The Old Dispensary, also known as Ithnashiri Dispensary, is a historical building in Stone Town,

Zanzibar Zanzibar (; ; ) is an insular semi-autonomous province which united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of many small islan ...

. It is located on the seafront, in Mizingani Road, halfway between the Palace Museum and the harbour. It owes its name to the fact that it served as a dispensary in the first half of the 20th century. The Dispensary is one of the most finely decorated buildings of Stone Town and a symbol of the multi-cultural architecture and heritage of the city. Its wooden carved balconies, with stained glass decorations, are of

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

n influence; the main structure is built with traditional Zanzibari

coral rag Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secr ...

and

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

, but covered with stucco adornments of European neo-classical taste.Zanzibar Stone Town Projects: Conservation Works in the Former Old Dispensary
Aga Khan Trust for Culture The inside of the building is just as sophisticated, with a covered courtyard and carved bridges connecting the floors. The Dispensary is one of Stone Town's major tourist attractions. It has a small museum about the history of Zanzibar.

History

The construction of the Old Dispensary was commissioned in 1887 by Tharia Topan, a wealthy Ismaili

n, to celebrate

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...

's Golden Jubilee. Topan's intent was for the building to be used as a charitable hospital for the poor. When he died in 1891, the building was not finished. His widow resumed the works but had to suspend them in 1893 for her budget was exhausted. That same year, as a consequence of a family quarrel, the building was sold off to a new owner, who finally brought it to completion in 1894.Stone Town Cultural Centre
/ref> In 1900 the building was bought by another prominent Indian merchant living in Zanzibar, Haji Nasser Nurmohamed,
/ref> who decided that the ground floor would be used as a dispensary, while the upper floors were partitioned into apartments. In 1964, following the

Zanzibar Revolution The Zanzibar Revolution () occurred in January 1964 and led to the overthrow of the Sultan of Zanzibar and his mainly Arab government by local Africans. Zanzibar was an ethnically diverse state consisting of a number of islands off the east co ...

(whereby most Zanzibari

ns, including those who lived in the dispensary, fled abroad), the building was requisitioned by the government, and later fell into disuse and decay. In 1990, as a part of a general plan for the renovation of the historical buildings of Stone Town, the

Aga Khan Trust for Culture The Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) is an agency of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), a family of institutions created by Aga Khan IV with distinct but complementary mandates to improve the welfare and prospects of people in the developin ...

obtained from the

Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar The Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar is a semi-autonomous government within Tanzania for Zanzibar, which consists of the northern part of the Zanzibar Archipelago, mainly the islands of Unguja and Pemba. Structure The government is made up ...

the permission to restore the Dispensary. This was completed in April 1994.The Palace Museum
/ref>

References

{{Commons category, Old Dispensary (Zanzibar) Buildings and structures in Zanzibar Swahili architecture Zanzibar City Tourist attractions in Zanzibar