Exit Sultan Jamshid bin Abdulla, the last Arab ruler of Zanzibar

Jamshid bin Abdullah, the last Sultan of Zanzibar died on December 30, 2024 in Oman.

Photo credit: Pool

Jamshid bin Abdullah, the last Sultan of Zanzibar died on December 30, 2024, in Oman after a prolonged illness and advanced age. He died at Sultan Qaboos Royal Hospital in Muscat, members of the royal family said. He was buried at the royal family cemetery in Muscat. 

Abdullah was Sultan until the 1964 revolution, which toppled his government and forced him to flee to Britain, where he lived in Portsmouth with his family for 56 years before moving to Oman on September 15, 2020.

Born in Zanzibar on September 16, 1929, Sultan Jamshid acquired primary education on the islands, then Egypt, and later in the United Kingdom. He served in the British Royal Navy for two years before returning to Zanzibar.

News of his death came about two weeks before Zanzibar celebrates 61 years of the revolution that forced him to flee the island. Reports from both Zanzibar and Oman said that Abdullah was preparing to visit the Island on January 9.

In January 2000, then Zanzibar president Dr Salmin Amour extended an amnesty to the exiled Sultan to visit and stay in Zanzibar but the deposed monarch declined the offer.

The Zanzibar Revolution or “Mapinduzi ya Zanzibar” has been a political landmark for the Island’s leadership under the “Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar,” since January 12, 1964.

Abdullah ascended to the throne on July 1, 1963, after the death of his grandfather, Sultan Sayyid Abdullah bin Khalifa, who ruled the island from October 1960 to June 1963. 

His reign lasted only six months and the revolution brought to an end the Oman’s Al-Said monarchy in Zanzibar and saw Abeid Amani Karume elected as the first President of Zanzibar.

The early morning revolution of January 12, 1964, was led by Afro Shiraz Party (ASP) members under the command of John Okello, who mobilised around 800 people to overrun the Island’s police force and appropriate their weapons then marched to Zanzibar Town, where they overthrew the Sultan and his government.

That ended 200 years of Arab dominance in Zanzibar and is commemorated on the island and the rest of Tanzania every year with celebrations and a public holiday. 

The Zanzibar Archipelago, comprising the main southern island of Unguja, the smaller northern island of Pemba, and numerous surrounding islets, has a long history of Arab rule dating back to 1698.

Zanzibar was an overseas territory of Oman until 1858 when it gained its own resident Sultan who governed from his palace at Stone Town.

The Omani rulers transformed the settlement into a flourishing trading centre, attracting merchants from across the Indian Ocean, with the construction of magnificent palaces.  

Zanzibar became a major player in the East African slave trade.