From Torisi we learn that Sobar was the most ancient town of Oman; but that in his day Maskat was flourishing, and that 'in old times the China ships used to sail from there.'
Oman was included in Yemen by these earlier geographers, doubtless from the fact that Arabs from Yemen were its first colonisers; but all that is known with any certainty is that, from the ninth century a.d. a long line of imams ruled over Oman, with their capitals at Nezweh or Rostok, at the foot of Jebel Akhdar. This title, by which the Arab rulers were known, had been conferred on the Arab rulers of Oman for centuries, and signifies a sort of priest-king, like Melchisedek, to whom, curiously enough, is given the same title in the Koran. The election was always by popular acclamation, and inasmuch as the Omani do not recognise the two 'imams' who immediately succeeded Mohammed, but chose their own, they form a separate sect. In olden days the men of Oman were called 'outsiders' by their Mohammedan brethren, because they recognised their own chief solely as the head of their own religion, and are known otherwise as the Ibadiet or Ibadhuyah, followers of Abdullah-bin-Ibadh, as distinct from the Shiahi (Shiites) and Sunni, between which sects the rest of Islam is pretty equally divided. Internecine wars were always rife amongst them; but, at the same time, these early Omani had little or no intercourse with the outer world. Of the internal quarrels of the country, the Omani historian Salid-bin-Ragik has given a detailed account, but for the rest of the world they are of little interest. In those days Oman seems to have had two ports, Sur and Kalhat, on the Indian Ocean, which were more frequented than Maskat. Marco Polo, 1280 a.d., calls the second Calaiati in his 'Journal,' and describes it as 'a large city in a gulf called, also, Calatu,' and the Omani paid tribute to the melek or king of Hormuz for many generations, but with the rise of Maskat, Sur and Kalhat declined.
Oman first came into immediate contact with Europeans in the year 1506, when Albuquerque appeared in Maskat harbour bent on his conquest of the Persian Gulf, and with the object, not even yet accomplished, of making a route to India by way of the Euphrates valley. From Albuquerque's 'Commentaries' we get a graphic description of the condition of the country when he reached it.
At first the Arabs were inclined to receive the Portuguese without a struggle; but, taking courage from the presence of a large army of Bedouin in the vicinity, they soon showed treacherous intentions towards the invaders, so that the Portuguese admiral determined to attack the town and destroy it, and the commentator states that 'within were burned many provisions, thirty-four ships in all, large and small, many fishing barks, and an arsenal full of every requisite for ship-building.'
After effecting a landing, the Portuguese ordered 'three gunners with axes to cut the supports of the mosque, which was a large and very beautiful edifice, the greater part being built of timber finely carved, and the upper part of stucco,' and it was accounted a propitious miracle by the Portuguese that the men who performed this deed were not killed by the falling timber. Maskat was then burnt and utterly destroyed; and 'having cut off the ears and noses of the prisoners he liberated them.' The commentator concludes his remarks on Maskat as follows: 'Maskat is of old a market for carriage of horses and dates; it is a very elegant town, with very fine houses. It is the principal entrepôt of the kingdom of Ormuz, into which all the ships that navigate these parts must of necessity enter.'
The hundred and forty years during which the Portuguese occupied Maskat and the adjacent coast town was a period of perpetual trouble and insurrection. The factory and forts of Jellali and Merani were commenced in 1527, but the forts in their present condition were not erected till after the union of Portugal and Spain, in 1580; the order for their erection came from Madrid, and the inscription bears the date 1588. Not only were the Arabs constantly on the look-out to dislodge their unwelcome visitors, but the Turks attacked them likewise, with a navy from the side of the Persian Gulf, and the naval victory gained by the Portuguese off Maskat in 1554 is considered by Turkish historians to have been a greater blow to their power than the better known battle off Prevesa in 1538, when D'Oria defeated Barbarossa and obliged Solyman to relinquish his attempt on Vienna.
When, after the union of Portugal with Spain, the colonial activity of the former country declined, the colonies in the Persian Gulf fell one by one into the hand of the Persians and Arabs.
Out of the kingdom of Oman they were driven in 1620, and confined to the town of Maskat by the victorious imam, Nasir-bin-Murshid, during whose reign of twenty-six years the legend is told that no man in Oman died a natural death. Two years later they were also driven from Maskat itself, and those two forts Jellali and Merani which they had built, the last foothold of the Portuguese on the Omani territory, were taken from them.
The historian Salil tells the amusing story of the final fall of Maskat into the hands of the Arabs. The Portuguese governor, Pereira, was deeply enamoured of the daughter of a Banyan merchant of Maskat; the man at first refused to let him have his daughter, but at length consented, on condition that the wedding did not take place for some months. Pereira was now entirely in the hands of the Banyan and did everything he told him; so the crafty Indian communicated with the Arabs outside Portuguese territory, telling them to be ready when due notice was given to attack the town. He then proceeded to persuade Pereira to clean out the water tanks of the fort, and to clear out the old supplies of food preparatory to revictualling them; then, when the forts were without food and water, and finally having damped all the powder, he gave notice to the Arabs, who attacked and took the town on a Sunday evening, when the Portuguese were carousing.
Captain Hamilton gives another account in his travels,[7] and tells us that the Arabs were exasperated by a piece of pork, wrapped up in paper, being sent as a present to the imam by the governor, Pereira, and he also adds that the Portuguese were all put to the sword, save eighteen, who embraced Mohammedanism; and that the Portuguese cathedral was made the imam's palace, where he took up his residence for a month or two every year.