Oman

This coast was ancient Magan, a source of copper for Mesopotamia, and the mountains of Dhofar produced frankincense for the temples and courts of the ancient world, carried out by sea and by camel caravan. Oman took to Islam early and developed its own Ibadi school and an elected imamate. The Portuguese held Muscat and the coastal forts from 1507 until Omani forces drove them out in 1650.

The Al Bu Said dynasty, ruling since 1744, then built a maritime empire that at its height controlled Zanzibar and the East African coast, the port of Gwadar on the Makran coast, and a web of Indian Ocean trade deeply entangled with the slave and clove economies of the region. British influence grew into a "veiled protectorate", the empire split as Zanzibar went its own way in 1856, and the old tension between the coastal Sultanate and the interior Imamate erupted into the Jebel Akhdar War of the 1950s.

Sultan Said bin Taimur kept Oman deliberately isolated and impoverished even after oil was found in the 1960s. In 1970 his British-educated son Qaboos deposed him in a bloodless palace coup, opened the country, ended a Marxist-led rebellion in Dhofar, and spent the next half-century using oil revenue to build roads, schools, and hospitals and to knit coast and interior together. The succession to Sultan Haitham in 2020 was smooth; he has kept Oman's careful neutrality and quiet-mediator role while pushing to diversify the economy for a post-oil future. That neutrality has been tested since 28 February 2026, when the United States and Israel went to war with Iran and its allies: Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has made the water off Oman's northern tip a conflict zone, while Muscat has stayed out of the fighting and talked to both sides. Its deep-water ports outside the strait at Duqm, Salalah, and Sohar let some shipping bypass the choke point, but Iranian drones and missiles have struck all three, killing 14 people in Oman in all.

Oman is quietly distinctive. Its Ibadi Islam, followed by about half the population and found elsewhere only in small communities in North and East Africa, is associated with moderation and tolerance — dozens of Christian congregations are active in Muscat, alongside Hindu and Sikh communities. National dress is worn with pride: the ankle-length, collarless dishdasha; an embroidered cap or a wrapped turban; and the khanjar, the curved dagger worn on formal occasions and shown on the national flag.

Society is conservative but famously courteous. Cardamom coffee and dates are offered to any visitor, the pace is unhurried, and hospitality and modesty are points of honour. The imperial past lives on in communities with East African, Baloch, and South Asian roots — some Omani families still speak Swahili at home — and Dhofar keeps ancient South Arabian languages found nowhere else.

Camel racing, bull-butting — a bloodless contest between bulls, held nowhere else in the Middle East but Oman and Fujairah — dhow-building, silversmithing, and drumming and dance are living traditions, while the Royal Opera House in Muscat marks a cultivated, outward-looking side.

Oman's roughly 5.5 million people include a large foreign workforce, mostly from South Asia. Most citizens live along the northern coast — Muscat's low, white sprawl between the mountains and the sea, and the Batinah towns — with the rest in the oasis towns of the Hajar range, the deserts, the fishing coast, and the Dhofar hills.

Life is comfortable by regional standards but less lavish than in Dubai or Doha, and the state has been trimming subsidies, pressing companies to hire Omanis, and preparing for life after oil through logistics ports at Duqm, Sohar, and Salalah, tourism, gas, and large green-hydrogen projects in the southern desert. The war that began in February 2026 has pushed oil prices up, which has helped the state's finances even as the sea lanes around the country have grown dangerous.

Everyday rhythms follow the prayer times and the heat: an early start, a long midday pause in summer, and social life in the cooler evening, in majlis sitting rooms, coffee shops, and the souqs.

Omani cooking is mild, fragrant, and shaped by Indian Ocean trade — rice, meat, and spice, with less chilli than the rest of the Gulf. The celebratory dish is shuwa: goat or lamb, marinated and slow-roasted, eaten only on festive occasions such as Eid.

Everyday meals centre on spiced rice with meat, close to biryani; grilled and stewed fish along the coast; harees, a wheat-and-meat porridge; and mashuai, a whole spit-roasted kingfish with lemon rice. Dates are eaten with everything, served alongside kahwa, the cardamom coffee.

Omani halwa — a dense, sticky sweet — is the national confection, served with the coffee and the dates at any welcome. Tea is the national beverage, and laban, a salty buttermilk, and fresh juices are drunk through the day.

Muscat has the grand Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, the Royal Opera House, the Mutrah corniche and its covered souq, and the two Portuguese forts guarding the old harbour. Inland, the Hajar mountains hold the "Grand Canyon of Arabia" at Jebel Shams, the terraced villages of Jebel Akhdar, and a chain of restored mud-brick forts — Nizwa with its huge round tower and its souq, the UNESCO-listed oasis fort of Bahla, and the painted ceilings of Jabrin.

The wadis — Shab, Bani Khalid, Tiwi, Dayqah — are palm-shaded gorges with turquoise pools for swimming, the Wahiba Sands offer dune camps and camel rides, and green turtles nest at Ras al-Jinz on the east coast. The Musandam peninsula in the far north, jutting into the Strait of Hormuz, has fjord-like inlets explored by dhow from Khasab.

In the far south, Salalah and the Dhofar hills turn misty and green in the summer khareef, with frankincense trees, long beaches west of the city, and the Land of Frankincense sites of Sumhuram and Al Baleed.