Oman THE AGE OF COLONIALISM
Boys playing on cannon at Az Zubarah fort, Qatar
Courtesy Anthony Toth
Restored ancient fort at Az Zubarah, Qatar; similar forts
exist in most Persian Gulf states.
Courtesy Anthony Toth
During the Middle Ages, Muslim countries of the Middle
East
controlled East-West trade. However, control changed in
the
fifteenth century. The Portuguese, who were building ships
with
deep hulls that remained stable in high seas, were thus
able to
make longer voyages. They pushed farther and farther down
the
west coast of Africa until they found their way around the
southern tip of the continent and made contact with Muslim
cities
on the other side. In East Africa, the Portuguese enlisted
Arab
navigators there to take them across to India, where they
eventually set themselves up in Calicut on the Malabar
Coast in
the southwestern part of the country.
Once in India, the Portuguese used their superior ships
to
transport goods around Africa instead of using the Red Sea
route,
thus eliminating the middlemen in Egypt. The Portuguese
then
extended their control to the local trade that crossed the
Arabian Sea, capturing coastal cities in Oman and Iran and
setting up forts and customs houses on both coasts to
collect
duty. The Portuguese allowed local rulers to remain in
control
but collected tribute from them in exchange for that
privilege,
thus increasing Portuguese revenues.
The ruler most affected by the rise of Portuguese power
was
the Safavid shah of Iran, Abbas I (1587-1629). During the
time
the shaykh of Hormuz possessed effective control over gulf
ports,
he continued to pay lip service and tribute to the Safavid
shah.
When the Portuguese arrived, they forced the shaykh to pay
tribute to them. The shah could do little because Iran was
too
weak to challenge the Portuguese. For that the shah
required
another European power; he therefore invited the British
and the
Dutch to drive the Portuguese out of the gulf, in return
for half
the revenues from Iranian ports.
Both countries responded to the shah's offer, but it
was the
British who proved the most helpful. In 1622 the British,
along
with some of the shah's forces, attacked Hormuz and drove
the
Portuguese out of their trading center there. Initially,
the
Dutch cooperated with the British, but the two European
powers
eventually became rivals for access to the Iranian market.
The
British won, and by the beginning of the nineteenth
century
Britain had become the major power in the gulf.
Struggles between Iranians and Europeans contributed to
a
power vacuum along the coast of Oman. The British attacks
on the
Portuguese coincided with the rise of the Yarubid line of
Ibadi
imams in the interior of Oman. The Yarubid took advantage
of
Portuguese preoccupation with naval battles on the Iranian
side
of the gulf and conquered the coastal cities of Oman
around 1650.
The imams moved into the old Portuguese stronghold of
Muscat and
so brought the Omani coast and interior under unified
Ibadi
control for the first time in almost 1,000 years.
A battle over imamate succession in the early
eighteenth
century, however, weakened Yarubid rule. Between the 1730s
and
the 1750s, the various parties began to solicit support
from
outside powers. The Yarubid family eventually called in an
Iranian army, which reestablished Iranian influence on the
Omani
coast. But this time the Iranian hold on Oman was
short-lived. In
1742 the Al Said, an Ibadi family from one of the coastal
cities,
convinced the local population to help it expel the
Iranians;
this put the leader, Ahmad ibn Said Al Said, in control of
the
Omani coast. His success sufficiently impressed the Ibadi
leaders
so that they made him imam several years later.
The title of imam gave Ahmad ibn Said control over all
of
Oman, and under him and his successors the country
prospered for
more than a century. The Omanis extended their influence
into the
interior and into part of the present-day United Arab
Emirates
(UAE), consisting of the states of Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Al
Fujayrah,
Dubayy, Ras al Khaymah, Sharjah, and Umm al Qaywayn. They
also
collected tribute from as far away as present-day Bahrain
and
Iraq. The Omanis conquered the Dhofar region, which is
part of
present-day Oman but was not historically part of the
region of
Oman.
Oman also strengthened its hold on the Muslim cities of
East
Africa. These cities had been established by Omani traders
in the
tenth and eleventh centuries, but their connection to Oman
had
grown somewhat tenuous. At the beginning of the nineteenth
century, however, the Al Said reasserted Omani authority
in the
area. Said ibn Sultan (1806-65) encouraged Omanis to
settle in
Zanzibar, an island off the African coast that had
retained
strong connections with Oman and, from Zanzibar, sent
expeditions
to take over several cities on the mainland
(see Historical Patterns of Governance
, ch. 6).
Although Ahmad ibn Said had succeeded in uniting Oman
under
an Ibadi imamate, the religious nature of his family's
authority
did not last long. His son, Said ibn Ahmad Al Said, was
elected
to the imamate after him, but no other family member won
the
official approval of the religious establishment. As a
result,
the Al Said called themselves sultans, a secular
title
having none of the religious associations of imam. They
further
distanced themselves from Ibadi traditions by moving their
capital from Ar Rustaq, a traditional Ibadi center in the
interior, to the trading center of Muscat. As a result of
the
move, the dichotomy between coast and interior that had
traditionally split Oman was reinstituted.
The relationship between coast and interior was
becoming a
major feature within the gulf. In the eighteenth century,
tribes
from the interior increasingly began to move and settle
into the
coastal centers. Although the economy on the Arab side of
the
gulf did not match past prosperity, coastal conditions
remained
better than those in central Arabia. Limited agriculture
existed,
and the gulf waters were the site of rich oyster beds for
harvesting pearls. The area's easy access to India, a
major
market for pearls, made the pearling industry particularly
lucrative, and this drew the attention of tribes in the
interior.
The tribal migrations that occurred around 1800 put in
place the
tribes and clans that in 1993 controlled Kuwait, Bahrain,
Qatar,
and the UAE.
The Bani Utub moved from central Arabia into the
northern
gulf in the early 1800s, and one of its families, the Al
Sabah,
established itself as leaders of present-day Kuwait;
another
family, the Al Khalifa, established itself in present-day
Bahrain. In the early 1800s, a number of other tribes were
living
along the gulf. Thus, Al Sabah and Al Khalifa control
meant that
these families ruled loosely over other tribes. Before
taking
Bahrain, the Al Khalifa had first established a settlement
across
the water on the peninsula that is present-day Qatar.
Although
the Al Khalifa were successful in taking Bahrain, they
were
unable to hold Qatar. They lost the peninsula to the Al
Thani,
the leading family from another tribe that, like the Bani
Utub,
had recently moved into the area.
The exact origins of the Al Thani are unknown, but they
were
already in Qatar when the Al Khalifa came. The origins of
the
Bani Yas and the Qawasim tribes that rule in the
present-day UAE
are somewhat clearer. The Bani Yas originated in central
Arabia
and probably established themselves on the coast at Abu
Dhabi
around 1700; they later extended their influence to
Dubayy.
Historical evidence indicates that the Qawasim lived along
the
gulf during the pre-Islamic period and engaged in trade,
pearling, and piracy.
Data as of January 1993
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