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Recursion

(56,582 posts) Sat Jan 11, 2020, 03:09 PM Jan 2020

Sultan Qaboos bin Said, who modernized Oman, dies at 79

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/state-media-omans-sultan-qaboos-bin-died-68208037

Oman’s Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the Mideast's longest-ruling monarch who seized power in a 1970 palace coup and pulled his Arabian sultanate into modernity while carefully balancing diplomatic ties between adversaries Iran and the U.S., has died. He was 79.

The British-educated, reclusive sultan reformed a nation that was home to only three schools and harsh laws banning electricity, radios, eyeglasses and even umbrellas when he took the throne.

Under his reign, Oman became known as a welcoming tourist destination and a key Mideast interlocutor, helping the U.S. free captives in Iran and Yemen and even hosting visits by Israeli officials while pushing back on their occupation of land Palestinians want for a future state.

“We do not have any conflicts and we do not put fuel on the fire when our opinion does not agree with someone,” Sultan Qaboos told a Kuwaiti newspaper in a rare interview in 2008.

Boy. A new untested and unknown leader in Oman is the last thing the Gulf needs right now. Bin Said had no children and had never announced an heir, but state media is referring to Haitham bin Tariq al Said, the former culture minister, as the new Sultan. Note that the culture ministry controls state media.

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Sultan Qaboos bin Said, who modernized Oman, dies at 79 (Original Post) Recursion Jan 2020 OP

Oh, this is sad. pangaia Jan 2020 #1

Yes, very sad. Here's a nice 1985 article describing what Sultan Qaboos Hortensis Jan 2020 #2

pangaia

(24,324 posts)

1. Oh, this is sad.

Reply to Recursion (Original post)

Sat Jan 11, 2020, 04:44 PM

Jan 2020

Having been to Oman several times on 'business/pleasure,' everyone I met truly revered Sultan Qaboos.

And my impression was that he was a very forward looking man.

Two very small examples---
I did some teaching at a 'technical' university that he fully funded. There looked to be a date palm tree right in the middle of a field on the campus where no other date palms grew, and there are MILLIONS of them in man. One of my hosts told me it was actually a cell tower. But when the Sultan saw it he didn;t like it sticking up there so ordered it camouflaged to look like a palm tree..
Same when he once saw a McDonalds that looked like a McDonalds on a highway outside of Muscat.. He ordered it re-done to look like all the other buildings around.

He also funded a Christian churches.

Small things... there are a multitude of huge things he did for the people of Oman
Not a perfect country by any means but maybe the most liberal of ME countries..

I made several very close friends while there...one of who had two wives (now, now, don;t jump down my throat about that)..

Three of my students, all men, took me to their homes to meet their wives (one each, in this case) and children, . The father of one was a retired general who had worked with the Sultan and there was a prized photo on the wall.. We all had a wonderful lunch...

Hortensis

(58,785 posts)

2. Yes, very sad. Here's a nice 1985 article describing what Sultan Qaboos

Reply to Recursion (Original post)

Tue Jan 14, 2020, 08:37 AM

Jan 2020

had done since the palace coup (a very good one for Oman) put him in power. But it doesn't explain what his father had against umbrellas.

SULTANATE COMES OUT OF THE DARK QUICKLY

The London Symphony will perform here next month--nothing unusual in most countries but something akin to the end of Prohibition in this remote Persian Gulf sultanate where the population is just emerging from a long and debilitating sleep. Only 15 years ago, all music in Oman was banned. Indeed, before 1970, Oman, an ancient seafaring nation whose influence once extended to Africa and south Asia, existed in a time-warp of isolation and ignorance, thanks to the country`s xenophobic former ruler, Sultan Said III.

Not only was music prohibited, but so were electricity, telephones, newspapers and radios. A special order of the sultan even banned Omanis from carrying umbrellas or wearing spectacles. ... No Omani was allowed to own a car. It wouldn't have done him much good --there were only six miles of paved roads in the entire country anyway. The only hospital in Oman had 12 beds. There was a total of three schools in the country, all at the primary level and only for boys. All women and most men were illiterate. ...

In a brief moment of uncharacteristic enlightenment, however, Sultan Said sent his only son, Qaboos, to England for schooling at the Sandhurst Military College and Oxford University. But upon Qaboos` return, his father placed him under house arrest, forbidding him to read, shave or listen to the radio. But the British, who discovered oil in Oman in 1967, maintained contact with Qaboos by sending him classical music cassettes that included clandestine instructions on how to seize power. On July 23, 1970, Qaboos toppled his father in a bloodless coup. Said fought back briefly by smashing all the palace porcelain and then went into exile in London, where he died several years later.

Meanwhile, Sultan Qaboos, with the help of foreign advisers, began steering his country into a period of rapid economic growth and social development. Among his first proclamations was the abolition of some of his father`s most restrictive laws, including bans against smoking, singing and music. ...

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1985-11-06-8503160692-story.html

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