Hamamni Persian Baths

At Hamamni Persian Baths, townspeople who did not belong to the sultan's family could come for a fee; previously, large hammams were established at palaces. First, visitors changed clothes, were shaved, and met acquaintances here, then passed through warm rooms toward heat and cold water. Workers below tended the furnace, while heated air and water spread through hidden channels beneath the floor. The surviving six-sided pool and the passages under the vaults still reveal the layout of the former baths.

A few years before these baths appeared, Edward Steere recorded how the residents of Zanzibar City obtained fresh water. The city wells produced brackish water. Hired women walked two to three kilometers from their homes, filled round clay jars at springs outside the city, and carried them back on their heads. At the mission house, eight such water carriers were kept solely to deliver water.

Sultan Barghash bin Said, who ascended the throne in eighteen seventy, commissioned water to be brought into the city from springs beyond it. A water conduit, a reservoir, and public taps appeared. Hamamni Persian Baths were part of the same change—the first bath complex on Zanzibar Island, where people who did not belong to the sultan's family could come. Previously, large hammams had been built at palaces.

Barghash invited the Iranian architect Haji Ghulam Hussein. This is why the baths are called Persian. Ghulam Hussein planned them so that a visitor would pass through a whole sequence of activities. In the front rooms, visitors changed clothes, were shaved by a barber, and met acquaintances. Farther on, a corridor led to a warm room, then to hot rooms and cold water. The complex contained toilets, fountains, a hexagonal pool, and a restaurant.

Below, workers kept the fire burning in the furnace, while water and hot air passed through hidden channels. Without their labor, the vaulted spaces would have remained stone rooms. Visitors paid for entry, so regular use of Hamamni Persian Baths was mainly possible for wealthy townspeople. Men and women were assigned different hours: the same changing rooms, pool, and rooms received two separate groups of visitors during the day.

The baths operated until approximately the nineteen twenties. Why they closed has not been established exactly. Water stopped being supplied, the furnace was extinguished, and residents occupied part of the complex. The former restaurant and some neighboring rooms became private homes.

“Hamamni” means “place of baths” in Swahili. At first, this was the name of the complex; then its name passed to the street and the entire neighborhood. There is no longer any water in the surviving rooms; the vaults, the passages between the cold and hot sections, and the empty hexagonal pool remain. Families now live behind the wall of the former restaurant wing.