Nizwa & the Interior

Long before Islam, people of the interior built the stone beehive tombs and towers of Bat and Al Ayn in the third millennium BC and began digging the aflaj, the gravity-fed water channels that still water the oases; several interior channels, among them Falaj Daris at Nizwa, are part of a UNESCO World Heritage listing. The interior embraced Ibadi Islam early, and Nizwa became the seat of elected Ibadi imams in the early Islamic centuries, the religious capital of inland Oman.

From the 12th to the 15th century the Nabhani dynasty ruled from Bahla, whose great fort dates largely from their time. The Ya'ariba imams who expelled the Portuguese from the coast in the 17th century built the round tower of Nizwa fort and the palace-castle of Jabrin. The Al Bu Said founder, Ahmad bin Said, came from Adam on the edge of the desert, but his successors ruled from the coast, and the interior tribes kept electing imams of their own.

The 1920 Treaty of Seeb granted the imamate autonomy in the interior while recognising the sultan's sovereignty. In the 1950s the sultan, backed by Britain, took Nizwa, and the imam's supporters held out on Jebel Akhdar until British special forces stormed the plateau in 1959. Buraimi, on the western edge, was contested by Saudi Arabia until 1955 and is now divided between Oman and the UAE city of Al Ain. Roads, schools and restoration of the forts followed after 1970.

The interior is Oman's conservative, Ibadi heartland, and its people take pride in it as the country's historic core. Tribal ties and family names still matter, the mosque and the majlis structure daily life, and dress is traditional: white dishdasha and kummah for men, long dresses and headscarves for women. Guests are offered kahwa and dates.

Crafts survive as working trades. Nizwa's silversmiths are known for their jewellery, Bahla is Oman's pottery town and has a long reputation, recorded in local stories, as a place of jinn and sorcery, and other traditional handicrafts are sold in the souqs. On Jebel Akhdar, families still distil rosewater from the plateau's roses.

In the days before each Eid the interior towns hold habta markets, where goats, cattle and camels are auctioned alongside clothes, toys and halwa. Traditional songs and the razha sword-and-chant dance appear at weddings and national celebrations.

Nizwa is the region's main city and the capital of Ad Dakhiliyah, a fast-growing town with a university and new suburbs beyond its old oasis. Other towns strung along the foot of the mountains include Bahla, Al Hamra, Izki, Manah and Adam; Ibri is the main town of Ad Dhahirah and the market centre of the western plains, and Buraimi, capital of its own governorate, is a border town tied closely to Al Ain across the frontier.

The economy mixes government jobs, date farming, livestock, small trade and growing tourism around Nizwa and the mountains, with oil and gas fields further into the desert. Many residents commute or move to Muscat for work, and young Omanis' search for jobs is as pressing here as anywhere.

Days follow the prayer times and the heat. Farmers work the date gardens and maintain the falaj at dawn, the souqs are busiest in the morning, and life slows through the afternoon before evenings of visiting and coffee. On the plateau of Jebel Akhdar, villages grow fruit on terraces watered by their own channels, and the summer brings a stream of Omani families seeking cooler air.

The interior eats from its oases and its herds. Dates are the staple, from everyday varieties to prized khalas, served with kahwa to every guest. Nizwa is a centre of date growing and the market place for the surrounding villages, and falaj-watered orchards ring towns such as Adam. Halwa, the dense sweet served with coffee, is a symbol of Omani hospitality.

Shuwa is the great festive dish: goat, lamb or other meat marinated in a spiced date paste, wrapped in dry leaves and lowered into a pit oven in the ground to cook slowly before the family gathers to eat it. Majboos rice with meat and harees, wheat and meat cooked to a thick paste, fill out the table, along with goat's milk and laban, a salty buttermilk.

Jebel Akhdar gives the region its orchard produce: pomegranates, apricots, peaches, walnuts and grapes grown on terraces, and the rosewater distilled from its roses. The mountain is also a centre of honey-bee breeding for much of Oman.

Nizwa is the centre of any visit: its fort, finished in the 17th century around a huge round artillery tower, overlooks a restored souq of silver, spices and dates. Birkat al Mawz, just east, has a restored fort, Bait al Redidah, and is the starting point of a road and a walking route up to the Saiq plateau. On the plateau, villages around Saiq cling to terraces above deep gorges, with walking paths between them and viewpoints over the Hajar.

West of Nizwa, Bahla fort, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, rises over the town's oasis and long mud walls, and nearby Jabrin castle has painted ceilings and carved doors. Al Hamra has one of Oman's best preserved mud-brick old towns, and Al Hoota cave lies at the foot of the mountains nearby. Above Al Hamra, Misfat al Abriyeen is a stone village stacked above its palm gardens, crossed by falaj channels and narrow paths.

The road climbs from Al Hamra to Jebel Shams, Oman's highest mountain at about 3,000 metres, where paths follow the rim of the canyon known as Oman's Grand Canyon. Further west, Ibri has old forts and castles, and the Bronze Age tombs of Bat and Al Ayn share a UNESCO listing. On the UAE border, the Buraimi oasis keeps the Al Khandaq fort and palm gardens that run on into Al Ain.