Al Ain Palace: The Shaikh’s 37-room home
At the southern end of Al Ain Oasis is the Palace Museum, another royal home. If Qasr Al Muwaiji is the birthplace of Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed, Al Ain Palace is where his younger brother, General Shaikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Supreme Commander of UAE Armed Forces and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, spent the first years of his life.
‘This was Shaikh Zayed’s main residence in Al Ain,’ says Omar Salem Al Kaabi, historic buildings researcher at TCA Abu Dhabi.
‘It was built in different stages. Initially, it was just a mud room, built with palm tree wood. After that, the palace was built in 1937. We believe it was used as a summer house, but we don’t know for whom,’ he adds.
‘In the second stage, in the mid-1950s, Shaikh Zayed built a house for himself and his wife, Her Highness Shaikha Fatima Bint Mubarak, Chairwoman of the General Women’s Union, and her relatives. The third stage was from 1960 to 1963, when Shaikh Zayed built the two-storey majlis and also the bridge that connected Shaikha Fatima’s rooms with his rooms.’
In 1964-65, a school, a clinic, and a main gate were added – not the modern entrance gate built during the last restoration, but the original gate, just after the entrance.
In 1966, when he became Ruler of Abu Dhabi, Shaikh Zayed and his family moved to the coast, but the relatives of Shaikha Fatima stayed on until 1982.
In 1998, the palace was restored and also enlarged. The long corridor near the entrance, the administrative area and the Al Nahyan family tree wall feature were added at this time. The 15,635 square metre Al Ain Palace Museum opened to the public in 2001.
‘The palace has five sections: The Shaikha Fatima quarters, the majlis complex, the school, the quarters for the relatives of Shaikha Fatima and the new buildings that were added during the 1988 restoration,’ says Al Kaabi.
‘Because it is built at different stages, there are various building materials, from mud and palm wood to stones, metal, even cement. It wasn’t cement like you know it today. In the