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| HISTORY |  |
| With the revival of the spirit and life of the Sultanate came a great interest in the country's origins. Encouraged by His Majesty, scholars started to investigate the remote past of this historic land where man first appeared after the last Ice Age, about 12,000 B.C. Though very little is known about the pre-Islamic past, many fascinating discoveries have been made. Archaeological sites dating back to the third millennium B.C. are believed to be contemporary with the region's Berber culture and the great river cultures of Mesopotamia and Mohenjodaro. Evidence has been found of trade between Sumer, a land which existed before Babylon, and Oman. | 
AL JALALI FORT |
Copper mining and smelting by the year 2,000 B.C. had become a sizeable industry, as revealed by excavations at locations in the Sohar area. The largest of these so far identified is at Lasail where, incidentally, copper mining has recently been resumed. It seems certain that the legendary country of "Magan" referred to in Sumerian tablets as a source of copper, was Oman. Frankincense, the aromatic gum used in ancient Egyptian and European rites, and traditionally offered by the Queen of Sheba to Solomon, was produced in Dhofar, in southern Oman. One of the most precious of the ancient world's commodities, it is another Omani product that is now being exploited as an essential base ingredient in a highly fashionable scent. Although trading, farming and fishing settlements existed in Oman as far back as the fourth millennium B.C., there is no evidence of any developed urban civilisation during this early period. One of the reasons may be that there was no great river where a city society would normally be centred. Also, Oman's terrain divided the country into three very distinct sorts of culture. Within the vastness of Oman's towering mountain spine existed self-sufficient, fiercely independent farming and pastoral communities that were already flourishing when the first Arab people came to Oman from southern Arabia some 2,000 years ago. In the foothills to the west and in the great deserts beyond, nomadic people led their own, very distinct life. Along the highly cultivated Batinah coast lived farmers, fishermen, merchants and sailors who were the people most exposed to the rest of the world by nature of their trades and geo graphical location. These ancient distinctions to some extent still exist, within the modem united Sultanate. Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire, dominated the area in the fourth century B.C. With the consequent introduction of the famous falaj system of underground irrigation, the prosperity of the Batinah greatly increased. Still in pre-Islamic times, tribes from the Yemen - legend has it that they came from the region of the famous Marib Dam - trickled into Oman. Later, the Azd tribal group, from which the present ruling family is descended, entered Oman. Much of Oman was then under the rule of the Persians, but the Azd were able to regain Oman from the Persian rule and spread Arab influence to all parts of the country. Islam came to Oman, and Abd and Jaifar, the sons of Julanda bin AI Mustakbar, embraced Islam.
| From the seventh to the fifteenth centuries Oman's maritime trade flourished. Omani ships regularly called at ports in Persia, India and South East Asia. As early as the eighth century, the fame of the great Omani seaman Abu Ubaida bin Abdulla bin al Qassim, who laid the foundations for scientific maritime navigation and made a 7,000 kilometre voyage from Oman to Canton (Guangzhou) in China, was widely known. As they travelled and traded, the Omanis spread the message of Islam as well as the Arabic language and culture. |  |
In 1507, nine years after Vasco da Cama rounded the Cape of Good Hope finding a sea route to India - allegedly being guided by the famous Omani navigator Ahmad bin Majid - a Portuguese fleet brutally sacked Muscat and within a year the Portuguese flag flew at several places along the coast. Nearly a century and a half later, in 1650, Sultan bin Saif al Yarubi reconquered Muscat. Then, having built up a powerful fleet for the war of liberation, he carried the war into the Indian Ocean, establishing a wealthy state with colonial possessions in East Africa.
Sayyid Said bin Sultan is an historically prominent Omani ruler who exercised power during the period 1804 -18%. During this time Oman's influence reached Zanzibar and other parts of East Africa in addition to provinces in Persia and Baluchistan. Muscat became an important commercial centre and meeting point for the entire Gulf area. Sayyid Said concentrated his efforts on developing and improving his country's commerce and economy. It was Sayyid Said, incidentally, who introduced the clove to Zanzibar, which he brought originally from Indonesia. These plantations provided a third of the Sultanate's budget. During his reign, Oman developed her relations with many parts of the world; a special envoy was sent to the United States in 1840 - the first Arab emissary to that country. Oman was thus the first country to establish diplomatic relations with the United States. It had already concluded agreements and conventions with Great Britain, France, Holland and other countries.
Thereafter, however, there followed a period of decline and, at the time of the First World War, Oman's share of international commercial activities was very limited. Indeed, Oman remained largely isolated from the rest of the world until, in 1970, His Majesty Sultan Qaboos came to power. His Majesty's reign was the beginning of a bright new era that renewed Oman's historic glories and opened a new chapter of development, prosperity and social and economic progress.
Last year saw the 250th anniversary of the rule of the AI Busaid family, and this year, 1995, sees the year of the Silver jubilee of the accession of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos, the 8th Sultan directly descended from this ancient line, which is recognised as the oldest ruling family in the Arab world in modem history.
The way of life for Omanis had changed hardly at all over the ages, until the discovery of oil a little over twenty years ago. True, prosperity had fluctuated through the centuries, the best times being linked to the expansion of overseas trade, but wealth only ever came to the few.
There had always been a fairly sharp division, too, between the coastal towns and those of the interior. The towns of the coast were the first to enjoy the results of foreign trade; they suffered less often from inter-tribal strife, being rather set apart, but they were subject every now and then to devastating attacks by foreign powers. Today the divisions, which often made Oman a series of separate and more or less independent areas, have dissolved in the general wave of prosperity. Development has touched even the most remote areas; motor tracks and concrete houses have reached all but the most physically in-accessible villages. Much of traditional Oman is still there to be explored, but as Oman moves further forward into the modern world, old 0man recedes into the past.
The atmosphere in Muscat was electric in the summer of 1970. Despite the great heat, people were out in the streets in excited groups, quite evidently rejoicing. Bright redbanners the emblem of the sultan, hung from the roofs and windows of every palm frond hut, mud-brick cottage, and tall merchant house. Streamers fluttered across the narrow alleys of the souq and red banners were strung across the roadways. Even the town gates and walls were decorated with bright red drapes.
The people were out in the streets to greet the arrival of their Sultan. There was little traffic on any of the roads in those days and the crowds thronged there at ease. This was a very special occasion for the Sultan of Muscat and Oman had not set foot in his capital for the past 12 years. It was even more special for the people were out to meet their new, young Sultan. His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said AI-Said had just taken power from his father, the elderly Sultan Said bin Taimur AI-Said, who had spent the latter years of his rule cloistered in Salalah in the far south of the country. ln July 1970, Qaboos, anxious for his homeland, took over from his father, who abdicated and retired to England.
The Muscat to which Sultan Qaboos came, after six years spent in Salaliah at his father's bidding, was like a town from the past, a picture book place which would hardly have looked out of place in the Middle Ages. The town was completely surrounded by an ancient wall, pierced by three gateways which were closed at night. Most of the houses within the wall had been built in the prosperous times of the last century, substantial two-storey houses with high ceilings and light rooms. The souq was a huddle of narrow lanes and tinyshops. lt was a town with which all visitors fell in love on sight, but as a modern capital it had its drawbacks.
Access into Muscat was severely limited, being by one small, steep road over the hills from Muttrah. While this had been an advantage when the town was first built, for it could be easily defended, it was hardly helpful in the days of motor transport. The scope of the town was equally restricted; so small is the bay into which muscat town is packed that very little extra building could ever be undertaken there. Above all, there was no telephone and no radio by which His Majesty could talk to his new subjects.
The speed with which their new Sultan intended to work was demonstrated to his people within that first week when a radio station was installed and Sultan Qaboos addressed his people. His words were ones of hope: "Oman in the past has been in darkness but, with the help of God, a new dawn will rise for Oman and her people."
Oman had been a prosperous colonial power in the first half of the 19th century. During the long reign of Sultan Said bin Sultan AI Bu Said her empire in East Africa was developed to its most profitable extent. Zanzibar especially was the jewel in the crown, producing cloves, sugar cane and cinnamon, while from Mombasa came ivory and slaves.
The fine merchant houses of Muscat, Muttrah and many small towns in the interior area legacy of the wealth generated by that trade. Indeed, so important had the African empire become that in the latter part of his life Sultan Said bin Sultan settled in Zanzibar, just as Sultan Said bin Taimur settled in Salalah a little over a century later.
But when Sultan Said died in 1856, his sons shared his dominions, one taking Oman, the other Zanzibar. The prosperity of Oman collapsed without its African possessions; fairly soon the prosperity of Zanzibar collapsed too without Omani support, and Britain took control of the island in 1890. Oman now entered a long period of decline and debt which successive Sultans failed to check. In 1932 Sultan Said bin Taimur came to power as a young man of 22, on his father's abdication, and determined seriously to tackle the problem of Oman's growing debts. By measures of strict economy he controlled the deficit and his proudest claim was that "from 1933 until this present day there has been no financial deficit in the government's budget".
Under these circumstances, of course, there was no development either. The people struggled on with a subsistence economy, many of them living in extreme poverty. James Morris, who made an epic tour in the interior with the Sultan in 1955, described the people who came to greet them as poor, thin and crippled, bent and pock marked. And the children, he said, had "such pitiably thin bodies, and such big protruding goggle eyes".
All this is such a far cry from the healthy population of today, and especially from the crowds of energetic children who throng every town and village in 0man, that it would be hard to credit so great a change, had it not been seen within the lifetime of the people.
Deprivation led to disturbances in inner Oman in the 1950s so that Sultan Said, weary of the troubles, retreated in 1958 to Salalah. But it was only a matter of a few years before trouble was brewing near Salalah as well, for in 1965 the jebel war broke out in Dhofar. Sultan Said was well aware of all that needed to be done for his people, but development had been severely handicapped by lack of funds. When oil revenues started to flow in 1967, he was confronted with a daunting task and had no governmental infrastructure with which to carry it out. Nevertheless some development projects such as new hospitals and a port were started.
Over the years, too, his fear that western ways would corrupt his people had led to numerous petty restrictions. The people were not allowed to smoke in the street, nor to wear glasses or western clothes, nor play football. Singing and dancing were banned, men could not move away from their own district without permission, andwomen had to stay in their village. There was little traffic on the road; to import a car or truck or tractor the Sultan's personal permission had to be sought (about 1000 vehicles had been imported by 1970, most of them for the army and oil companies). By 1970 Oman boasted 10 kilometres of asphalted road, from the airport at Bait al Falaj to Muscat, electricity only in Muscat and Muttrah, one hospital established and run by the American mission and five clinics.