The Inmate of Oman

In Search of a Forgotten and Lost Legacy

Abstract

Historically the geography of Oman has exercised a strong influence on the development of the country. Broadly speaking, Omani history experienced two largely self-contained units: the coast and the interior. This division between the coast and the interior had tribal, religious as well as political elements best viewed in the emergence of two different legacies: the Imamate of interior Oman and the Sultanate of coastal Muscat. Interior Oman served as an Arab and Ibadi stronghold, mountainous and difficult of access, an area of fundamental tribal and religious loyalties that were based on generations of enduring tradition. The development of Ibadism as an integral part of the Omani culture was complemented by the imposition of the religious and political institution of the Imam upon the tribal component of Oman's society. Coastal Oman, by contrast, was relatively cosmopolitan and outward looking. Actually, between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries Oman had built one of the notable non-European empires, spanning both the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean. It is with the former tradition, largely ignored by the outside world and hence by historical research, that this article is concerned. It explores the nature of thetribal-cum-Imamate system, mainly the minimal state apparatus that tribes are able to develop in order to maintain some form of regional cohesiveness and thus permit the exploitation of their resources.