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151-682: Oman , officially the Sultanate of Oman , is a country on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in West Asia . It overlooks the mouth of the Persian Gulf . It shares land borders with Saudi Arabia , the United Arab Emirates , and Yemen . The capital and largest city is Muscat . Oman has a population of about 5.28 million as of 2024, which is a 4.60% population increase from 2023. and

302-514: A Relativiser like ḏ- , ʾl , mn- ; in free relative clauses this marking is obligatory. Unlike other Semitic languages in Sabaic resumptive pronouns are only rarely found. Although the Sabaic vocabulary is found in relatively diverse types of inscriptions (an example being that the south Semitic tribes derive their word wtb meaning "to sit" from the northwest tribe's word yashab/wtb meaning "to jump"), nevertheless it stands relatively isolated in

453-685: A military intervention in Yemen in March 2015. The civil war and subsequent military intervention and blockade caused a famine in Yemen . Sabaic Sabaic was written in the South Arabian alphabet , and like Hebrew and Arabic marked only consonants, the only indication of vowels being with matres lectionis . For many years the only texts discovered were inscriptions in the formal Masnad script (Sabaic ms 3 nd ), but in 1973 documents in another minuscule and cursive script were discovered, dating back to

604-863: A letter, and the ruling family confirmed him as the new Sultan of Oman. Formerly a maritime empire, Oman is the oldest continuously independent state in the Arab world . It is a member of the United Nations , the Arab League , the Gulf Cooperation Council , the Non-Aligned Movement , and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation . It has oil reserves ranked 22nd globally. In 2010, the United Nations Development Programme ranked Oman as

755-748: A small number of urban trading settlements, such as Mecca and Medina , located in the Hejaz in the west of the peninsula. Archaeology has revealed the existence of many civilizations in pre-Islamic Arabia (such as the Thamud ), especially in South Arabia . South Arabian civilizations include the Himyarite Kingdom , the Kingdom of Awsan , the Kingdom of Ma'īn , and the Sabaean Kingdom (usually considered to be

906-608: A trading hub that secured British trading-lanes in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean and protected London's interests in the Indian sub-continent. Oman is an absolute monarchy led by a sultan , with power passed down through the male line. Qaboos bin Said was the Sultan from 1970 until his death on 10 January 2020. Qaboos, who died childless, had named his cousin, Haitham bin Tariq , as his successor in

1057-406: A written language. Since Sabaic is written in an abjad script leaving vowels unmarked, little can be said for certain about the vocalic system. However, based on other Semitic languages, it is generally presumed that it had at least the vowels a , i , and u , which would have occurred both short and long ā , ī , and ū . In Old Sabaic, the long vowels ū and ī are sometimes indicated using

1208-702: Is Saudi Arabia. In the classical era, the Sinai Peninsula was also considered a part of Arabia. The Arabian Peninsula formed as a result of the rifting of the Red Sea between 56 and 23 million years ago, and is bordered by the Red Sea to the west and southwest, the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman to the northeast, the Levant and Mesopotamia to the north and the Arabian Sea and

1359-538: Is a large volcanic field that extends from northwestern Arabia into Jordan and southern Syria . The Peninsula's constituent countries are (clockwise from north to south) Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on the east, Oman on the southeast, Yemen on the south, and Saudi Arabia at the center. The island country of Bahrain lies just off the east coast of the Peninsula. Due to Yemen's jurisdiction over

1510-789: Is considerable agreement in sources that frankincense was used by traders in 1500 BCE. The Land of Frankincense , a UNESCO World Heritage site , dramatically illustrates that the incense constituted testimony to South Arabian civilizations. During the 8th century BCE, it is believed that the Yaarub, the descendant of Qahtan , ruled the entire region of Yemen, including Oman. Wathil bin Himyar bin Abd-Shams (Saba) bin Yashjub ( Yaman ) bin Yarub bin Qahtan later ruled Oman. It

1661-594: Is known for its rich oil, i.e. petroleum production due to its geographical location. According to NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite data (2003–2013) analysed in a University of California, Irvine (UCI) -led study published in Water Resources Research on 16 June 2015, the most over-stressed aquifer system in the world is the Arabian Aquifer System , upon which more than 60 million people depend for water. Twenty-one of

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1812-464: Is linguistic evidence that Semitic languages were concurrently in use, being spoken in Eritrea and Ethiopia as early as 2000 BC. Sabaic is attested in some 1,040 dedicatory inscriptions, 850 building inscriptions, 200 legal texts, and 1300 short graffiti (containing only personal names). No literary texts of any length have yet been brought to light. This paucity of source material and the limited forms of

1963-731: Is located in the continent of Asia and is bounded by (clockwise) the Persian Gulf on the northeast, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman on the east, the Arabian Sea on the southeast, the Gulf of Aden , and the Guardafui Channel on the south, and the Bab-el-Mandeb strait on the southwest and the Red Sea, which is located on the southwest and west. The northern portion of the peninsula merges with

2114-541: Is not consistent in Sabaic. The first clause in an inscription always has the order (particle - ) subject – predicate (SV), the other main clauses of an inscription are introduced by w - "and" and always have – like subordinate clauses – the order predicate – subject (VS). At the same time the Predicate may be introduced by f . Examples: Sabaic is equipped with a number of means to form subordinate clauses using various conjunctions: In Sabaic, relative clauses are marked by

2265-657: Is on a tomb in the Mleiha Archeological Center in the United Arab Emirates. The name "Oman" is thought to be several centuries older than Pliny the Elder ’s reference to "Omana" or Ptolemy 's reference to "Omanon". ( Ὄμανον ἐμπόριον in Greek ), Both of those references are probably to the ancient Sohar . The city or region is typically etymologized in Arabic as deriving from ʿāmin or ʿamūn ('settled' people, as opposed to

2416-416: Is referred to. The last known inscription in Sabaic dates from 554 or 559 AD. The language's eventual extinction was brought about by the later rapid expansion of Islam, bringing with it Northern Arabic or Muḍarī , which became the language of culture and writing, totally supplanting Sabaic. The dialect used in the western Yemeni highlands, known as Central Sabaic, is very homogeneous and generally used as

2567-525: Is still uncertain. In the early days of Sabaic studies, Old South Arabian was transcribed using Hebrew letters. The transcriptions of the alveolars or postvelar fricatives remained controversial; after a great deal of uncertainty in the initial period the lead was taken by the transcription chosen by Nikolaus Rhodokanakis and others for the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum ( s , š , and ś ), until A. F. L. Beeston proposed replacing this with

2718-479: Is the 123rd most-populous country . The coast faces the Arabian Sea on the southeast, and the Gulf of Oman on the northeast. The Madha and Musandam exclaves are surrounded by United Arab Emirates on their land borders, with the Strait of Hormuz (which it shares with Iran) and the Gulf of Oman forming Musandam's coastal boundaries. From the 17th century, the Omani Sultanate was an empire , vying with

2869-647: Is the location of the Kaaba , Islam's holiest site, and the Masjid al-Nabawi (the Prophet's Mosque) in Medina is the location of Muhammad 's grave; as a result, from the 7th century, Mecca and Medina became the pilgrimage destinations for large numbers of Muslims from across the Islamic world . Despite its spiritual importance, in political terms Arabia soon became a peripheral region of

3020-519: Is the norm. The minuscule Zabūr script does not seem to have a letter that represents the sound ẓ , and replaces it with ḍ instead; for example: mfḍr ("a measure of capacity"), written in the Musnad script as: mfẓr . As in other Semitic languages Sabaic had both independent pronouns and pronominal suffixes. The attested pronouns, along with suffixes from Qatabanian and Hadramautic are as follows: No independent pronouns have been identified in any of

3171-638: Is thus believed that the Yaarubah were the first settlers in Oman from Yemen. In the 1970s and 1980s, scholars like John C. Wilkinson believed by virtue of oral history that in the 6th century BCE, the Achaemenids exerted control over the Omani peninsula, most likely ruling from a coastal centre such as Suhar . Central Oman has its own indigenous Samad Late Iron Age cultural assemblage named eponymously from Samad al-Shan . In

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3322-407: Is unsuited to agriculture, making irrigation and land reclamation projects essential. The narrow coastal plain and isolated oases, amounting to less than 1% of the land area, are used to cultivate grains, coffee and tropical fruits . Goat, sheep, and camel husbandry is widespread elsewhere throughout the rest of the Peninsula. Some areas have a summer humid tropical monsoon climate , in particular

3473-475: Is usually indicated in the singular by the ending – t  : bʿl "husband" (m.), bʿlt "wife" (f.), hgr "city" (m.), fnwt "canal" (f.). Sabaic nouns have forms for singular, dual and plural. The singular is formed without changing the stem, the plural can however be formed in a number of ways even in the very same word: The dual is already beginning to disappear in Old Sabaic; its endings vary according to

3624-721: The Al Saud , began in Najd in central Arabia in 1744, when Muhammad bin Saud , founder of the dynasty, joined forces with the religious leader Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab , founder of the Wahhabi movement , a strict puritanical form of Sunni Islam. The Emirate of Diriyah established in the area around Riyadh rapidly expanded and briefly controlled most of the present-day territory of Saudi Arabia, sacking Karbala in 1802, and capturing Mecca in 1803. The Damascus Protocol of 1914 provides an illustration of

3775-540: The Arab Spring uprisings that were taking place throughout the region, protests occurred in Oman during the early months of 2011. While they did not call for the ousting of the regime, demonstrators demanded political reforms, improved living conditions and the creation of more jobs. They were dispersed by riot police in February 2011. Sultan Qaboos reacted by promising jobs and benefits. In October 2011, elections were held to

3926-642: The Arabs ' ), or Arabia , is a peninsula in West Asia , situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate . At 3,237,500 km (1,250,000 sq mi), comparable in size to India , the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the Arabian Peninsula includes Bahrain , Kuwait , Oman , Qatar , Saudi Arabia , the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Yemen , as well as southern Iraq and Jordan . The largest of these

4077-451: The Dhofar and Al Mahrah areas of Oman and Yemen. These areas allow for large scale coconut plantations. Much of Yemen has a tropical monsoon rain influenced mountain climate. The plains usually have either a tropical or subtropical arid desert climate or arid steppe climate . The sea surrounding the Arabian Peninsula is generally tropical sea with a very rich tropical sea life and some of

4228-599: The Dhofar Governorate of Oman, a site was discovered in 2011 containing more than 100 surface scatters of stone tools, belonging to a regionally specific African lithic industry —the late Nubian Complex—known previously only from the northeast and Horn of Africa . Two optically stimulated luminescence age estimates place the Arabian Nubian Complex at 106,000 years old. This supports the proposition that early human populations moved from Africa into Arabia during

4379-577: The First Islamic State - a single Arab Muslim religious polity in the Arabian Peninsula. Under the subsequent Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates , rapid expansion of Arab power well beyond the Arabian peninsula formed a vast Muslim Arab Empire with an area of influence that stretched from the northwest Indian subcontinent , across Central Asia , the Middle East , North Africa , southern Italy , and

4530-506: The Fujairah coast. 52 crew members died, with the sole survivor, Matrosengefreiter Günther Schmidt, taken aboard HMIS Hiravati near Khor Fakkan and made a prisoner of war . The wreck is now a popular recreational diving site. The December 1951 Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation (covering commerce, oil reserves and navigation) between Oman and the United Kingdom recognized

4681-567: The Hejaz ( Tihamah for the western coast), as described by Ibn al-Faqih . In antiquity, the term "Arabia" encompassed a larger area than the current term "Arabian Peninsula" and included the Arabian desert and large parts of the Syrian-Arabian desert . During the Hellenistic period , the area was known as Arabia ( Ancient Greek : Ἀραβία ). The Romans named three regions "Arabia": One of

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4832-704: The Iberian Peninsula , to the Pyrenees . With Muhammad's death in 632, disagreement broke out over who would succeed him as leader of the Muslim community. Umar ibn al-Khattab , a prominent companion of Muhammad, nominated Abu Bakr , who was Muhammad's intimate friend and collaborator. Others added their support and Abu Bakr was made the first caliph . This choice was disputed by some of Muhammad's companions, who held that Ali ibn Abi Talib , his cousin and son-in-law, had been designated his successor. Abu Bakr's immediate task

4983-518: The Indian Ocean to the southeast. The peninsula plays a critical geopolitical role in the Arab world and globally due to its vast reserves of oil and natural gas . Before the modern era, the region was divided into primarily four distinct regions: the Central Plateau ( Najd and Al-Yamama ), South Arabia ( Yemen , Hadhramaut and Oman ), Al-Bahrain (Eastern Arabia or Al-Hassa ), and

5134-489: The Islamic world , in which the most important medieval Islamic states were based at various times in such far away cities as Damascus , Baghdad , and Cairo . However, from the 10th century (and, in fact, until the 20th century) the Hashemite Sharifs of Mecca maintained a state in the most developed part of the region, the Hejaz . Their domain originally comprised only the holy cities of Mecca and Medina but in

5285-578: The Jebel Akhdar is a part, separate the country into two distinct regions: the interior, and the coastal area dominated by the capital, Muscat. The British imperial development over Muscat and Oman during the 19th century led to the renewed revival of the cause of the Imamate in the interior of Oman, which has appeared in cycles for more than 1,200 years in Oman. The British Political Agent, who resided in Muscat, owed

5436-699: The Late Pleistocene . In recent years surveys have uncovered Palaeolithic and Neolithic sites on the eastern coast. Main Palaeolithic sites include Saiwan-Ghunaim in the Barr al-Hikman. Archaeological remains are particularly numerous for the Bronze Age Umm an-Nar and Wadi Suq periods. At the archaeological sites of Bat, Al-Janah, and Al-Ayn wheel-turned pottery, hand-made stone vessels, metals industry artifacts, and monumental architecture have been preserved. There

5587-461: The Nefud Desert dates to approximately 90,000 years ago and is the oldest human fossil discovered outside of Africa and the Levant. This indicates human migrations from Africa to Arabia occurred around this time. The Arabian Peninsula may have been the homeland of a ' Basal Eurasian ' population, which diverged from other Eurasians soon after the Out-of-Africa migration, and subsequently became isolated, until it started to mix with other populations in

5738-454: The Persians , Ahmed bin Sa'id Albusaidi became the elected Imam of Oman in 1749, with Rustaq serving as the capital. Since the revival of the Imamate with the Yaruba dynasty, the Omanis continued with the elective system but, provided that the person is deemed qualified, gave preference to a member of the ruling family. Following Imam Ahmed's death in 1783, his son, Said bin Ahmed became the elected Imam. His son, Seyyid Hamed bin Said, overthrew

5889-477: The Portuguese and British empires for influence in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. At its peak in the 19th century, Omani influence and control extended across the Strait of Hormuz to Iran and Pakistan, and as far south as Zanzibar . In the 20th century, the sultanate came under the influence of the United Kingdom . For over 300 years, the relations built between the two empires were based on mutual benefit. The UK recognized Oman's geographical importance as

6040-412: The Rashidun or "rightly guided" Caliphate . Under the Rashidun Caliphs, and, from 661, their Umayyad successors , the Arabs rapidly expanded the territory under Muslim control outside of Arabia. In a matter of decades Muslim armies decisively defeated the Byzantine army and destroyed the Persian Empire , conquering huge swathes of territory from the Iberian peninsula to India. The political focus of

6191-406: The Seljuk Empire . They were expelled in 1154, when the Nabhani dynasty came to power. The Nabhanis ruled as muluk , or kings, while the Imams were reduced to largely symbolic significance. The capital of the dynasty was Bahla . The Banu Nabhan controlled the trade in frankincense on the overland route via Sohar to the Yabrin oasis, and then north to Bahrain, Baghdad and Damascus. The mango-tree

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6342-427: The Socotra Archipelago , the Peninsula's geopolitical outline faces the Guardafui Channel and the Somali Sea to the south. The six countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE form the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia covers the greater part of the Peninsula. The majority of the population of the Peninsula lives in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The Peninsula contains

6493-404: The Syrian Desert with no clear borderline, although the northern boundary of the peninsula is generally considered to be the northern borders of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, also southern regions of Iraq and Jordan. The most prominent feature of the peninsula is desert , but in the southwest, there are mountain ranges, which receive greater rainfall than the rest of the peninsula. Harrat ash Shaam

6644-409: The Tuwayr , Shammar and Dhofar generally do not exceed 1,000 m (3,300 ft) in height. Not all mountains in the peninsula are visibly within ranges. Jebel Hafeet in particular, on the border of the UAE and Oman, measuring between 1,100 and 1,300 m (3,600 and 4,300 ft), is not within the Hajar range, but may be considered an outlier of that range. Most of the Arabian Peninsula

6795-410: The United States –led 2003 invasion of Iraq . Despite its historically sparse population, political Arabia stands out for its rapid population growth, driven by both significant inflows of migrant labor and persistently high birth rates. The population is characterized by its relative youth and a heavily skewed gender ratio favoring males. In several states, the number of South Asians surpasses that of

6946-464: The nomes of Ptolemaic Egypt was named Arabia . Arabians used a north–south division of Arabia: ash-Sham vs. al-Yaman , or Arabia Deserta vs. Arabia Felix . Arabia Felix had originally been used for the whole peninsula, and at other times only for the southern region. Because its use became limited to the south, the whole peninsula was simply called Arabia. Arabia Deserta was the entire desert region extending north from Arabia Felix to Palmyra and

7097-485: The 'Question of Oman' and report back to the General Assembly. The UN General Assembly adopted the 'Question of Oman' resolution in 1965, 1966 and again in 1967 that called upon the British government to cease all repressive action against the locals, end British control over Oman and reaffirmed the inalienable right of the Omani people to self-determination and independence. In the Dhofar War , which began in 1963, pro- Soviet forces were pitted against government troops. As

7248-430: The 13th century it was extended to include the rest of the Hejaz . Although, the Sharifs exercised at most times independent authority in the Hejaz , they were usually subject to the suzerainty of one of the major Islamic empires of the time. In the Middle Ages, these included the Abbasids of Baghdad , and the Fatimids , Ayyubids , and Mamluks of Egypt . The provincial Ottoman Army for Arabia (Arabistan Ordusu)

7399-441: The 17th century, using its bases in Oman, Portugal engaged in the largest naval battle ever fought in the Persian Gulf . The Portuguese force fought against a combined armada of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and English East India Company supported by the Safavid empire. The result of the battle was a draw but it resulted in the loss of Portuguese influence in the Gulf. The Ottoman Empire temporarily captured Muscat from

7550-477: The Arab tribes but also the region's original inhabitants. In the 7th century CE, Omanis came in contact with and accepted Islam . The conversion of Omanis to Islam is ascribed to Amr ibn al-As , who was sent by the prophet Muhammad during the Expedition of Zaid ibn Haritha (Hisma) . Amr was dispatched to meet with Jaifer and Abd, the sons of Julanda who ruled Oman. They appear to have readily embraced Islam. Omani Azd used to travel to Basra for trade, which

7701-610: The Arab world's longest-serving ruler, died on 10 January 2020. Leaving no heir on succession, on 11 January 2020 Qaboos was succeeded by his first cousin Haitham bin Tariq . Haitham bin Tariq is the current Sultan of Oman. On 12 January 2021, Theyazin bin Haitham , Sultan Haithan's oldest son became the crown prince as first in line to succeed his father under new fundamental law. Oman lies between latitudes 16th parallel north and 28th parallel north , and longitudes 52nd meridian east and 60th meridian east . A gravel desert plain covers most of central Oman, with mountain ranges along

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7852-490: The British refused to accept Imam Azzan as a ruler, as he was viewed as inimical to their interests. This view played an instrumental role in supporting the deposition of Imam Azzan in 1871 by his cousin, Sayyid Turki, a son of the late Sayyid Said bin Sultan, and brother of Sultan Barghash of Zanzibar , who Britain deemed to be more acceptable. Oman's Imam Sultan, defeated ruler of Muscat, was granted sovereignty over Gwadar , an area of modern-day Pakistan. The British empire

8003-440: The Consultative Assembly, to which Sultan Qaboos promised greater powers. The following year, the government began a crackdown on internet criticism. In September 2012, trials began of 'activists' accused of posting "abusive and provocative" criticism of the government online. Six were given jail terms. In 2013, Oman achieved its status as the elimination of malaria diagnoses, according to the World Health Organization . Qaboos,

8154-466: The Euphrates, including all the area between Pelusium on the Nile and Babylon. This area was also called Arabia and not sharply distinguished from the peninsula. The Arabs and the Ottoman Empire considered the west of the Arabian Peninsula region where the Arabs lived 'the land of the Arabs' – Bilad al-'Arab ( Arabia ), and its major divisions were the bilad al-Sham ( Levant ), bilad al-Yaman ( Yemen ), and Bilad al-'Iraq ( Iraq ). The Ottomans used

8305-517: The Great over Oman in 536 BCE. Sumerian tablets referred to Oman as " Magan " and in the Akkadian language "Makan", a name that links Oman's ancient copper resources. Over centuries tribes from western Arabia settled in Oman, making a living by fishing, farming, herding or stock breeding, and many present day Omani families trace their ancestral roots to other parts of Arabia. Arab migration to Oman started from northern-western and south-western Arabia and those who chose to settle had to compete with

8456-445: The Gulf Cooperation Council's mediation. He eventually handed power to Vice President Hadi, who was sworn in as President of Yemen on 25 February 2012. Hadi launched a national dialogue to address new constitutional, political and social issues. The Houthi movement , dissatisfied with the outcomes of the national dialogue, launched an offensive and stormed the Yemeni capital Sanaa on 21 September 2014. In response, Saudi Arabia launched

8607-481: The Gulf of Oman and the northern Arabian Sea , while No. 209 Squadron RAF , No. 265 Squadron RAF , and No. 321 Squadron RAF flew Consolidated PBY Catalinas out of Umm Ruşayş on Masirah Island. On October 16, 1943, the German U-Boat U-533 was sunk in the Gulf of Oman after being struck by depth charges dropped by a Bristol Blenheim from No. 244 Squadron RAF. The wreck settled at a depth of 108 meters (354 feet) approximately 25 nautical miles (46 kilometres) off

8758-473: The Imamate right after the death of Imam Alkhalili, thus taking advantage of any potential instability that might occur within the Imamate when elections were due, to the British government. The British political agent in Muscat believed that the only method of gaining access to the oil reserves in the interior was by assisting the sultan in taking over the Imamate. In 1946, the British government offered arms and ammunition, auxiliary supplies and officers to prepare

8909-674: The Imamate. IPC offered financial support to the sultan to raise an armed force against any potential resistance by the Imamate. Upon the outbreak of World War II , the sultan of Oman declared war on Germany on September 10, 1939. During the war, Oman had a strategic role in the defence of the United Kingdom's trade routes. Oman was never attacked during the war. In 1943, the Royal Air Force established stations on Masirah Island ( RAF Masirah ) and at Ras al Hadd . Air-sea rescue units were also stationed in Oman. No. 244 Squadron RAF flew Bristol Blenheim V light bombers and Vickers Wellington XIIIs out of RAF Masirah on anti-submarine duties in

9060-462: The Indian Ocean, leaving the summer air saturated with cool moisture and heavy fog. Summer temperatures in Salalah range from 20 to 30 °C (68.0 to 86.0 °F)—relatively cool compared to northern Oman. The mountain areas receive more rainfall, and annual rainfall on the higher parts of the Jabal Akhdar probably exceeds 400 millimetres (16 in). Low temperatures in the mountainous areas leads to snow cover once every few years. Some parts of

9211-408: The Madha exclave is a UAE enclave called Nahwa , belonging to the Emirate of Sharjah , situated about 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) west of the town of New Madha, and consisting of about forty houses with a clinic and telephone exchange. The central desert of Oman is a source of meteorites for scientific analysis. Like the rest of the Persian Gulf, Oman generally has one of the hottest climates in

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9362-485: The Majlis al-Shura, the Consultative Assembly of Oman . Two women were duly elected to the body. In 2002, voting rights were extended to all citizens over the age of 21, and the first elections to the Consultative Assembly under the new rules were held in 2003. In 2004, the Sultan appointed Oman's first female minister with portfolio, Sheikha Aisha bint Khalfan bin Jameel al-Sayabiyah , to the post of National Authority for Industrial Craftsmanship. Despite these changes, there

9513-416: The Middle East since around 25,000 years ago. These different Middle Eastern populations would later spread Basal Eurasian ancestry via the Neolithic Revolution to all of Western Eurasia. There is evidence that human habitation in the Arabian Peninsula dates back to about 106,000 to 130,000 years ago. The harsh climate historically prevented much settlement in the pre-Islamic Arabian Peninsula, apart from

9664-459: The Muslim world then shifted to the newly conquered territories. Nevertheless, Mecca and Medina remained the spiritually most important places in the Muslim world . The Qur'an requires every able-bodied Muslim who can afford it, as one of the five pillars of Islam , to make a pilgrimage, or Hajj , to Mecca during the Islamic month of Dhu al-Hijjah at least once in his or her lifetime. The Masjid al-Haram (the Grand Mosque) in Mecca

9815-513: The Omani Empire weakened, the British influence over Muscat grew throughout the nineteenth century. In 1854, a deed of cession of the Omani Kuria Muria islands to Britain was signed by the sultan of Muscat and the British government. The British government achieved predominating control over Muscat, which, for the most part, impeded competition from other nations. Between 1862 and 1892, the Political Residents, Lewis Pelly and Edward Ross, played an instrumental role in securing British supremacy over

9966-436: The Omani domains. To capture Zanzibar Saif bin Sultan , the Imam of Oman, pressed down the Swahili Coast . A major obstacle to his progress was Fort Jesus , housing the garrison of a Portuguese settlement at Mombasa . After a two-year siege, the fort fell to Imam Saif bin Sultan in 1698. Saif bin Sultan occupied Bahrain in 1700. The rivalry within the house of Yaruba over power after the death of Imam Sultan in 1718 weakened

10117-412: The Persian Gulf and Muscat by a system of indirect governance. By the end of the 19th century, and with the loss of its African dominions and its revenues, British influence increased to the point that the sultans became heavily dependent on British loans and signed declarations to consult the British government on all important matters. The Sultanate thus came de facto under the British sphere. Zanzibar

10268-504: The Portuguese again in 1581 and held it until 1588. During the 17th century, the Omanis were reunited by the Yaruba Imams . Nasir bin Murshid became the first Yaarubah Imam in 1624, when he was elected in Rustaq. Imam Nasir and his successor succeeded in the 1650s in expelling the Portuguese from their coastal domains in Oman. The Omanis over time established a maritime empire that pursued the Portuguese and expelled them from all their possessions in East Africa, which were then incorporated into

10419-403: The Saudi Arabian border and rallied popular support. The royalist side received support from Saudi Arabia, while the republicans were supported by Egypt and the Soviet Union. Both foreign irregular and conventional forces were also involved. The Egyptian President , Gamal Abdel Nasser , supported the republicans with as many as 70,000 troops. Despite several military moves and peace conferences,

10570-426: The Semitic realm, something that makes it more difficult to analyze. Even given the existence of closely related languages such as Ge'ez and Classical Arabic, only part of the Sabaic vocabulary has proved able to be interpreted; a not inconsiderable part must be deduced from the context and some words remain incomprehensible. On the other hand, many words from agriculture and irrigation technology have been retrieved from

10721-476: The Sultanate as the defence secretary and chief of intelligence, chief adviser to the sultan and all ministers except for two were British. In 1937, an agreement between the sultan and Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), a consortium of oil companies that was 23.75% British owned, was signed to grant oil concessions to IPC. After failing to discover oil in the Sultanate, IPC was intensely interested in some promising geological formations near Fahud , an area located within

10872-628: The Sultanate of Muscat and Oman as a fully independent state. In 1955, the exclave coastal Makran strip acceded to Pakistan and was made a district of its Balochistan province , while Gwadar remained in Oman. On 8 September 1958, Pakistan purchased the Gwadar enclave from Oman for US$ 3 million. Gwadar then became a tehsil in the Makran district. Sultan Said bin Taimur expressed his interest in occupying

11023-558: The Sultanate's forces occupied the mountain in a surprise operation. Imam Ghalib, his brother Talib and Sulaiman managed to escape to Saudi Arabia , where the Imamate's cause was promoted until the 1970s. The exiled partisans of the now abolished Imamate of Oman presented the case of Oman to the Arab League and the United Nations. On 11 December 1963, the UN General Assembly decided to establish an Ad-Hoc Committee on Oman to study

11174-412: The United Nations, as did Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. In 1981, Oman became a founding member of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council . Political reforms were eventually introduced. The country adopted its present national flag in 1995, resembling the previous flag but with a thicker stripe. In 1997, a royal decree was issued granting women the right to vote, and stand for election to

11325-609: The Yaarubah from Qahtan, which belong to an older branch, were the first settlers of Oman from Yemen, and then came the Azd. The Azd settlers in Oman are descendants of Nasr bin Azd and were later known as "the Al-Azd of Oman". Seventy years after the first Azd migration, another branch of Alazdi under Malik bin Fahm, the founder of Kingdom of Tanukhites on the west of Euphrates , is believed to have settled in Oman. According to Al-Kalbi, Malik bin Fahm

11476-516: The alienation of the interior of Oman to the vast influence of the British government over Muscat, which he described as being completely self-interested and without any regard to the social and political conditions of the locals. In 1913, Imam Salim Alkharusi instigated an anti-Muscat rebellion that lasted until 1920 when the Sultanate established peace with the Imamate by signing the Treaty of Seeb . The treaty

11627-563: The biblical land of Sheba ). From 106 AD to 630 AD northwestern Arabia was under the control of the Roman Empire , which renamed it Arabia Petraea . Central Arabia was the location of the Kingdom of Kinda in the 4th, 5th and early 6th centuries. Eastern Arabia was home to the Dilmun civilization . The earliest known events in Arabian history are migrations from the peninsula into neighbouring areas. The Arabian Peninsula has long been accepted as

11778-409: The biggest ongoing threat believed to be coastal construction activity altering the marine environment. The fertile soils of Yemen have encouraged settlement of almost all of the land from sea level up to the mountains at 10,000 feet (3,000 m). In the higher elevations, elaborate terraces have been constructed to facilitate grain, fruit, coffee, ginger and khat cultivation. The Arabian peninsula

11929-530: The change s 3 > s 1 , for example: ˀks 1 wt ("clothes"), normal Sabaic ks 3 wy . The exact nature of the emphatic consonants q , ṣ , ṭ , ẓ and ḍ also remains a matter for debate: were they pharyngealized as in Modern Arabic, or were they glottalized as in Ethiopic (and reconstructed Proto-Semitic)? There are arguments to support both possibilities. In any case, beginning with Middle Sabaic

12080-560: The coast, particularly near the island of Masirah , sometimes receive no rain at all within the course of a year. The climate is generally very hot, with temperatures reaching around 54 °C (129.2 °F) (peak) in the hot season, from May to September. Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula ( / ə ˈ r eɪ b i ə n p ə n ɪ n sj u l ə / ; Arabic : شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَة الْعَرَبِيَّة , shibhu l-jazīra l-ʿarabiyya , "Arabian Peninsula" or جَزِيرَةُ الْعَرَب , jazīratu l-ʿarab , lit.   ' Island of

12231-420: The country, removed "Muscat and" from the country's name, embarked on economic reforms, and followed a policy of modernisation marked by increased spending on health, education and welfare. Saudi Arabia invested in the development of the Omani education system, sending Saudi teachers on its own expense. Slavery , once a cornerstone of the country's trade and development, was outlawed in 1970. In 1971, Oman joined

12382-600: The dynasty and Alhinawis arose, which led to the restoration of the elective Imamate. A decade after Vasco da Gama succeeded in his voyage around the Cape of Good Hope and to India in 1497–1498, the Portuguese arrived in Oman and occupied Muscat for a 143-year period, from 1507 to 1650. In need of an outpost to protect their sea lanes, the Portuguese built up and fortified the city. Remnants of Portuguese architectural style still exist. Later, several more Omani cities were colonized in

12533-670: The dynasty. With the power of the Yaruba Dynasty dwindling, Imam Saif bin Sultan II eventually asked for help against his rivals from Nader Shah of Persia. A Persian force arrived in March 1737 to aid Saif. From their base at Julfar, the Persian forces eventually rebelled against the Yaruba in 1743. The Persian empire then tried to take possession of the coast of Oman until 1747. After the Omanis expelled

12684-476: The early 16th century by the Portuguese, to control the entrances of the Persian Gulf and trade in the region as part of a web of fortresses in the region, from Basra to Hormuz Island . However, in 1552 an Ottoman fleet briefly captured the fort in Muscat , during their fight for control of the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, but soon departed after destroying the surroundings of the fortress. Later in

12835-556: The east) constituting only a quarter of people aged between 20 and 40. The eleven most populous cities on the Arabian Peninsula are: The rocks exposed vary systematically across Arabia, with the oldest rocks exposed in the Arabian-Nubian Shield near the Red Sea, overlain by earlier sediments that become younger towards the Persian Gulf. Perhaps the best-preserved ophiolite on Earth, the Semail Ophiolite , lies exposed in

12986-521: The eastern Al-Qassim Province , which would indicate that many prehistoric sites, located along a network of rivers, had once existed in the area. Acheulean tools found in Saffaqah, Riyadh Region reveal that hominins lived in the Arabian Peninsula around 188,000 years ago. Human habitation in Arabia may have occurred as early as 130,000 years ago. A fossilized Homo sapiens finger bone found at Al Wusta in

13137-542: The eastern, southern and northwestern borders of the peninsula. Broadly, the ranges can be grouped as follows: From the Hejaz southwards, the mountains show a steady increase in altitude westward as they get nearer to Yemen, and the highest peaks and ranges are all located in Yemen. The highest, Jabal An-Nabi Shu'ayb or Jabal Hadhur of the Haraz subrange of the Sarawat range, is 3,666 metres (12,028 ft) high. By comparison,

13288-714: The first treaty between the British East India Company and the Albusaidi dynasty was signed by Sayyid Sultan bin Ahmed. The treaty aimed to block commercial competition of the French and the Dutch as well as obtain a concession to build a British factory at Bandar Abbas . A second treaty was signed in 1800, which stipulated that a British representative shall reside at the port of Muscat and manage all external affairs with other states. As

13439-564: The gender and the number. At the same time external plurals and duals have their own endings for grammatical state, while inner plurals are treated like singulars. Apart from the construct state known in other Semitic languages, there is also an indeterminate state and a determinate state, the functions of which are explained below. The following are the detailed state endings: The three grammatical states have distinct syntactical and semantic functions: As in other West Semitic languages Sabaic distinguishes between two types of finite verb forms:

13590-463: The grammatical state: ḫrf-n "two years" (indeterminate state) from ḫrf "year". Sabaic almost certainly had a case system formed by vocalic endings, but since vowels were involved they are not recognizable in the writings; nevertheless a few traces have been retained in the written texts, above all in the construct state . As in other Semitic languages Sabaic has a few grammatical states, which are indicated by various different endings according to

13741-449: The indigenous population for the best arable land. When Arab tribes started to migrate to Oman, there were two distinct groups. One group, a segment of the Azd tribe migrated from Yemen in 120/200 CE following the collapse of Marib Dam , while the other group migrated a few centuries before the birth of Islam from Nejd (present-day Saudi Arabia ), named Nizari . Other historians believe that

13892-564: The inscriptions has made it difficult to get a complete picture of Sabaic grammar. Thousands of inscriptions written in a cursive script (called Zabur ) incised into wooden sticks have been found and date to the Middle Sabaic period; these represent letters and legal documents and as such includes a much wider variety of grammatical forms. In the Late Sabaic period the ancient names of the gods are no longer mentioned and only one deity Raḥmānān

14043-624: The interior led by Imam Ghalib Alhinai, Talib Alhinai, the brother of the Imam and the Wali (governor) of Rustaq, and Suleiman bin Hamyar, who was the Wali (governor) of Jebel Akhdar, defended the Imamate in the Jebel Akhdar War against British-backed attacks by the Sultanate. In July 1957, the Sultan's forces were withdrawing, but they were repeatedly ambushed, sustaining heavy casualties. Sultan Said, however, with

14194-507: The intervention of British infantry (two companies of the Cameronians ), armoured car detachments from the British Army and RAF aircraft, was able to suppress the rebellion. The Imamate's forces retreated to the inaccessible Jebel Akhdar . Colonel David Smiley , who had been seconded to organise the Sultan's Armed Forces, managed to isolate the mountain in autumn 1958 and found a route to

14345-480: The language of the inscriptions. Divergent dialects are usually found in the area surrounding the Central Highlands, such as the important dialect of the city of Ḥaram in the eastern al- Jawf . Inscriptions in the Ḥaramic dialect, which is heavily influenced by North Arabic, are also generally considered a form of Sabaic. The Himyarites , whose spoken language was Semitic but not South Arabic, used Sabaic as

14496-414: The letters w and y ; in the later stages the same words are increasingly found without these letters, which leads some scholars (such as Stein) to the conclusion that they had by then contracted to ō and ē (though aw → ū and ay → ī would also be possible) Sabaic, like Proto-Semitic , contains three sibilant phonemes, represented by distinct letters; the exact phonetic nature of these sounds

14647-565: The letters for w and y as matres lectionis . In the Old period this is used mainly in word-final position, but in Middle and Late Sabaic it also commonly occurs medially. Sabaic has no way of writing the long vowel ā , but in later inscriptions, in the Radmanite dialect the letter h is sometimes infixed in plurals where it is not etymologically expected: thus bnhy (sons of; Constructive State) instead of

14798-488: The letters representing ṣ and ẓ are increasingly interchanged, which seems to indicate that they have fallen together as one phoneme. The existence of bilabial fricative f as a reflex of the Proto-Semitic *p is partly proved by Latin transcriptions of names. In late Sabaic ḏ and z also merge.In Old Sabaic the sound n only occasionally assimilates to a following consonant, but in the later periods this assimilation

14949-492: The members of the agreement established Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC). On 13 November 1931, Sultan Taimur bin Faisal abdicated. Said bin Taimur became the sultan of Muscat officially on 10 February 1932. The rule of sultan Said, a very complex character, was backed by the British government, and has been characterised as being feudal , reactionary and isolationist. The British government maintained vast administrative control over

15100-569: The modern era, the term bilad al-Yaman came to refer specifically to the southwestern parts of the peninsula. Arab geographers started to refer to the whole peninsula as 'jazirat al-Arab', or the peninsula of the Arabs. The railway was started in 1900 at the behest of the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II and was built largely by the Turks , with German advice and support. A public subscription

15251-486: The modern state of Saudi Arabia. The Saudis absorbed the Emirate of Asir , with their expansion only ending in 1934 after a war with Yemen . Two Saudi states were formed and controlled much of Arabia before Ibn Saud was even born. Ibn Saud, however, established the third Saudi state. The second major development has been the discovery of vast reserves of oil in the 1930s. Its production brought great wealth to all countries of

15402-473: The most-improved country in the world in terms of development during the preceding 40 years. A portion of its economy involves tourism and trading fish, dates and other agricultural produce. The World Bank categorizes Oman as a high-income economy and as of 2023 Oman ranks as the 48th most peaceful country in the world according to the Global Peace Index . The oldest known written mention of "Oman"

15553-518: The mountains of the UAE and northern Oman. The peninsula consists of: Arabia has few lakes or permanent rivers. Most areas are drained by ephemeral watercourses called wadis , which are dry except during the rainy season. Plentiful ancient aquifers exist beneath much of the peninsula, however, and where this water surfaces, oases form (e.g. Al-Hasa and Qatif , two of the world's largest oases ) and permit agriculture, especially palm trees , which allowed

15704-436: The native population. The four smallest states (by area), with coastlines entirely bordering the Persian Gulf, showcase the world's most extreme population growth, nearly tripling every two decades. In 2014, the estimated population of the Arabian Peninsula was 77,983,936 (including expatriates). The Arabian Peninsula is known for having one of the most uneven adult sex ratios in the world, with females in some regions (especially

15855-633: The ninth century CE. The Imamate established a maritime empire whose fleet controlled the Gulf, during the time when trade with the Abbasid Dynasty , the Far East, and Africa flourished. The authority of the Imams started to decline due to power struggles, the constant interventions of Abbasid, and the rise of the Seljuk Empire . During the 11th and 12th centuries, the Omani coast was in the sphere of influence of

16006-703: The nomadic Bedouin ). Although some have proposed one or another eponymous founder (Oman bin Ibrahim al-Khalil, Oman bin Siba' bin Yaghthan bin Ibrahim, Oman bin Qahtan), others have suggested that "Oman" derives from the name of a valley in Yemen at Ma'rib , presumed to be the original home of the city's founders, the Azd , an ancient Bedouin tribe mentioned in the pre-Islamic inscriptions — specifically, Sabaic inscriptions from Sha'r Awtar 's reign ( 210 – 230 CE). At Aybut Al Auwal, in

16157-413: The north ( Hajar Mountains ) and southeast coast ( Dhofar Mountains ), where the country's main cities are located: the capital city Muscat , Sohar and Sur in the north, and Salalah in the south and Musandam . Oman's climate is hot and dry in the interior and humid along the coast. The peninsula of Musandam (Musandem), strategically located on the Strait of Hormuz , is an exclave separated from

16308-589: The northern part of the Oman Peninsula the Recent Pre-Islamic Period begins in the 3rd century BCE and extends into the 3rd century CE. Whether or not Persians brought south-eastern Arabia under their control is a moot point, since the lack of Persian archeological finds speak against this belief. Armand-Pierre Caussin de Perceval suggests that Shammir bin Wathil bin Himyar recognized the authority of Cyrus

16459-487: The object; thus: qtl-hmw "he killed them"; ḫmr-hmy t'lb "Ta'lab poured for them both"; when the suffixes are added to nouns they indicate possession: ' bd-hw "his slave").The independent pronouns serve as the subject of nominal and verbal sentences: mr' 't "you are the Lord" (a nominal sentence); hmw f-ḥmdw "they thanked" (a verbal sentence). Old South Arabian nouns fall into two genders: masculine and feminine. The feminine

16610-501: The original Urheimat of the Semitic languages by most scholars. The seventh century saw the rise of Islam as the peninsula's dominant religion. The Islamic prophet Muhammad was born in Mecca in about 570 and first began preaching in the city in 610, but migrated to Medina in 622. From there he and his companions united the tribes of Arabia under the banner of Islam and created

16761-538: The other South Arabian languages. First- and second-person independent pronouns are rarely attested in the monumental inscription, but possibly for cultural reasons; the likelihood was that these texts were neither composed nor written by the one who commissioned them: hence they use third-person pronouns to refer to the one who is paying for the building and dedication or whatever. The use of the pronouns in Sabaic corresponds to that in other Semitic languages. The pronominal suffixes are added to verbs and prepositions to denote

16912-399: The peninsula to produce more dates than any other region in the world. In general, the climate is extremely hot and arid , although there are exceptions. Higher elevations are made temperate by their altitude, and the Arabian Sea coastline can receive cool, humid breezes in summer due to cold upwelling offshore. The peninsula has no thick forests. Desert-adapted wildlife is present throughout

17063-633: The perfect and imperfect may be summarized as follows (the active and the passive are not distinguished in their consonantal written form; the verbal example is fʿl "to do"): The perfect is mainly used to describe something that took place in the past, only before conditional phrases and in relative phrases with a conditional connotation does it describe an action in the present, as in Classical Arabic. For example: w-s 3 ḫly Hlkʾmr w-ḥmʿṯt "And Hlkʾmr and ḥmʿṯt have pleaded guilty (dual)". The imperfect usually expresses that something has occurred at

17214-463: The perfect which is conjugated with suffixes and the imperfect which is conjugated with both prefixes and suffixes. In the imperfect two forms can be distinguished: a short form and a form constructed using the n (long form esp. the n-imperfect ), which in any case is missing in Qatabānian and Ḥaḍramite. In actual use it is hard to distinguish the two imperfect forms from each other. The conjugation of

17365-541: The plateau from Wadi Bani Kharus. On 4 August 1957, the British Foreign Secretary gave the approval to carry out air strikes without prior warning to the locals residing in the interior of Oman. Between July and December 1958, the British RAF made 1,635 raids, dropping 1,094 tons and firing 900 rockets at the interior of Oman targeting insurgents, mountain top villages, water channels and crops. On 27 January 1959,

17516-400: The post- Ottoman Empire region, which included the Arabian peninsula, with each of the four major companies holding 23.75 percent of the shares while Calouste Gulbenkian held the remaining 5 percent shares. The agreement stipulated that none of the signatories was allowed to pursue the establishment of oil concessions within the agreed on area without including all other stakeholders. In 1929,

17667-530: The rebellion threatened the Sultan's control of Dhofar , Sultan Said bin Taimur was deposed in a bloodless coup in 1970 by his son Qaboos bin Said with British support. Qaboos expanded the Sultan of Oman's Armed Forces , modernized the state's administration and introduced social reforms. The uprising was finally put down in 1976 with the help of forces from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and Britain. After deposing his father in 1970, Sultan Qaboos opened up

17818-612: The region, with the exception of Yemen. The North Yemen Civil War was fought in North Yemen between royalists of the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen and factions of the Yemen Arab Republic from 1962 to 1970. The war began with a coup d'état carried out by the republican leader, Abdullah as-Sallal , which dethroned the newly crowned Muhammad al-Badr and declared Yemen a republic under his presidency. The Imam escaped to

17969-419: The region. A plateau more than 2,500 feet (760 m) high extends across much of the Arabian Peninsula. The plateau slopes eastwards from the massive, rifted escarpment along the coast of the Red Sea, to the shallow waters of the Persian Gulf. The interior is characterized by cuestas and valleys, drained by a system of wadis . A crescent of sand and gravel deserts lies to the east. There are mountains at

18120-608: The regional relationships. Arabs living in one of the existing districts of the Arabian peninsula, the Emirate of Hejaz , asked for a British guarantee of independence. Their proposal included all Arab lands south of a line roughly corresponding to the northern frontiers of present-day Syria and Iraq. They envisioned a new Arab state, or confederation of states, adjoining the southern Arabian Peninsula. It would have comprised Cilicia – İskenderun and Mersin , Iraq with Kuwait, Syria, Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate , Jordan, and Palestine . In

18271-560: The representation with s followed by the subscripts 1–3. This latest version has largely taken over the English-speaking world, while in the German-speaking area, for example, the older transcription signs, which are also given in the table below, are more widespread. They were transcribed by Beeston as s 1 , s 2 , and s 3 . Bearing in mind the latest reconstructions of the Proto-Semitic sibilants, we can postulate that s 1

18422-505: The representative of his father the Imam in Muscat and obtained the possession of Muscat fortress. Hamed ruled as "Seyyid". Afterwards, Seyyid Sultan bin Ahmed, the uncle of Seyyid Hamed, took over power. Seyyid Said bin Sultan succeeded Sultan bin Ahmed. During the entire 19th century, in addition to Imam Said bin Ahmed who retained the title until he died in 1803, Azzan bin Qais was the only elected Imam of Oman. His rule started in 1868. However,

18573-538: The rest of Oman by the United Arab Emirates . Madha , another exclave, is an enclave within UAE territory located halfway between the Musandam Peninsula and the main body of Oman. Madha, part of the Musandam governorate, covers approximately 75 square kilometres (29 sq mi). Madha's boundary was settled in 1969, with the north-east corner of Madha barely 10 metres (33 ft) from the Fujairah road. Within

18724-702: The ruling Ottoman Empire and creating a single unified Arab state spanning from Aleppo in Syria to Aden in Yemen. During World War I, the Sharif Hussein entered into an alliance with the United Kingdom and France against the Ottomans in June 1916. These events were followed by the foundation of Saudi Arabia under King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud . In 1902, Ibn Saud had captured Riyadh . Continuing his conquests, Abdulaziz subdued Al-Hasa, Jabal Shammar , Hejaz between 1913 and 1926 founded

18875-542: The same time as an event previously mentioned, or it may simply express the present or future. Four moods can be distinguished: The imperative is found in texts written in the zabūr script on wooden sticks, and has the form fˁl(-n) . For example: w-'nt f-s 3 ḫln ("and you (sg.) look after"). By changing the consonantal roots of verbs they can produce various derivational forms, which change their meaning. In Sabaic (and other Old South Arabian languages) six such stems are attested. Examples: The arrangement of clauses

19026-453: The second half of the 1st century BC; only a few of the latter have so far been published. The South Arabic alphabet used in Yemen , Eritrea , Djibouti , and Ethiopia beginning in the 8th century BC, in all three locations, later evolved into the still in use Ge'ez alphabet . The Ge'ez language however is no longer considered to be a descendant of Sabaic or of Old South Arabian ; and there

19177-494: The sultan to attack the interior of Oman. In May 1954, Imam Alkhalili died and Ghalib Alhinai was elected Imam. Relations between the Sultan Said bin Taimur, and Imam Ghalib Alhinai frayed over their dispute about oil concessions. In December 1955, Sultan Said bin Taimur sent troops of the Muscat and Oman Field Force to occupy the main centres in Oman, including Nizwa , the capital of the Imamate of Oman, and Ibri . The Omanis in

19328-616: The term Arabistan in a broad sense for the region starting from Cilicia , where the Euphrates river makes its descent into Syria, through Palestine , and on through the remainder of the Sinai and Arabian peninsulas. The provinces of Arabia were: Al Tih, the Sinai peninsula, Hejaz, Asir, Yemen, Hadramaut, Mahra and Shilu, Oman, Hasa, Bahrain, Dahna, Nufud, the Hammad, which included the deserts of Syria, Mesopotamia and Babylonia. The Arabian Peninsula

19479-541: The thirty seven largest aquifers "have exceeded sustainability tipping points and are being depleted" and thirteen of them are "considered significantly distressed". Stone tools from the Middle Paleolithic age along with fossils of other animals discovered at Ti's al Ghadah, in northwestern Saudi Arabia, might imply that hominins migrated through a "Green Arabia" between 300,000 and 500,000 years ago. 200,000-year-old stone tools were discovered at Shuaib Al-Adgham in

19630-456: The usual bny ; it is suspected that this h represents the vowel ā . Long vowels ū and ī certainly seem to be indicated in forms such as the personal pronouns hmw (them), the verbal form ykwn (also written without the glide ykn ; he will be), and in enclitic particles - mw , and - my probably used for emphasis. In the Old Sabaic inscriptions the Proto-Semitic diphthongs aw and ay seemed to have been retained, being written with

19781-556: The war in Yemen as analogous to the United States ' role in the Vietnam War . In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. The invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi forces led to the 1990–91 Gulf War . Egypt, Qatar, Syria, and Saudi Arabia joined a multinational coalition that opposed Iraq. Displays of support for Iraq by Jordan and Palestine resulted in strained relations between many of the Arab states. After

19932-478: The war sank into a stalemate. Egypt's commitment to the war is considered to have been detrimental to its performance in the Six-Day War of June 1967, after which Nasser found it increasingly difficult to maintain his army's involvement and began to pull his forces out of Yemen. By 1970, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia recognized the republic and a truce was signed. Egyptian military historians refer to Egypt's role in

20083-635: The war, a so-called "Damascus Declaration" formalized an alliance for future joint Arab defensive actions between Egypt, Syria, and the GCC member states. The Arab Spring reached Yemen in January 2011. People of Yemen took to the street demonstrating against three decades of rule by President Ali Abdullah Saleh . The demonstration led to cracks in the ruling General People's Congress (GPC) and Saleh's Sanhani clan. Saleh used tactics of concession and violence to save his presidency. After numerous attempts, Saleh accepted

20234-735: The war, taking over the governance of Oman. The first elective Imamate of Oman is believed to have been established shortly after the fall of the Umayyad Dynasty in 750/755 CE, when Janaħ bin ʕibadah Alħinnawi was elected. Other scholars claim that Janaħ bin Ibadah served as a Wāli (governor) under the Umayyad dynasty (and later ratified the Imamate), and that Julanda bin Masud was the first elected Imam of Oman, in 751 CE. The first Imamate reached its peak power in

20385-453: The world's largest reserves of oil. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are economically the wealthiest in the region. Qatar, the only peninsular country in the Persian Gulf on the larger peninsula, is home to the Arabic-language television station Al Jazeera and its English-language subsidiary Al Jazeera English . Kuwait, on the border with Iraq, is an important country strategically, forming one of the main staging grounds for coalition forces mounting

20536-578: The world's largest, undestroyed and most pristine coral reefs. In addition, the organisms living in symbiosis with the Red Sea coral, the protozoa and zooxanthellae , have a unique hot weather adaptation to sudden rise (and fall) in sea water temperature. Hence, these coral reefs are not affected by coral bleaching caused by rise in temperature as elsewhere in the indopacific coral sea. The reefs are also unaffected by mass tourism and diving or other large scale human interference. The Persian gulf has suffered significant loss and degradation of coral reefs with

20687-425: The world—with summer temperatures in Muscat and northern Oman averaging 30 to 40 °C (86.0 to 104.0 °F). Oman receives little rainfall , with annual rainfall in Muscat averaging 100 mm (3.9 in), occurring mostly in January. In the south, the Dhofar Mountains area near Salalah has a tropical-like climate and receives seasonal rainfall from late June to late September as a result of monsoon winds from

20838-517: The year 650; the Omani Azd in Iraq would subsequently adopt this as their predominant faith. Later, al-Hajjaj , the governor of Iraq, came into conflict with the Ibadis, which forced them back to Oman. Among those who returned was the scholar Jaber bin Zaid . His return (and the return of many other scholars) greatly enhanced the Ibadhi movement in Oman. Alhajjaj also made an attempt to subjugate Oman, then ruled by Suleiman and Said (the sons of Abbad bin Julanda). Alhajjaj dispatched Mujjaah bin Shiwah, who

20989-419: Was a centre of Islam, during the Umayyad empire. Omani Azd were granted a section of Basra, where they could settle and attend to their needs. Many of the Omani Azd who settled in Basra became wealthy merchants and, under their leader al-Muhallab ibn Abi Sufra , started to expand their influence of power eastwards towards Khorasan . Ibadism originated in Basra through its founder, Abd Allah ibn Ibad , around

21140-415: Was a valuable property as the main slave market of the Swahili Coast as well as being a major producer of cloves, and became an increasingly important part of the Omani empire, a fact reflected by the decision of the Sayyid Sa'id bin Sultan , to make it the capital of the empire in 1837. In 1856, under British arbitration, Zanzibar and Muscat became two different sultanates. The Hajar Mountains , of which

21291-415: Was brokered by Britain, which had no economic interest in the interior of Oman during that point of time. The treaty granted autonomous rule to the Imamate in the interior of Oman and recognized the sovereignty of the coast of Oman, the Sultanate of Muscat . In 1920, Imam Salim Alkharusi died and Muhammad Alkhalili was elected. On 10 January 1923, an agreement between the Sultanate and the British government

21442-461: Was confronted by Said bin Abbad. This confrontation devastated Said's army, after which he and his forces retreated to the Jebel Akhdar (mountains). Mujjaah and his forces went after Said, successfully flushing them out from hiding in Wadi Mastall. Mujjaah later moved towards the coast, where he confronted Suleiman bin Abbad. The battle was won by Suleiman's forces. Alhajjaj, however, sent another force (under Abdulrahman bin Suleiman); he eventually won

21593-418: Was headquartered in Syria , which included Palestine, the Transjordan region in addition to Lebanon ( Mount Lebanon was, however, a semi-autonomous mutasarrifate ). It was put in charge of Syria, Cilicia, Iraq, and the remainder of the Arabian Peninsula. The Ottomans never had any control over central Arabia, also known as the Najd region. The emergence of what was to become the Saudi royal family, known as

21744-411: Was introduced to Oman during the time of Nabhani dynasty, by ElFellah bin Muhsin. The Nabhani dynasty started to deteriorate in 1507 when Portuguese colonisers captured the coastal city of Muscat , and gradually extended their control along the coast up to Sohar in the north and down to Sur in the southeast. Other historians argue that the Nabhani dynasty ended earlier in 1435 CE when conflicts between

21895-426: Was keen to dominate southeast Arabia to stifle the growing power of other European states and to curb the Omani maritime power that grew during the 17th century. The British empire over time, starting from the late 18th century, began to establish a series of treaties with the sultans with the objective of advancing British political and economic interest in Muscat, while granting the sultans military protection. In 1798,

22046-429: Was little change to the actual political makeup of the government. The Sultan continued to rule by decree. Nearly 100 suspected Islamists were arrested in 2005 and 31 people were convicted of trying to overthrow the government. They were ultimately pardoned in June of the same year. Before the Beijing Olympics , Oman became the stop of the Middle East's torch relay on 14 April 2008, covering 20 kilometres. Inspired by

22197-434: Was opened throughout the Islamic world to fund the construction. The railway was to be a waqf , an inalienable religious endowment or charitable trust. The major developments of the early 20th century were the Arab Revolt during World War I and the subsequent collapse and partitioning of the Ottoman Empire . The Arab Revolt (1916–1918) was initiated by the Sherif Hussein ibn Ali with the aim of securing independence from

22348-431: Was probably pronounced as a simple [s]or [ʃ], s 2 was probably a lateral fricative [ɬ], and s 3 may have been realized as an affricate [t͡s]. The difference between the three sounds is maintained throughout Old Sabaic and Middle Sabaic, but in the Late period s 1 and s 3 merge. The subscript n did not start appearing until after the Early Sabaic period. The Middle Sabaic Haramitic dialect often shows

22499-528: Was signed in which the Sultanate had to consult with the British political agent residing in Muscat and obtain the approval of the High Government of India to extract oil in the Sultanate. On 31 July 1928, the Red Line Agreement was signed between Anglo-Persian Company (later renamed British Petroleum), Royal Dutch/Shell, Compagnie Française des Pétroles (later renamed Total), Near East Development Corporation (later renamed ExxonMobil) and Calouste Gulbenkian (an Armenian businessman) to collectively produce oil in

22650-476: Was the first settler of Alazd. He is said to have first settled in Qalhat . By this account, Malik, with an armed force of more than 6000 men and horses, fought against the Marzban , who served an ambiguously named Persian king in the battle of Salut in Oman and eventually defeated the Persian forces. This account is, however, semi-legendary and seems to condense multiple centuries of migration and conflict as well as an amalgamation of various traditions from not only

22801-404: Was to avenge a recent defeat by Byzantine (or Eastern Roman Empire ) forces, although he first had to put down a rebellion by Arab tribes in an episode known as the Ridda wars , or "Wars of Apostasy". On his death in 634, he was succeeded by Umar as caliph, followed by Uthman ibn al-Affan and Ali ibn Abi Talib . The period of these first four caliphs is known as al-khulafā' ar-rāshidūn :

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