Oman is quite an interesting country. While it is very dry, the people of Oman have found ways to make the desert come to life by desalinating water from the Indian Ocean. The result is a series of green areas mixed with the Arabian Desert and dry and rocky mountains of the interior. The people were also quite friendly. I found Muscat to be a refreshing, more traditional Arabian capital, than what we saw in the UAE.
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Oman
was populated by Arabs in the 9th century BCE. The population converted
to Islam around the time of Mohammed in the 7th century CE. In the
early 1500's the Portuguese occupied the area around the current
capital of Muscat. In the mid-1600's the Ottoman Turks captured the
area from the Portuguese holding it for nearly 100 years until Ahmad
ibn Sa'id led a successful revolt that gave the Omani people their
independence from foreign rulers. Shortly after independence, Oman
conquered a large part of the North East Africa creating an empire that
stretched from Southern Iran to northern Mozambique. The empire lasted
until the mid-1800's. In 1970, Sultan Sa'id bin Taimur was overthrown
by his son, Sultan Qabus Sa'id who has vastly modernized the country
and the government, using oil money. In 1997, the Sultan gave woman the
right to run for elected office. Sultan Qabus is a decedent of Ahmad
ibn Sa'id.
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