Page 113 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

no Arabia, the Gulf and the West

as incidental. The heroic imams of Ibadi tradition had been powerful chief­
tains, more noted for their political skill and military prowess than for their

piety and suppleness in religious disputation. Azzan ibn Qais, for all his
shortcomings, had been cast in this mould, but with his passing the ‘pale-eyed
priests’ began to reshape the institution.
To these contentious ecclesiastics the reigning sultan, Faisal ibn Turki, was
little better than a kafir, an infidel. Although an Ibadi like themselves, he had
failed in his dispensation of justice to apply thes/iaria, the law of Islam, in strict
conformity with the Ibadi interpretation. He could not speak, read or write
literary Arabic, and indeed the language in which he appeared to converse most

easily was Gujerati. He and his dynasty had so intermingled their blood with
that of Africans, Abyssinians, Baluchis and Indians that they could scarce be
looked upon any longer as Arabs. Faisal ibn Turki not only tolerated Hindus,
Jews and Christians at Muscat, but he also permitted the importation of liquor
and tobacco into the capital. He relied upon the British for his continuance in

power, and he looked to India rather than to Arabia for cultural inspiration. He
had flouted the wishes of his subjects by yielding to British demands to curb
the slave trade and the arms traffic, he had been notoriously fickle in his
apportionment of subsidies to the tribes, and he had at the same time increased
the duties on goods passing to and from the interior.
Whether or not this was a fair estimation of the character and government of
Faisal ibn Turki, it was the view taken of that hapless ruler by the mutawiyah

and many of the upland tribes in the early years of this century. It required only
a miscalculation of a major order on his part to translate their contempt into
open hostility, and Faisal made that miscalculation in 1912 when, as a means of
more effectively controlling the flow of arms into Oman, he set up a central
warehouse for their distribution at Muscat. At a gathering of tribal chieftains,

mutawiyah and ulama (divines) in May 1913 the revival of the imamate was
proclaimed and the standard of revolt raised against the sultan. A month later
Nizwa was occupied, the Al Bu Said wali expelled and the town made the seat
of the imamate, as in times past.
The new imam was a little-known shaikh of the Bani Kharus, Salim ibn
Rashid. His patrons were Himyar ibn Nasir, tamimah of the Bani Riyam who

inhabited the high valleys of the Jabal Akhdar and the acknowledged leader
of the Ghafiri tribal faction; and Isa ibn Salih, tamimah of the Hirth of the
Sharqiyah and leader of the Hinawi tribal faction. The new Hinawi-Ghanri
coalition was probably the most formidable ever created against an Al Bu Sai
ruler, and the fact of its creation, together with the weight of tribal support

which it attracted, testified to the yawning gulf that had opened up between t e
Al Bu Said and their subjects. Had it not been for British intervention in t e
years after 1913 the sultanate would surely have been destroyed as an
tion, and the Al Bu Said line overthrown. As it was, the partisans ot t.
imamate were eventually forced to accept that, so long as rhe Al Bu Sai su tai