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The last fifty years mark a period of great change in the role of religious leadership and education in the Sultanate of Oman. The country moved from bifurcated leadership between an Imam and a Sultan to a single political authority. These decades also witnessed the modernisation of the state. These factors combined to reshape the place of religion and religious education in society. Whereas previously religious leaders had relative autonomy and more direct political influence, now they were brought under the auspices of the government with their focus circumscribed to religious matters. The structures and foci of religious education were then reshaped so that tradition provided a platform for progress and the more zealous ideologies emerging in the region could be held at bay. This has permitted Oman to modernise and engage with a global society in an amicable, non-sectarian, manner.

The Kharijites were an early movement of anti-government activists, self-proclaimed pious rebels who began their protests in the seventh century of the common era. Their initial complaint was against ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān (d. 656 CE), the third Caliph, for what they perceived as abuses of power and improper execution of Divine Law. Throughout Islamic history, many groups have appeared to protest deeply corrupt systems and injustices. Many women participated vigorously in anti-government protests, many going so far as to take up arms. Even today, any group engaged in governmental protest or anti-government activities might easily be dubbed Kharijites and thus dismissed as “extremist.” This paper focuses on women in Kharijite movements of late antiquity. The sources for this inquiry are early writers including Jāḥiẓ (d. 869 CE), Mubarrad (d. 900 CE), and Ṭabarī (d. 923 CE), with reference to the modern-era biographical compendium of ʿUmar Riḍā al-Kaḥḥāla. The three women discussed span three generations of Kharijite activity. Each of the three has a story with the ruler of the time. For Qaṭām, it is a story of revenge against the Caliph ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (d. 660 CE). For Baljāʾ, it is one of political protest against the Caliph Muʿāwiya (d. 680 CE), directed against his governors Ziyād ibn Abīhi (d. 673 CE) and his son ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Ziyād (d. 686 CE). And for Ghazāla, it is a story of a year of battle and bloodshed during the rule of the Umayyad Caliph ʿAbd al-Mālik ibn Marwān's (d. 705 CE) tyrannical governor, al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf (d. 714 CE). The ways these deeply opinionated and activist women are depicted provide telling insight into how Muslim historiography has grappled with women revolutionaries.

Based on dissertation research in the port city of Sur, historically significant both for trans-oceanic seafaring and trade, and more specifically for its connection to the east coast of Africa, this article analyzes the African-derived performance genres that dominate Sur's music scene within an ever-elusive concept of Africa. The sacred healing rituals zār, mikwarā, and ṭambūra; and the secular genres, mdema, and fann is-ṣawt have been renamed funūn taqlīdīya or traditional arts, national nomenclature that collects the myriad traditions of the country while marginalizing differential identities. Rhetorically, Suri musicians not only adopt, they also emphasize their national Omani identity, while expressing their African identity as of the "other." Musically, however, their approach to performance, including the use of Swahili texts, the predominance of body movement, and multi-layered musical textures produced by a variety of instruments from East Africa, reveals, I argue, the musicians' African identity as a "self." The seemingly binary "self" identities articulated by Suri musicians through two differing modes of expression (rhetoric and performance) illustrate not only the problematic nature of the concept of Africa in Oman, but also highlights how simplistically the African presence in Oman has been treated in the music scholarship of this country.

This article unpacks ethnographic research conducted in 2010–2011 and in 2012 among cultural activists and reformers who are using music as a generative force toward the development of collective identities in a geopolitical space. I analyze three domains of cultural production and consider how the Sultan's initiatives have resulted in the embodiment of artistic consumption and connoisseurship that are required for musical life in the public sphere: first are the Sultan's privately controlled military bands, Arab music ensembles, and symphony orchestra; second are public arts festivals that nurture and celebrate traditional music and dance; third is the domain of Omani popular music facilitated by Arab regional interculturalism and media flows that depend significantly on practitioners from Egypt, Iraq, and other Gulf states. I show how these domains of music and dance work to enable the imagination of a cultural space and time for Oman and its historical and contemporary relationships with the Arab world, Africa, Asia, and "the West." The ethnographic focus on the Salalah Festival in the Dhofar province, provides a close-up shot of the workings of the state at the local level in a context that is both far from the control of the capitol city, Muscat, but that also reproduces many of the relations of dominance and resistance that is an inevitable artifact of political power and cultural policy.

This article situates the musical traditions of Oman in the broader context of the Arabian Peninsula and Indian Ocean. Trade, slavery, and pilgrimage prompted the creation of networks that extended across the Indian Ocean for hundreds of years and facilitated deep and lasting cultural exchanges. Oman has played an important role in these networks and this is deeply reflected in many of the local musical traditions. Since about the middle of the 20th century, countries in the Arabian Gulf (sometimes referred to as the GCC, Gulf Cooperation Council, plus Yemen) have made strides toward establishing independent nationalism in the contemporary race for unique identities; however, their histories, peoples, and musical traditions, particularly those of nomadic Bedouins and coastal seafaring populations, have overlapped for many centuries. I attempt to sketch out some comparisons, particularly in terms of performance practice, between Oman and the rest of the Gulf States with a focus on maritime music, the music that occurred "on the decks of dhows," the traditional sailing vessel of the Arabian Gulf. My theoretical grounding for this article engages with frameworks for cultural transmission and explores their relevance to the Gulf. By looking at historical accounts and previous scholarship, alongside ethnographic research, I describe some of the conduits for sharing musical influence with the broader Indian Ocean cultural space. Lastly, I critically examine some of the historiographies that have been created around these exchanges and their valence to the political economy of cultural heritage in the region.

Trois méthodes de lutte ont été appliquées contre la Cochenille blanche du Palmier-dattier Parlatorio blanchardi (Targioni-Tozzetti) en Algérie. La lutte physique à l'aide du flambage a conduit à un pourcentage de mortalité des cochenilles de 92,2 et semble être la plus efficace. La lutte chimique à l'aide d'un insecticide a eu un effet significatif puisqu'elle a provoqué des pourcentages de mortalité de 73,2 et 80,0 selon la parcelle. La lutte biologique à l'aide de Coccinelles a quant à elle conduit à des pourcentages de mortalité relativement faibles, de 18,1 et 19,7. Il faut toutefois aussi tenir compte de l'effet de la méthode de lutte sur les populations d'auxiliaires avant d'opter pour l'une d'entre elles. Or, nous avons constaté que les traitements physique et chimique ont provoqué une très forte mortalité des auxiliaires (78,8 à 89,4%). En revanche, la méthode biologique a préservé la faune utile et donc l'équilibre biologique dans le biotope. Cette dernière méthode semble ainsi mieux adaptée au milieu palmeraie, agro-système à la fois complexe et fragile où toute perturbation brutale peut être fatale et irréversible.