Once a commercial hub for Parsis, the islands
off Africa now have only one family living there
amid vestiges of the past
Khursheed E. Eduljee
Five thousand kilometers southeast of Bombay on a Zanzibar island stands the quaint Tembo Hotel — a hotel that once housed the offices of the Cowasjee Dinshaw Brothers of Aden. It is located in the old capital of Zanzibar now called Stone Town, the present old quarter of Zanzibar City. The islands of Zanzibar are situated off the central-eastern coast of Africa.
According to Prof John Hinnells, the first Parsi to do business in Zanzibar was an agent of Seth Kamani. That was around the year 1830. On arriving in Zanzibar, Kamani’s agent was so appalled with the Arab slave trade......