Page 47 - Arabian Gulf Intellegence

5
OMAN.
the control of the other, and seized every opportunity to gain or to
retain the ascendancy.
In the end of the seventeenth century Imaum Malik, of the house of
Yarabi, a branch of the Tribe Hinavi, was master of all Oman, and
added to his dominions, by conquest, Kung, Kishm, Ormus, and
Bahrein. His son extended these conquests still further, by taking
possession of Kiloa, and Zanzibar in Africa.
But in the reign of his grandson, Ben Suif, the new Monarch of Persia,
Nadir Shah, sent an army to conquer Oman. The Persians lost many
of their number among the hills, and were repulsed. Ben Suif accord­
ingly continued to occupy the throne till his death.
Upon his decease, Mahomed Ghafiri, Prince of Jabrin, made himself
master of the greater part of Oman, and assumed the title of Imaum.
His son, A1 Nasir, proved unable to maintain the conquest of his father.
Suif-il-Asdi, son to the last Imaum of the family of Yarabi, made him­
self be proclaimed Imaum, and forced Nasir to content himself with
his patrimony, the principality of Jabrin.
Imaum Suif-il-Asdi was an indolent, voluptuous prince. Not con­
tent with a numerous Harem, he would occasionally attempt the chastity
of the daughters of his subjects. He addicted himself to the use of
wine and strong liquors, neglected his affairs, and not paying his
soldiers, who were Kafree slaves, suffered them to harass and pillage
his subjects. This conduct rendered him so odious, that Sultan Mur-
shid, one of his relations, easily succeeded in getting himself proclaimed
Imaum, and took possession of almost all Oman.
Muskat, however, still remained in allegiance to Imaum Suif ; and
he maintained himself in it, by means of four ships of war, and of the
profits of its trade, but becoming yet more odious to the few subjects
who still obeyed him, by perseverance in his imprudent conduct, he
soon found it impossible to prolong his authority. In this extremity he
resolved rather to yield up his dominions to the Persians than to his
relation Imaum Murshid.
Sailing to Persia, therefore, with some vessels which still remained
to him, he obtained from Nadir Shah a fleet, under the command of
Mirza Taki Khan, Governor of Shiraz. The Persian Admiral, upon
arriving in Oman, enticed Imaum Suif into a fit of drunkenness, and
seized Muskal, with its citadels. Suif, not knowing what to do, pursued
his rival Murshid with the Persian forces, till, reduced to despair by the
loss of his friends, he died a voluntary death. Imaum Suif died soon
after at Rastag, oppressed with the mortification of finding himself
duped by the Persians.
Taki Khan, on his return to Shiraz, revolted against Nadir Shah, and
sought to establish himself in the sovereignty of Farsistan. It is well