Page 203 - Arabiab Studies (IV)

The Omani Manuscript Collection at Muscat 193
Imam of this whole period: his area of control in Nizwa finally succumbed
to the Nabahinah who had already subjugated the Ghadaf and Batinah.
4. Sirat al-Nabl by al-‘Ala al-IJadraml. This is preceded by a short
anonymous section which is a clear indictment of the Rustaq party by the
tfatframls and is probably by A. Isjjaq Ibrahim b. Qays (W.35).
Part II. This is made up of copies of some 29 sfrahs, many of
considerable importance. Chronologically these can be arranged
under the following heads:

From the period of the First Imamate
5. Slrahs from the Basran so-called ‘Imams’.
(i) from A. ‘Ubaydah Muslim b. A. Karimah, the ‘Imam’ who organized
the IbadI movement into a da'wah in the first half of the second century
A.H. and presided over the first attempts to establish Imamates, to ‘Abd
al-Wahhab b. ‘Abd al-Rabman, the second Rustamid Imam of Tahert
(168-208/784-823) whose accession to power sparked off the Nukkarite
schism. This letter, concerning his election, should be treated with
suspicion: if genuine, it provides a new terminus a quo for A. ‘Ubaydah’s
death. In fact I think it is Rabf b. Habib al-Farahldfs letter (cf. A.
Zakariyya’ al-Warijlanl trans. Le Toumeau in Revue Africaine CIV 136 et
seq.).
(ii) from A. Ayyub (Wa’il b. ‘Ayyub al-IJadraml) who was Imam in Basra
when the full Imamate was established in Oman at the end of the 170’s
A.H. (unexamined).
(iii) A. Slrah of Mafcbub b. al-Rabll (the last of the Basran Imams, W. 40a)
to the peoples of Oman and another one to the peoples of the Yemen
concerning Harun b. al-Yaman, and a letter from Harun to the Omani
Imam Muhanna b. Jayfar (226-237/841-851): discussed in section Vb.
6. Early Omani correspondence.
(i) the Sirah of Munir b. Nayr al-Rjyaml (al-Ja‘lam) to the Imam Ghassan
b. ‘Abdullah.
Munir was the last of the four Basran trained missionaries sent to the
non-Azd tribes of Oman to help establish the Imamate when Julanda rule
was overthrown; his area of operation was his home area of Ja‘lan in
south-east Oman. The story that he died at the ripe old age of 110 in the
disastrous battle of Dama against the invading caliphate forces (280/893)
may be treated as unlikely, to say the least, and does not occur in the main
accounts of the battle e.g. *Awtabi (W.42b) Paris MS 277r, Johnstone MS
206r; Kashf(W.2Ac) ed. Klein, 134.
This letter to the Imam Ghassan b. ‘Abdullah (192-207/808-823) extols
him to emulate his worthy predecessors. It is particularly interesting for
information about some early Iba^I figures, notably al-Julanda b. Mas‘ud
(whose short-lived Imamate at the very beginning of ‘Abbasid times
represented the first attempt to establish Ibatfl government in Oman).
(ii) a Sirah from Hashim b. Ghllan to the Imam ‘Abd al-Malik b. IJumayd
(Imam 207-226/823-841).
Hashim was a very powerful figure of the time who provided much