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.[1] 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.[2]
Although Jabra describes his meeting with the Mallowans and the house in detail, subsequent mentions strangely do not mention the link to King Ali. The house is 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."[3]
Joan Oates, an archaeologist and colleague of the Mallowans described the house as "a hostel" for students of the BSAI. It had a courtyard and semi-underground "sirdabs" on the ground floor--rooms cooled by means of air shafts from the roof. The house had a balcony overlooking the Tigris and this was where Agatha regularly breakfasted (there is a rather famous photograph of Christie at breakfast in Baghdad on this balcony). Christie loved shopping in the local suqs and decorated the house with rugs, copper and antiques. The BSAI moved to a larger house in 1956 (but this might be after Christie's time there)[4]
The house still stands today under private ownership, near the al-Jumhuriya (or al-Jumariyah) Bridge around 33°19'26.202" 44°24'8.427". It is in a very bad state of repair and has been put up for sale. There are concerns that the new owners or buyers may demolish it or allow it to collapse on its own, although the it is a listed building and this gives it a meaaure of protection.[5][6]
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...."[7]
References[]
- ↑ See for example this photo of the house and compare it with the description in the text.
- ↑ Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, Princesses' Street: Baghdad Memories, trans. Issa J. Boulatta (University of Arkansas Press, 2005), 36.
- ↑ Mary Shepperson, "The turbulent life of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq," Guardian, 17 July, 2018. Accessed 24 May, 2021. URL or Archive URL
- ↑ Joan Oates, "Agatha Christie, Nimrud and Baghdad", Agatha Christie and Archaeology (London:British Museum Press, 2001), 206.
- ↑ Indrajit Roy Choudhury, "Agatha Christie: A Life Full of Surprises", Indrosphere (blog), 8 Sep 2022. URL - this link also has many photos of the house as it appears now.
- ↑ Aya Mansour, "Agatha Christie and Ibrahim Jabra lived in it. The "Queen of Crime Literature" house in Baghdad is for sale", Aljazeera.net, 28 Aug 2022. URL (in Arabic). A translation can be found here but the original has many more photographs.
- ↑ D. J. W., "Dame Agatha Christie Mallowan D.B.E., HON.D.LITT., F.R.S.L." (obituary), Iraq, 38(1), I-I. URL