The maritime realm of Oman's sultans

Seema Alavi's book sheds light on the often overlooked role of Omani sultans in shaping regional dynamics. It shifts from the Western perspective and provides us with the view from Oman

Sovereigns of the Sea: Omani Ambition in the Age of Empire

Editors: Seema Alavi

Publisher: Penguin

Pages: 393

Price: Rs 999

Oman is India’s closest neighbour on the Arabian Peninsula with which there have been uninterrupted commercial and cultural ties that go back to the Indus Valley Civilisation. However, most studies on this country and its ties with India have been done by Western scholars whose principal focus has been on British and other European engagements with this region. The Omani people and their rulers have largely been missing from these stories.

Seema Alavi’s book has two unique features: One, it moves from the Western perspective and gives us the view from Oman. Two, it places Oman’s sultans at the centre of the narrative and presents them not as subservient vassals of the British, but as active players in national and regional affairs, holding their own through native cunning and adroit diplomacy.

The author has discussed four Omani sultans of the 19th century, Sultan Sayyid Said (r. 1806-56) and his four sons — two of whom, Thuwayni and Turki, ruled from Muscat, while the other two, Majid and Bargash, ruled from Zanzibar.

The geopolitical landscape the Omani sultans dominated and influenced included: The territories of the western Arabian Peninsula; the waters of the Persian Gulf centred at Bandar Abbas, the Trucial States and Gwadar and the Makran coast; the interior lands of Oman itself and those of Central Arabia, then controlled by the Wahhabis of the Al-Saud family, and the east coast of Africa, centred at Zanzibar, that was part of the Omani kingdom.

In keeping with their ancient maritime heritage, the Omani rulers made the ports controlled by them — Muscat, Sohar and Sur in Oman, Bandar Abbas on the Persian coast, and Zanzibar — important centres of commercial engagement with Indian, European and even American markets. These links were further facilitated by the steamship and the telegraph. Sultan Said, the author says, had commercial agencies in Calcutta, Bombay, the Dutch Indies, Persia and China.

The Omani rulers were, thus, an integral part of the broad imperial world, but they also remained deeply anchored in their local territories, their faith as imams of the Ibadi doctrine of Islam, and their culture. The image of these sultans that emerges from

Dr Alavi’s research is that of individuals who travelled extensively, had a good knowledge of local and international affairs, and could use diplomatic acumen to serve their interests in difficult circumstances.

Two matters that are extensively discussed in the book are the slave trade, centred on Zanzibar, and the presence of the Indian merchant community in both Muscat and Zanzibar as facilitators of the Indian Ocean trade.

The slave trade was at the heart of Zanzibar’s economy and the source of substantial profits for the sultans, the Indian merchants, and the various Western powers and businessmen who participated in this trade. Slaves from the African interior were not only shipped to overseas markets, they were also used on local clove and sugar plantations. The author refers to the “hypocrisy of the prohibition narrative” in which British officials ignored the extensive use of slaves in British-owned plantations.

The sultans and the local officials usually found various ways to bypass the anti-slavery laws, and the Zanzibar-centric trade continued through much of the century. It was finally abolished in 1890 when Zanzibar became a British protectorate and slaves were replaced by “coolie” labour from India.

The narrative of the Omani sultans moves alongside the story of Indian merchants who resided in the Omani territories and in Bandar Abbas and Zanzibar. These were Kutchi Bhatias and Banias and Khojas from Gujarat, as also Muslim Lawatis (referred to as “Lotias” in the book) from Thatta in Sindh.

They drove the engine of the regional economy as importers and exporters, as heads of Omani customs houses, and as sources of credit and investment. Contemporary accounts affirm that they managed the business interests of Africans, Arabs and Europeans in the region and were the intermediaries in the trade between East Africa and Europe or Asia.

The sultans discussed in the book had close links with Bombay. Sultan Majid, facing a cholera epidemic, visited it several times to study sanitation and urban planning and modelled Dar es Salaam on the pattern of Bombay. Sultan Bargash (r. 1871-88), referred to as the “modernising sultan”, had lived in exile in the city and built close ties

with resident professionals and intellectuals. As sultan, he modelled his palaces on Bombay’s opulent buildings and introduced in Zanzibar its first clean water system and electric street lighting.

Some minor criticisms: Though the author has made several references to the sultans’ role as the imams of the Ibadi sect, a brief explanation of its tenets would have been useful. Again, the book ends quite abruptly; it would have benefited from a thoughtful “Conclusion”. Finally, the book has no index, a surprising omission in this very well-researched work.

The book does away with the “silence and invisibility” that has generally surrounded Arab affairs in Eurocentric writings. It describes instead the active role of Omani sultans in handling domestic and regional challenges, even as they modernised themselves and their realms, maintained links across the Indian Ocean, and successfully warded off the various political, economic and cultural intrusions of the imperialist powers.

The reviewer is a former ambassador to Oman