|
Oman Said ibn Taimur, 1932-70
Between 1932 and 1970, Said ibn Taimur ruled Oman and
impressed on it his own myopic vision. Said was an
Anglophile who
was compelled, in order to alleviate the country's debt,
to
integrate the interior with Oman and create an independent
state.
To create a financially independent state, he needed oil
export
revenues. But the acquiescence of the interior tribes was
indispensable for exploration activities.
The dilemma materialized in 1954 when the PDO sent
exploration teams to the interior. The move was
interpreted by
the tribal shaykhs as a violation of the 1920 Treaty of As
Sib.
This coincided with the death of Imam Muhammad ibn Abd
Allah al
Khalili, who had ruled the interior of the country, and
the
election in 1954 of a new imam, who led a breakaway
movement
seeking independence from coastal Oman. The new imam's
brother
solicited political and material support from Saudi Arabia
and
established a secessionist movement called the Omani
Liberation
Movement, with the goals of establishing an independent
Omani
state in the interior and forcing the withdrawal of
foreign
troops. The British intervened on behalf of the sultan and
by
1959 reestablished the sultan's authority. The British
abrogated
the Treaty of As Sib and ended the office of imam.
After 1958 Said ibn Taimur established his residence at
Al
Hisn near Salalah, in Dhofar, where he remained
permanently
except for periodic visits to London. By retiring to the
south
from Muscat, Said ibn Taimur was not only more secure from
assassination but was also no longer obligated to meet
frequently
with tribal shaykhs and distribute subsidies and thereby
avoided
depleting the treasury. He married Dhofari wives, one of
whom
bore him his only heir, Qabus ibn Said, and two daughters.
Above
all, Said ibn Taimur created his personal fiefdom and
sought to
arrest modernization by enforcing antiquated laws, public
executions, and slavery of people of African descent. The
isolation and xenophobia that he forced on the country and
on
Dhofar in particular left Oman grossly underdeveloped,
despite
increasing oil export revenues in the late 1960s.
Qabus ibn Said spent his early years isolated within
the
royal palace. At the instigation of his father's British
advisers, Qabus ibn Said was permitted to go to Britain in
1958
for his education. He spent two years at a small private
school,
where he acquired mastery of the English language. In 1960
he was
enrolled in the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, and,
after
graduating from a two-year course of study, served for
several
months with British units stationed in the Federal
Republic of
Germany (West Germany). After a world tour and studies in
London,
he returned to Oman in December 1964. His father, however,
refused to entrust him with a responsible role in the
government
or military and instead sequestered him in the palace in
Salalah.
Qabus ibn Said's more cosmopolitan and progressive views
were
incompatible with his father's conservatism and
isolationism,
which Qabus ibn Said considered detrimental to the
country's
development. With the tacit endorsement of the British,
who saw
thirty-year-old Qabus ibn Said as an agreeable
alternative, Qabus
ibn Said and a number of alienated political elite
overthrew Said
ibn Taimur in a palace coup d'état on July 23, 1970. Said
ibn
Taimur withdrew to London, where he died in 1972.
Data as of January 1993
|
