Beit Melek Ali

The Beit Melek Ali or the house of King Ali is a large house on the west bank of the Tigris which was, in the 1920s, the residence of King Ali, brother of King Feisal I of Iraq. This house is mentioned in They Came to Baghdad and is also the house in which for a time, Agatha Christie resided with her husband Max Mallowan.

In They Came to Baghdad, Victoria Jones is asked by Edward Goring to take a walk a walk along the Tigris bank past the Beit Melek Ali. Once she got there, Edward was waiting for her with a car to take her for an excursion to Babylon.

Victoria's observations and descriptions of the house are highly accurate. She was told that it was a big house built "right on the river" some way down the west bank. After walking for a while, she came to a spot where "[b]eyond was a big house built right out on to the river with a garden and balustrade. The path on the bank passed on the inside of what must be the Beit Melek Ali or the House of King Ali. She could not go along the bank any further and so turned inland, and slightly beyond, past the front entrance, she met Edward".

The exact location is not specified (nor is it located on any available maps) but according to Victoria, she had walked somewhat past the Tio Hotel (the actual Zia Hotel) on the opposite bank.

The Beit Melek Ali and Agatha Christie
Christie lived in the Beit Melek Ali with Max Mallowan for a time. In 1949, Jabra Ibrahim Jabra records a meeting with the Mallowans there. Robert Hamilton, an archaeologist invited Jabra to meet the Mallowans and told him they lived at "the house of King Ali ... it is in the Karradat Maryam neighborhood, right on the riverbank. It's an old Turkish house that goes back to the Ottoman period, and it is one of the most beautiful homes of old Baghdad." Jabra also notes that King Ali lived there in the 1920s and named it after himself, being a king without a kingdom.

The house is also likely to be the building in which the British School of Archaelogy was based in Iraq. The house was reportedly purchased in 1946 with government funding to allow the School to "set up shop properly ... Sir Max Mallowan was appointed as the first director and immediately took up residence, along with a secretary, six students and Agatha Christie, Sir Max’s more famous wife."

Agatha Christie probably wrote They Came to Baghdad while staying at the house. In an obituary for Christie published in 1976, the BSAI wrote "...in the old School house overlooking the banks of the Tigris in Baghdad where she wrote They Came to Baghdad...."