Oman Overview

The Omani civilization dates back many thousands of years. In biblical times the country was the hub of the rich frankincense trade. Long famed for their seafaring tradition, from the 16th to 19th centuries the Sultans of Oman ruled over wealthy trading empire that stretched from the coast of East Africa, via trading colonies like Zanzibar, to the tip of the Indian subcontinent. The wealth this trade attracted soon caught the attention of European powers, particularly the Portuguese, who invaded the country in the 16th century to protect their own eastern trade routes. Two centuries later the expanding British Empire pushed the Portuguese out of their many footholds around the Indian Ocean, establishing a treaty of friendship with Oman which survives to the present day.

Through the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries Oman's fortunes declined and the Omanis became impoverished. During the 1950's the present sultan's father, Sultan Said bin Tamur, held the country in isolation preventing the development fo the Omani economy. Fueled by resentment against his harsh regime a rebellion broke out in the northern mountains which the sultan was only able to surpress with reluctant British assistance. Trouble erupted again in the late 1960's as his people again grew weary of his spartan rule. This time the rebellion centered on the southern province of Dhofar where Marxist backed forces from neighboring Yemen attempted to annex the southern oil fields. That was the last straw for the old sultan's western educated son, Qaboos bin Said, who overthrew his father in a bloodless palace coup.

Sultan Qaboos set about rebuilding the nation from the ground up. With British assistance the rebellion in the south was quickly brought to a peaceful close. Using Omans's modest oil revenues the new sultan began laying the foundations of a modern state establishing national educational, health and government services. Electricity, water and roads soon began to open up the country encouraging commercial development, Oman became a founder member of the Gulf Cooperation Council in 1981 and has played a leading role in regional security issues since then. Omani soldiers were among those who liberated kuwait in 1991. Sultan Qaboos has also inaugurated important steps towards democracy while maintaining his country's unique national culture. He is leading the way in the Arab world in the field of female equality.