affairs and entered a period of self-imposed seclusion. Settling between his residence and mosque in the Baghani quarter of Stone Town, he is said to have refused to participate further in government affairs and rarely ventured beyond this small area for the remainder of his life. Instead, he devoted himself to prayer, study, teaching, and religious reflection.

This voluntary withdrawal enhanced his reputation as a principled scholar who chose independence and spiritual devotion over political compromise. Remembered as both a jurist and a statesman, Sheikh Mohammed bin Sulaiman Al Mandhari remains one of the notable figures of Omani-Zanzibari history — embodying the close relationship between Oman and Zanzibar and the enduring influence of Islamic scholarship in the public life of the Sultanate. It was he who, in 1270 AH (1853 CE), built the house that stands today as Hansing House.

She was born a princess of Zanzibar — Sayyida Salme bint Said, a daughter of Sultan Said bin Sultan, raised amid the courts, gardens, and sea-breeze palaces of an island at the height of its splendour. Hers was a world of clove plantations and dhow-filled harbours, of Arabic verse and the call to prayer drifting over Stone Town's coral-stone roofs. Few could have imagined that her name would one day be remembered not in the palaces of her birth, but in the cold winters of northern Germany.

It was on the Stone Town seafront, in the close-knit world of merchants and royalty that surrounded the Old Fort and the great houses of Forodhani, that her path crossed that of Rudolph Heinrich Ruete — a young German merchant of Hansing & Co., the very firm whose name this house still carries. From the latticed windows of her family's residence she could see the comings and goings of the European traders who supplied the Sultan with ships and goods. Between the princess and the merchant grew an affection that the conventions of her world forbade — a love across faith, language, and empire, lived out within sight of these walls.

A love across faith, language, and empire — lived out within sight of these walls.

The cost of that love was exile. Carrying Ruete's child and unable to remain, Salme left Zanzibar in 1866, slipping away by sea with the help of friends. In a new land she embraced a new life: she was baptised a Christian, took the name Emily, and married Ruete in Hamburg. The princess of the Indian Ocean became a German wife and mother, trading the warmth of Zanzibar for the grey skies of Europe.

Happiness was brief. Within a few years Ruete died, leaving Emily a young widow in a foreign country, raising their children far from the island of her birth. Yet she did not vanish into obscurity. She set down her remarkable life in writing, and her Memoirs of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar became one of the first accounts of Arab and East African court life written by a woman from within it — a bridge between two civilisations, and a window into a vanished world.

For the rest of her long life she carried Zanzibar within her, returning in memory if rarely in person, forever a daughter of the island and a stranger in Europe. Her story endures as one of Zanzibar's most famous legacies — a tale of love and loss, of courage and consequence, bound forever to the seafront where it began.

Today the house that bears the name of Ruete's firm stands as a silent witness to that romance — its walls echoing, as they have for more than a century and a half, the meeting of Zanzibar's trade and an everlasting love.