Page 301 - The Arabian Gulf States_Neat

14

Disputes over Inner Oman and Zubarah

THE CLAIM OF THE IMAM OF OMAN TO SOVEREIGNTY
OVER INNER OMAN
The dispute between the Imam of Oman and the Sultan of Muscat
over the sovereignty of Inner Oman was little known to the outside
world before the events in Muscat of July 1957, which precipitated
British intervention in Oman and which led, in consequence, to a
debate in the United Nations Security Council.
In connection with the merits of this dispute between the Imam of
Oman and the Sultan of Muscat as to sovereignty over Oman, it is
convenient to examine separately the historical and the legal aspects
of the claim to sovereignty over Oman, or more properly Inner Oman.

The historical aspect
The territory of Oman lies at the extreme strip of the Arabian penin­
sula. It is the hinterland of what is now called the Sultanate of Muscat
and Oman. As early as the sixteenth century the name Oman was
applied to the whole country which was governed, ‘as it had been
generally since 751 a.d., by an elective Imam or ruler possessing
supreme religious, military and political authority’.1
In the year 1793, an ancestor of the present Sultan of Muscat,
Imam Sa'id ibn Ahmad, was the last genuinely elected Imam of
Oman. This Imam became unpopular with his subjects because he
altered the Imamate rule and established a new ‘hereditary sover­
eignty’ in Muscat confined in his family, the Al-Bu-Sa'id, and trans­
ferred the capital from Rustaq in the interior to Muscat on the sea
coast.2 This arbitrary action of Imam Sa'id ibn Ahmad, whose suc­
cessors came to be known as ‘sultans’, seriously prejudiced the effec­
tiveness of the Sultanate rule. Thus, in the first place, the action
divided the country into two rival systems of government; a secular
government in Muscat under the Sultan and an elective religious
government in Nazwa, the capital of the interior, known as the
‘Imamate of all Oman’ under the leadership of the Imam.3
Secondly, the Omani tribes, under the leadership of their religious
Imam, continued to revolt against the rule of the sultans of Muscat

1 Lorimer, p. 397.
* Ibid., pp. 414-19. And sec the history of the Imamate in Wingate, Sir Ronald,
Not in the Limelight (1959), p. 72. 3 Lorimer, p. 455.
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