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Tribal Rebellion, Marxist Revolution 159

did not do so to turn inner Oman into a Saudi satrapy. They were fighting for
objects of their own - the preservation of their de facto independence, the

retention of the imamate as the religious arbiter of their lives, and the acquisi­
tion for themselves of the revenues from any oil that might be found in the
desert borderlands of Oman. It is improbable that they think any differently
today. Reconciled though they may now be to Al Bu Said rule, they would not
tolerate its becoming the facade or the instrument of a Saudi ascendancy in

Oman.
Suspicions of a like nature, though not of the same intensity, exist with
regard to possible Persian intentions towards Oman. While recognizing the

usefulness of the shah’s contribution to the defeat of the insurgency in Dhufar,
the Omanis did not believe that he was acting solely from a disinterested
solicitude for Oman’s welfare. On the contrary they feared that the Persian
intervention in Dhufar might have created a precedent for a second and less
welcome intervention at some future date - perhaps in the northernmost
portion of Oman, the Ruus al-Jibal, the rocky peninsula, deeply fissured with
ravines and fjords, which juts out into the Straits of Hormuz.

Ruus al-Jibal is about forty to fifty miles long and some twenty miles across.
At its northern end it narrows into the Musandam peninsula, and finally breaks
up into a number of rocky islands, the furthest of which is Ras Musandam.
Ruus al-Jibal is inhabited by the Shihu, a wild and solitary people who speak a
dialect of Arabic different from that commonly spoken in south-eastern
Arabia. Persian influences have in the past been discerned among them, which

has led to a distinction being propounded between Arab and Persian Shihu.
Their numbers are unknown, though they probably do not exceed 5,000 at
most. They live by subsistence cultivation at Khasab and Shaam, on the
western side of the peninsula, by fishing and by raising goats. Until recent
years they were habitually ignored by the government at Muscat, unless they
committed an act of piracy or some other crime, when an attempt would be
made to bring them to account, usually with the help of the British naval

authorities in the Gulf. A few months after the accession of Qabus ibn Said a
wali was dispatched to Ruus al-Jibal to take up residence at Khasab. The
reason for his appointment was said to be disturbances among the Shihu caused
by agitators sent by the recently formed ND FLO AG. It seems highly improb­
able. The Shihu are as fierce and unruly a tribe as any to be found in Arabia,
hardly the type to endure impassively the vapourings of some nationalist or

Marxist jongleur, still less to show enthusiasm for the cause of world-wide
proletarian revolution. What is much more probable is that the Muscat
government thought it prudent, while the shah was laying claim to Abu Musa
and the Tunbs, to underline the fact that Ruus al-Jibal was Omani territory.
The only other power which at present exercises some influence in Oman is
Britain. For the better part of two centuries Britain has helped to preserve the
independence of Oman and to uphold the rule of the Al Bu Said dynasty in the