HOME to furniture flying around, the faces of children trapped in windows, objects going missing, this is said to be the world’s most haunted palace.
Ras Al Khaimah’s Al Qasimi Jinn Palace had been left to rot and decay for over three decades, after Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Humaid Al Qasimi and his family fled from it in terror – having moved in the same day.
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Adorned with marble floors, glass chandeliers, and multiple works of art, the four-storey, 35 bedroom palace was meticulously sculpted for 15 years with the Sheikh in mind.
When it was completed, in 1985, it was estimated to be worth 500 million AED, or £107 million, which would have been a staggering £317 million today.
According to legend, on the day the Sheikh moved in he was subjected to furniture flying across the room, faces appearing on the windows and in the walls, and objects unexplainedly going missing.
He fled immediately, believing that supernatural spirits were roaming its halls.
The theory stands that “jinn”, evil spirits, hate development and so they inhabit abandoned places.
The palace’s paranormal reputation proceeds it and, although it was uninhabited for decades, thrill seekers from across the world travelled to visit it.
One such thrill seeker, Anjaly Thomas, heard tales that occasional screams emanated out of the palace.
After years of disuse, the house featured footsteps in the dust, shattered glass scattered around, broken statues, and overturned furniture.
Portraits of menacing maidens seemed to watch Anjaly’s every move, the furniture became increasingly erratically placed, and then there was the basement – where the word “gooooo” was written in blood red on the walls.
As well as thrill seekers, holy men came to the palace vowing to pray away the unwelcome spirits.
They removed the eyes of the menacing maidens, men and animals that decorated the walls – as they thought that it was the depiction of living forms that attracted the jinn.
The palace lay unused, disintegrating slowly but surely for decades, until it finally fell into new ownership a few years ago.
Tareq Al Sharhan, the new owner, wants people to see the palace as it was originally intended, a special, artistic, beautiful place.
“In the 1980s, this was something very special,” he said to local media.
“I thought I could change its story to something better, something cultural, something for tourists.”
After years of negotiating, and attempting to wrangle a contract, the restoration process took just six months.
Now, visitors to the formerly abandoned palace can expect to see the full four flours in all of their initial – and less haunted – glory.
The 35 rooms have had expensive paintings and sculptures returned to them, the 40 crystal chandeliers have been restored, Moroccan wall tiles repainted and re-stuck, and antiques from all over the world.
Although Al Sharhan won’t divulge on how much the palace cost him, he did say the price was worth it.
Since the palace’s grand reopening, it has become one of the most popular tourist destinations in Ras Al Khaimah.
There are plans to renovate it further, which has led to some speculation that the public might be able stay in one of the palace’s rooms in the future.
Just a few miles away, hundreds of deserted islands sit eerily along Dubai’s coast.
Built at the staggering cost of £10billion, the design was supposed to look like the five continents of the world from an aerial view, split up into individual islands representing each country.
But the World Islands project left Dubai with an expensive reminder that some ideas are simply too big to pull off.
The financial troubles that took over the world in 2008 severely damaged the United Arab Emirates economy – particularly the real estate sector.
An estimated £300billion in projects were forced to be scaled back, put on hold or cancelled.
While the world’s tallest building was also abandoned recently – after a decade of work.
Billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed Bin Tala’s one-kilometre-high tower in Saudi Arabia came to an abrupt halt amid a power play between the uber rich.
It was reported he was evasive over claims he paid $6billion to secure his release.
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