Inside the haunted palace

Every request for directions to the haunted palace came back with the same response: “You don’t need directions, it finds you.”

As it turned out, the vast, sprawling mansion was easy to spot. Perched on a hilltop along the main road in A Diat, a suburb of Ras al Khaimah, it stood abandoned, with broken windows that kept watch over a driveway that began at a rusty gate.

The palace, said to be worth Dh500 million (US$70m), was abandoned more than 20 years ago by Sheikh Abdulaziz al Qassimi, because, as a family member put it, “there was no luck in the house”.

Although abandoned, the house is not empty, said people who live near its looming walls.

“You hear a woman screaming as if she is being strangled and you see what looks like little children watching you from the roof as you walk by,” said Khaled Abdullah, who lives nearby.

The “woman” is said to be a jinn, a supernatural creature that can take human form. The al Qassimi Palace is home to not just one, but an entire tribe, people here believed.

Mr Abdullah said he had seen the spectres, but only from afar. He has never dared to enter the palace grounds.

“These children always come out at night and just watch you and sometimes even call out your name,” he said, gesturing with his hands.

“Khaled, Khaled, they would call,” Mr Abdullah said, imitating the childlike voice he claimed to have heard. “Never. I will never go in.”

The National was made of sterner stuff. A reporter and photographer set out to explore the building, accompanied by Sheikh Tarik Abdel Moneim Ibrahim, an Egyptian exorcist and Islamic scholar.

Entering the three-storey building, visitors are greeted by an engraved marble verse blessing from the Quran.

After the reporter read the verse out loud, one of the three large crystal chandeliers in the main hall suddenly lit up. The other two remained dark.

The light showed intricate colourful murals, and mosaics of animals, women, and green fields covering the walls of the hexagonal shaped palace. Many of the figures had their eyes covered with white sheets of paper.

“To block the jinn from seeing us,” explained Mr Ibrahim.

There was evidence of other intruders. Statues of falcons with their heads broken off, tiles peeled from the walls and scorch marks on the floors of the main bathrooms, along with broken egg shells and twigs.

“All kinds of witch doctors from Africa and sheikhs from Saudi Arabia have come through here to try to cleanse this house,” said Mr Ibrahim, pointing to ripped pieces of the Quran, and the remains of animal sacrifices.

The strangest thing about this is that an Islamic scholar is guarding the house, IMHO.

Original article found here.