[Oman-L] The reign of Sultan Sa'id bin Taymur

[Joachim Duester]

I was thrilled to hear about plans for a new publication
on Sultan Said bin Taymur. Much on what has been written
about him - I am not refering to thorough academic works
such as those by John E. Peterson, of course - seems to
be rather superficial and biased. Although I concede that
the subject might still be politically sensitive, the time
should now have come for a more objective look at
Said's reign, especially the 1960-1070 period which it
seems has been neglected by research.

Judging from the rather randomly selected extracts from
British archives published as "Records of Oman" (ed. by
R.W. Bailey), there must be a lot of further interesting
material available in British archives, though it seems a lot of
documents are still classified despite the lapse of the
30-years-period.

Amongst published sources, there are also dozens of
autobiographies of British soldiers and diplomats who make
mention of the encounters with Sultan Said.

Amongst the few who met him in his London exile and
mentions it briefly was Jacques Benoist-Mechin, see the
chapter "La tragédie d'Oman" in his "A destins rompus"
(Paris, Albin Michel, 1974).

Though perhaps also biased, I always found Brian R.
Pridham's paper "Oman: change and continuity" (in:
"Arabia and theGulf", Richard Ian Netton, London, 1986,
pp. 132-155) very stimulating for a discussion of the last
years of Sultan Said's reign. One thing, for example,
that has always puzzled me is the introduction of a
national currency in May 1970 - what made Said to
take this decision if he was not determined to open the
country for some sort of development?

I wonder if there would be enough interest in the subject
to organize a small symposium about Sultan Said in 2004
or 2005 ?  At least before those who have known him
personally are all dead ...

Best regards,
Joachim Duester

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