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The British Empire employed a diverse range of strategies to establish and then maintain control over its overseas territories in the Middle East. This new interpretation of how Britain maintained order, protected its interests and carried out its defence obligations in the Gulf in the decades before its withdrawal from the region in 1971 looks at how the British government increasingly sought to achieve security with great economy of force by building up local militaries instead of deploying costly military forces from the home country. Benefitting from the extensive use of recently declassified British Government archival documents and India Office records, this highly original narrative weighs the successes and failures of Britain's use of 'indirect rule' among the small states of Eastern Arabia, including Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the seven Trucial States and Oman. Drawing important lessons for scholars and policymakers about the limitations of trying to outsource security to local partners, Security in the Gulf is a remarkable study of the deployment of British colonial policy in the Middle East before 1971.

Pour les Zunûj d’Arabie orientale, le rite de possession ramsat-al-leiwah est une pratique à caractère thérapeutique. Il est supposé guérir les individus des maladies et des tourments infligés par des esprits nommés as-sawâḥili. Ainsi, il n’est pas rare, au cours de ses réalisations, que des actes agressifs soient perpétrés entre esprits de possession, entre participants humains, voire entre esprits et êtres humains. Dans ces situations, les Zunûj utilisent l’expression arabe rabsha pour qualifier ces actes répréhensibles. Ce terme renvoie simultanément à deux significations : la nuisance et le chaos. Or, de leur point de vue, il est essentiel que tous – humains et esprits – observent entre eux une attitude respectueuse et sans hostilité. Cela s’accorde avec le caractère festif recherché pour le bon déroulement du rite, d’autant plus que, pour être considéré comme réussi, il doit s’achever dans la bonne entente et l’harmonie entre tous les participants humains et les esprits. C’est à partir d’un exemple extrait d’une réalisation de ce rite datant de 2009 au Sultanat d’Oman que cet article propose d’explorer les expressions de l’agressivité en contexte rituel en se fondant sur une micro-analyse de l’engagement des différents acteurs et de leurs interactions.

On the 464th anniversary of the Naval Battle of Djerba, the Ottoman Empire's decisive victory under Captain-General Piyale Pasha is commemorated, highlighting their supremacy in the Mediterranean and the strategic significance of defending Djerba Island against the Spanish Crusader Navy...

This paper seeks to examine the legacy of the Omani presence in the states of Malaysia, which arguably has made itself apparent in the royal dress of the Kedah Sultanate. This discovery indeed calls for further investigation, especially on how the Omani dress later became a model for Kedah royal dress which is famously known as Baju Muskat. Further analysis is essential to determine to what extent did the Kedah Sultanate adopted the Omani dress of the Muscati style and what aspects of the Kedah royal dress resemble the Omani dress substantially. Preliminary research indicates that there are few similarities that one can find between the Omani dress with that of the Kedah royal dress, which is said to be worn by the latter since the 17th century. Reading through the existing literature in the field also reveals one interesting picture that points to the underrepresentation of Omani individuals, merchants, and scholars in the Malay texts as the former tends to describe them, often as Arab traders, or Persian traders. In short, this paper has attempted to explore and examine the above-mentioned circumstances for a better understanding of the subject matter under study through a method of content analysis. Keywords: Well-being, Happiness, Subsistence, Ethical Principles, Arab-Muslim Thought

Abstract This article treats cliticization of a pronoun to a syntactic host and doubling of the clitic pronoun with a non-pronominal counterpart in Syrian and Omani Arabic. Although the two varieties are closely related and the morphological paradigms they display are very similar, the pronominalization and clitic pronoun doubling patterns they display are quite different. We trace this difference to a basic difference in whether the relevant syntactic processes are sensitive to intervention effects in the two dialects, with the result being that the restrictiveness of pronominalization and clitic pronoun doubling patterns parallel the restrictiveness of basic word order patterns – whether double-object constructions are ‘symmetric’ or ‘asymmetric’ – with Syrian being the more restrictive of the two varieties.

In a world that is increasingly hostile towards religious minorities, this paper tries to set a modern-day, successful example of multi-religious coexistence and interfaith dialogue. The paper examines historical examples derived from Omani history and explores Omani characteristics by surveying Western reports written by missionaries, visitors, and travellers of different religions in Oman. This is meant to demonstrate the hypothesis that the multi-religious coexistence and interfaith dialogue enjoyed today by the nearly fourmillion Omani population is a natural result of a long history of commitment to ‘Omani values’ and principles, practised by Oman’s Ibāḍī population with their fellow nonMuslims. The paper concludes that there is a strong correlation between the ‘Omani values’ recorded by the Western writers and the ongoing deeply rooted Omani experience of peaceful religious coexistence and interfaith dialogue. These ‘Omani values’ include the principles of tolerance, social justice, mutual respect, friendliness, hospitality, and simplicity. Finally, owing to the increasingly rising tensions between adherents of different religions, the paper recommends that such successful Omani experiences should be exported to other countries in the Muslim world and elsewhere.

This article discusses how the Soviet Union perceived and related to Middle Eastern revolutionary movements, using a case study from South Yemen and the War in Dhofar. This specific Soviet encounter will be analysed through selected Soviet material from published and archival sources. The article highlights how Soviet representatives assessed prospects for socialism in Yemen, and how they interacted with their partners on the ground. The article is divided into three parts: the first discusses the theoretical debates in Soviet academia and the press, the second section contrasts these theoretical views with Middle Eastern ‘socialist’ theories during the Cold War and the third shows how a symbiosis developed between Soviet and Yemeni institutions and organisations. The article argues that due to an Orientalist take on South Yemen and Dhofar, the Soviet side could not appreciate the political importance and potential of socialist currents in the region, reducing cooperation to ‘pragmatism’.

Abstract Julfar was a major port town of the Persian Gulf during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries AD. A possession of the Hormuzi empire, it was a lucrative source of taxes and pearls, and a port of trade for northern Oman, tapping into maritime trading networks connecting the Middle East with Africa, India, Southeast Asia and China. The site is found north of modern Ras Al‐Khaimah, UAE. Julfar Al‐Nudud was previously considered to be a late suburb of an urban core, Julfar Al‐Mataf, and is located on a creek opposite the latter. However, excavations in 2010 indicated that Al‐Nudud was part of the original urban core, which had grown up on either side of the creek. Moreover, re‐examination of previous work in Al‐Mataf, where a large mosque and fortification were excavated (by British and French teams), shows that the two areas followed different trajectories. Significant occupation in Al‐Nudud and southern Al‐Mataf (revealed by previous Japanese excavations) ended before the start of the sixteenth century, while use of the mosque and fort in central Al‐Mataf continued into the seventeenth century, albeit discontinuously. A revised concordance of the phases derived from the work of various archaeological teams is therefore proposed.

Abstract This study introduces and analyzes proximal and distal singular demonstratives in fourteen varieties of Musandam Arabic, a little-documented dialect group located on Musandam Peninsula in northern Oman and neighbouring areas of the United Arab Emirates. Following an overview of the dialect group in its regional context, the study provides a description of singular demonstratives from the point of view of phono-logy, morphology, and geographical distribution. The study then focuses on two salient features found in several of the varieties under investigation: gender distinction based on consonantal alternation ( d -based masculine forms vs t -based feminine forms); and gemination of the feminine t -element. While the former is attested, albeit rarely, in other Arabic dialects, the latter is unheard of. In the last section of the article, some hypotheses are put forward as to how these forms could have developed from a historical point of view, in light of data from different Arabic and Semitic varieties. While the gemination of the t -element is best regarded as a Musandam-internal innovation, the d : t consonantal alternation reinforces the putative historical link between south-western Arabia and Oman.

Abstract Rapid growth coupled with the prevailing land allocation system in Oman led to a shift from compact dwellings typologies to detached single-family houses, arranged in monofunctional zoning systems that exclusively rely on cars. Due to the sprawled transformation, authorities are unable to provide new neighborhoods with basic infrastructure and attractive open spaces. Consequently, the level of non-communicable diseases is increasing, making urban regeneration programs promoting active lifestyles in built environments a matter of public health. In our research we explore participative-planning strategies to enhance pedestrian activity within existing neighborhoods and regenerate public spaces. We conducted a quantitative survey using a standard walkability scale and physical maps to identify barriers to pedestrian activity. Subsequently, we employed the data to frame culturally sensitive co-creation workshops, gaining in-depth knowledge to guide future redesign proposals. We found that mosques are walking magnets yet engender contrasting views with regard to walkability; finding solutions to the spatial problems could develop them into walkable cores. We also observed that residents were aware of health problems caused by lack of physical activity and how that links with the built environment they inhabit. They were eager to discuss solutions, including alternative governance models, as long as the process was short and produced immediate small interventions with high-level impact on their surroundings. We employed a fine-grained combination of methods to address site-specific challenges. Its quantitative data allows the insertion in a broader discourse and the linkage to a large body of research in walkability. Co-creation workshops, especially city games, proved to be a powerful tool to initiate dialogue on complex spatial negotiation, even in societies where participatory approaches do not have a well-established tradition.

This article examines a little-known corpus of illuminated Qurʾān manuscripts that were produced between ca. 1750–ca. 1850 in the Swahili city-states of Pate, Siyu, and Faza on Pate Island in the Lamu archipelago (Kenya). Now dispersed in collections in Kenya, Tanzania, Oman, the UK, and the USA, the manuscripts have many distinctive features: decorative frontispieces, sūra titles, basmalas, and division and prostration markers; locally developed Arabic script styles; colophons containing names of copyists and completion dates; endowment dedications; northern Italian-made paper; and, blind-stamped, leather covers. The list of known manuscripts presented in the appendix is aimed at encouraging the identification, digitization, and study of other manuscripts in the corpus. The study of their content, materiality, and contexts of production can advance scholarship on the histories of Islamic manuscript production in coastal East Africa and provide comparative material for manuscript studies in other regions of Eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean.

For a long time, analysts of the Middle East have justifiably focused their attention on Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, three Gulf states holding massive hydrocarbon deposits and financial resources. Their leaders are the main “movers and shakers” of regional affairs and enjoy tremendous influence on the international scene. Still, other Gulf states play significant roles in shaping the Middle East's economic and strategic landscape. Such is the case with Oman, which has been a major US ally in most regional crises and has played a crucial role in mediating Gulf conflicts. This article, based on several visits to the sultanate and interviews with senior officials, analyzes the domestic, regional, and international dynamics being navigated by Sultan Haitham bin Tarik, who succeeded Sultan Qaboos bin Said in January 2020. The argument is that the new Omani leader is likely to follow the domestic and foreign policies of his predecessor, with minor adjustments. Oman may witness major changes when Crown Prince Theyazin succeeds his father. For now, given the crucial role Muscat plays in mediating regional conflicts, the sultanate expects more attention from its counterparts in Washington.

This study presents recent findings on the famous city wall of Bahla in Central Oman. A previously unstudied register, housed under the title Al-Sūr al-Muḥīṭ (“The Encircling Wall”) in the Ministry of Heritage and Culture in Muscat, provides unique insight into the management and maintenance of the wall during the years 1967–1977, right on the eve of the rapid and pervasive process of state modernisation initiated under Sultan Qaboos.

Mobile peoples in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world have faced enormous pressure throughout the twentieth and twentieth-first centuries to change their way of life, to settle down and remain in one place. The notion that a settled existence is more modern than a mobile one continues to dominate expert thinking as a continuation of late nineteenth-century social evolutionist theories of the progress of civilisation. Most of the modern nation-states of the Middle East have approached their mobile pastoral peoples with a determined view to making them stay put in one place and give up their pastoral subsistence livelihoods. Settlement schemes, it was assumed, would assure political and economic control over these difficult-to-emplace-and-control peoples. The development aid efforts, both bi-lateral and international, throughout the twentieth century followed these same biases and were designed to make mobile or nomadic peoples ‘modern’, using principles developed during the colonial era such as terra nullius, which declared all land not held privately as empty, and thus belonging to the state so that it could be disposed of or developed as the state wished. By the end of the twentieth century, most pastoral peoples’ grazing lands had been expropriated and sed-entarisation schemes of one sort or another were the mechanisms of choice. Pastoral peoples in Oman, however, had some success in challenging the notion of terra nullius in the deserts of the country. A younger generation of ‘citizen’ herders have been able to parlay further multinational oil industry intervention to support their continued mobility in the deserts of Oman and subsistence pastoral livelihoods.I begin the chapter with a brief examination of the ways in which mobile pastoral communities in the Middle East have faced and then navigated around government land expropriation and sedentarisation efforts to create multi-resource livelihood successes without always being forced to settle. I then examine the situation in Oman, where a more ‘enlightened’ state policy regarding settlement was enacted and where oil concerns have been paramount. Determined to provide social benefits to its mobile pastoral communities without forcing them to settle, the government of Oman extended basic services to these communities late into the twentieth century.

Abstract This survey is a review listing some key legislative and executive measures of the government of Oman in the year 2021–2022, which have relevance to mainly the rights of the migrant workers. Further, and in less detail, this survey also refers to some of the developments pertinent to the rights of women living in Oman. However, more generally these rights are less relevant to women who are not Omani nationals. Oman is a member country of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The GCC comprises six states in the Arab-Gulf region: Oman, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. These oil-producing states have a significant proportion of foreign workforce in the population. Foreign workers work mostly in the private sector and are also residents in the host countries. At 46.5 per cent, Oman has a relatively lower proportion of migrants in its population among the GCC members (UN DESA, 2020). Therefore, a broader spectrum of governments’ measures relating to the issues like labour, entry and residence, and ownership of property or business touch the lives of the foreign/migrant workers or expatriates in the Gulf country. Governments’ initiatives targeting domestic workers are relevant also for women because they comprise the majority in this group. The survey notes that most of the governmental activity in Oman in the past year largely concern new laws or amendments of the existing legislation and regulations linked to labour and residency matters. Some of the more relevant ones that the survey has selected here confirms this. It also marks the period post the pandemic, which had posed considerable economic challenge for the government. Hence, as also some neighbouring Gulf countries, Oman has shown a balance of measures. On the one hand, to revive its economic dynamism and competitiveness by facilitating more ease and benefits to attract and retain foreign labour and investment in the country. On the other hand, with measures such as increased nationalization effort and support expressly favouring the national workforce to boost their more active participation in the labour market. The new labour law declared by the Omani government and its signing of the Maritime Labour Convention are a few notable highlights. The survey has essentially drawn on the government’s documents and announcements as available in English or translated text, in addition to information in the press and other relevant sources.