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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.

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.

When Oman joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative to pursue economic diversification, the US intervened to stop it. Although the foundation stone for Chinese investment plans was laid in 2017, these projects were put on hold, while the US rushed to bolster its military presence in Oman. The article studies Chinese investment in Oman, accounts for what has developed so far, and highlights the reasons for which the US acted to stem the potential of non-oil development in Oman. The disruption of the China-Oman diversification project resembles the US’s targeting of China’s policy of expansion by mutual cooperation elsewhere, but with a twist: Oman sits close to two vital chokepoints, the Bab Al-Mandeb and the Hormuz straits. The article argues that such obstruction is central to the US’s mode of accumulation by militarism. Keeping Oman from auto-developing and building its autonomy makes of it a pliable client state ready to serve as an imperialist post to empire.

This study focuses on the multiple ways in which the Hindu community in Oman negotiates its religious identity in an Islamic country by strategically using its historic mercantile relations with the ruling families, maximising the use of public-private spaces, and creating and participating in transnational networks as ways to cope with state restrictions. Using Vertovec’s notion of ‘complexifying complex diasporas,’ this study examines how Hindus, while being publicly ‘invisible,’ have been able to possess a continuing cultural platform which is leveraged to acquire opportunities for religious performance. However, challenges to such strategic belonging have been rising rapidly with the rise of right wing Hindu ideology within and outside India. The repercussions of the establishment of a Hindu state in India on its diaspora, particularly in an officially Muslim country, are rife with challenges. Alternative strategies may have to be explored by the community to assert its identity and religious practices, as well as secure its future in Oman.

Scholarship on the Arab Gulf region often links heritage production with technologies of state pedagogy in its efforts to fix the spatial boundaries of a nation and entrench authoritarian rule. Yet, such a modular explanation ignores pressing questions regarding how statist narratives domesticate heterogeneous populations and regulate social difference. This paper explores the ways in which official accounts of the historical past have interpellated the material traces of diasporic communities, specifically the enclave of a minority community in Oman, the al-Lawati with links to the Sind region of the Indian sub-continent. The Sur al Lawati, a fortified residential enclosure of the Al Lawati community, draws from Gujarati traditional architecture rather than the surrounding Muscat cityscape. The sur (enclosure) has been mobilized as a token of the nation's pluralist history as an Indian Ocean trading power. This is consistent with Oman's expanding culture industry, which since the 1970s has generated history-making practices to sediment a homogenous Arab and general Islamic identity. However, using archival and ethnographic research, I argue that the enclave's material presence has presided over the complexities of a more entangled history in which the boundaries of this community of merchants and retailers have been reconfigured over the course of the 20th century. The very act of incorporating the sur and its residents into the history of a national people is grounded on the one hand in celebrating a cosmopolitan past as a sea-faring nation that traversed the Indian Ocean waters. On the other hand, it is also tethered to a sense of the past shaped by such categories as the "Arab tribe" and a "generic Islam" Both histories become an exercise of selectivity. They involve gaps, disjunctures, and diversity at the core of what passes as a unifying history of a sovereign nation.

This study seeks to analyze the implications of Oman’s participation in the Maritime Silk Road, which is the maritime component of the Belt and Road Initiative, announced in 2013 by the President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping. Sultan Qaboos has transformed Oman from an isolated and backward country to an active political mediator in the region. Oman’s neutral stance and diplomatic connections with every political actor in the region differentiate Oman from the rest of the Gulf countries. Geographically, Oman is situated in the intersection of the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. Historically, Oman ruled South Asian and East African coasts, extending its influence. The geographical position and historical legacy make Oman as a key country for the Maritime Silk Road. Thus, participation of Oman in the Belt and Road Initiative is invaluable in the eyes of the Chinese policymakers. Omani policymakers, who want to diversify Oman’s economy, welcome Chinese investments. However, increasing Chinese involvement in Oman’s economy might harm Oman’s sovereignty because of Chinese practice of using debts as exerting pressure on the lending states’ sovereignty. Moreover, the intensified competition between the USA and China in the Indian Ocean could compromise Oman’s neutral stance. Yet, Sultan Qaboos’ legacy is followed by Omani policymakers. While benefiting Chinese economic investments, Oman performs balancing acts against China.

Until 2018 knowledge of al‑ʿUlā County’s archaeology had been limited to a few key sites. Since then, an extensive archaeological landscape survey has been conducted on behalf of the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) across a large area (3302 km2) centred in and around the al‑ʿUlā valley (excluding the oasis and the key heritage sites of Dadan, Ḥegrā (al‑Ḥijr), Qurḥ (al‑Mābiyāt), and Old Town), as a part of the broader Identification and Documentation of Immovable Heritage Assets (IDIHA) survey. The IDIHA project aims to identify heritage assets in advance of the anticipated increase in visitors and facilitate further research. Data collected through remote sensing and ground recording of sites has been integrated into a customized heritage geodatabase. Over 16,000 sites have been recorded in the main al‑ʿUlā valley over three years by the ground survey, demonstrating an intensive occupation of the area from the Palaeolithic through to the present, including a rich range of domestic, agro-pastoral (including water management), funerary, defensive, ritual/religious, infrastructure/transport, productive and hunting sites, as well as communication/artistic (rock art and inscriptions — the largest category in terms of overall numbers of sites). In parallel with the survey, targeted excavations explored a selection of mostly late prehistoric sites and feature types in order to develop an understanding of the chrono-cultural development of the landscape, adding considerable data to our knowledge of the archaeology of north-western Arabia.

Abstract This study describes the petrographic and geochemical characteristics of pottery collected from Mugharat al‐Kahf and WTN02 in Wadi Tanuf, north‐central Oman, to clarify interregional similarities and differences in pottery production techniques and examine the existence of interregional trade in pottery with respect to changes in mobile communities. Potsherds from these sites were characterised using thin‐section petrography and instrumental neutron activation analysis. Results revealed that several clay fabrics and tempers were used during the Wadi Suq period (2000–1600 BCE). A region‐wide similarity exists in pottery‐making techniques in terms of the tempering of specific minerals (Oman ophiolite) used in the Early Iron Age (1300–300 BCE). Geochemical results indicate differences in clay sources between the Wadi Suq period and the Early Iron Age in Wadi Tanuf and the unlikelihood of the interregional trade of domestic pottery.

When Jimmy Carter became the U.S. president in January 1977, the United States and Oman did not have any formal security arrangements, apart from occasional landings of U.S. military aircraft on Oman's Masirah Island. Although Oman's leader, Sultan Qaboos bin Said, hoped to establish closer security ties with the United States, the Carter administration chose to continue President Richard Nixon's policy of relying on the “twin pillars” of Iran and Saudi Arabia to reinforce Western security in the Persian/Arabian Gulf region. Oman remained mostly a strategic afterthought until a series of crises unfolded in the greater Middle East: a Communist coup in Afghanistan in April 1978, the fall of the Shah of Iran in January 1979, and a war between Marxist South Yemen and North Yemen shortly thereafter. In November 1979, Iranian terrorists backed by the Islamic regime stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and seized dozens of hostages. This was followed a month later by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. With the fall of the Shah and the collapse of the “twin pillars” policy, the Carter administration began a sustained effort to create a Rapid Deployment Force for the Middle East and to gain access to Oman's strategic military facilities. After several months of arduous negotiations, Carter and his team were able to conclude a Facilities Access Agreement with Oman in June 1980, a transformative process that gave Washington the ability to insert U.S. military personnel into the Gulf and Indian Ocean on a contingency basis. The Carter administration's effort stands as a significant achievement, converting Oman into the most reliable U.S. ally in the Gulf region in the 1980s.

The importance of the medieval city of al-Balīd and its harbour was mentioned in many different sources, and mirrored by a large number of finds and pottery that confirm a primary role of the port as a pivotal hub in Indian Ocean trade during the pre-modern Islamic period (tenth–fifteenth century AD). This paper will examine maritime activities at al-Balīd from a different perspective, combining recent data from the study of ship timbers discovered at the site with the archaeological record, along with evidence of possible harbour facilities. The study of the ship timbers has provided invaluable information about the technology, size, material, type, and function of the watercraft involved in the trade at al-Balīd. The reuse of these timbers in a terrestrial context also alludes to a variety of activities carried out at the site, such as boatbuilding, maintenance, repair, and salvaging. Collectively, this data yields useful insights into the relationship between the different vessels operating at al-Balīd and the structure of the site itself, mainly in connection with one of the most lucrative commercial activities at the port city — the trade of Arabian horses.

During the global COVID-19 pandemic, the Omani government relied heavily on circulating information and entertainment through multiple forms of social media to keep citizens informed and to promote social distancing. This study explores the 2021 Ramadan Instagram campaign created by Be’ah, the Oman Environmental Services Holding Company, which blended performance genres and Omani traditional storytelling. This case study examines ‘multiplex’ hybrid styles of verbal art that mirrored governmental policy and practice across social media and created a forum where citizens discussed identity, national heritage and what it means to be eco-conscious. A central question in this research concerns the possibilities for social media as a space to communicate, preserve and archive local linguistic diversity and vernacular performative genres.

This paper presents a study of the memoirs and letters of Princess Sālima bt. Saʿīd (d. 1922), whose father, Saʿīd b. Sulṭān (d. 1856), was the ruler of Oman and Zanzibar from 1832 to 1856. One hundred and fifty years ago, the princess entered into a relationship with a young German man, Rudolph Ruete. After the princess fell pregnant, putting her in conflict with the stipulations of her Islamic religion, she decided to elope with her lover and to bet on him. The paper argues that the princess was a revolutionary woman in opposition to traditional Zanzibari culture, and that her story highlights clearly the issue of women and the crisis of freedom in Arab and Islamic culture during that time.