There is little of interest in the annals of Oman and of her colonies. Fond of genealogy, the modern Arabs are perhaps the most incurious of Orientals in the matter of history: they ignore the past, they disregard the present, and they have a superstitious aversion to speak of the future. Lawless and fanatical, treacherous, blood-thirsty and eternally restless, the Omani races, whose hand is still against every man, have converted their chronicles into a kind of Newgate Calendar, whilst the multitude of personages that appear upon the scene, and the perpetual rising and falling of Imams, princes, and grandees, offer to the reader a mere string of proper names. Ample details concerning Maskat will be found in the pages of Capt. Hamilton, Carsten Niebuhr, Wellsted, and Salíl ibn Razík,[[72]] to mention no others. Zanzibar has ever been, since historic times, connected with Oman, whose fortunes she has reflected; the account of the distant dependency given by travellers is, therefore, as might be expected, scanty and obscure.
At an early period the merchants and traders of Yemen frequented the Island, and exchanged, as we read in the Periplus and Ptolemy, their homes of barren rock and sand for the luxuriant wastes of Eastern Africa. If tradition be credible, their primitive settlements were Patta (Bette), Lamu, and the Mrima fronting these islets; and here to the present day the dialect of their descendants has remained the purest. Themselves pagans, they lived amongst the heathenry, borrowed their language, as the Arabs and the Baloch still do, intermarried with them, and begot the half-caste Wasawahili, or coast population. In proof that these were the lords of the land, the late Sultan Ahmad, chief of the Shirazi, or free tribe of the mulattoes, received annual presents from the Arab Sayyid of Zanzibar. When the former died Muigni Mku, his wazir, or brother—here all fellow-countrymen are brothers—succeeded, in default of other heirs, to the position of monarch retired from business. He is a common-looking negroid, who lives upon the proceeds of a plantation and periodical presents: he is not permitted to appear as an equal at the Sayyid’s Darbar, and it is highly improbable that he will ever come to his own again.
The Sawáhil or Azania continued to acknowledge Arab and Persian supremacy till the appearance of the Portuguese upon the coast. D. Vasco da Gama passed Zanzibar Island without sighting it when first bound Indiawards, and authors differ upon the subject of his return voyage. The historian Toão de Barros (i. 4, 11) relates that the expedition made its land-fall from India below Magadoxo (Makdishu or Maka’ad el Shaat, ‘the sitting-place of the sheep’),[[73]] beat off a boat attack from ‘Pató’ (Patta), visited Melinde, Mozambique, and the Aguada de S. Braz, and doubled the Cape of Storms on March 20, 1499. Goes[[74]] declares that da Gama, after touching at Makdishu[Makdishu] and Melinde, arrived at Zanzibar on February 28, and was supplied by its ruler with provisions, presents, and specimens of country produce. The island is described as large and fertile, with groves of fine trees, producing good fruit, two others, ‘Pomba’ (Pemba) and ‘Mofia’ (our Monfia and the Arab Mafiyah), lying in its vicinity. These settlements were governed by Moorish princes ‘of the same caste as the King of Melinde’—doubtless hereditary Moslem Shaykhs and Sayyids. The population is represented as being in ‘no great force, but carrying on a good trade with Mombassa for Guzerat calicoes and with Sofala for gold.’ The ‘King of Melinde’ made a name in Europe. Rabelais commemorates Hans Carvel, the King of Melinda’s jeweller, and (in Book I. chap. v.) we read, ‘thus did Bacchus conquer Ind; thus philosophy, Melinde,’—meaning that the Portuguese taught their African friends more drinking than wisdom. João de Barros (ii. 4. 2) informs us that the Chief of Zanzibar was ‘da linhagem dos Reys de Mombaça, nossos imigos.’ The inhabitants were ‘white Moors’ (Arabs from Arabia) and black Moors or Wasawahili; the former are portrayed as a slight people, scantily armed, but clothed in fine cottons bought at Mombasah from merchants of Cambaya. Their women were adorned with jewels, with Sofalan gold, and with silver obtained in exchange for provisions, from the people of St Lawrence’s Island (Madagascar). And here we may remark that the Arab settlements in East Africa, visited by the Portuguese at the end of the 15th century, showed generally a civilization and a refinement fully equal to, if not higher than, the social state of the European voyagers. The latter, expecting to find savages like the naked Kafirs of the South, must not have been a little surprised to receive visits from the chiefs of Mozambique and Melinde, men clad in gold, embroidered silks, velvets, and ‘crimson damask, lined with green satin;’ armed with rich daggers and swords sheathed in silver scabbards, seated on arm-chairs, and attended by a suite of some 20 richly-dressed Arabs. The modest presents offered by the Europeans to these wealthy princelets, whose women adorned themselves with pearls and other precious stones, must have given a mean idea of Portuguese civilization. And even in the present day the dominions of the ‘barbarous Arab’ are superior in every way to the miserable colonies on the West African coast, which represent Christian and civilized Europe.
Four years afterwards (1503) Ruy Lourenço Ravasco, a Cavalleiro da Casa d’ El Rey, sailing with D. Antonio de Saldanha, cruized off ‘Zemzibar,’ as his countrymen called Zanzibar, and in two months captured twenty rich ships, laden with ambergris, ivory, tortoiseshell, wax, honey, rice, coir, and silk and cotton stuffs. This captain appears, like most of his fellows, to have been a manner of pirate: he did not restore them till ransom was paid. ‘El Rey,’ still friendly to the Portuguese, sent a spirited remonstrance, when the insolence of the reply forced him to take hostile measures. The Arabs manned their canoes with some 4000 men; but two launches, well-armed with cannon, killed at the first discharge 34 men and put the rest to flight. Thus the Malik or Regulus was compelled by Ravasco to pay an annual tribute of 100 gold miskals in token of submission to the greedy and unprincipled Dom Manuel. ‘The conquered pays the conquest!’ exclaims with Christian emphasis the venerable Osorio. Portugal now began to gather gold from Sofala to Makdishu; ‘Wagerage,’ the chief of Melinde, contributed every year 1500 wedges (ingots) of the precious metal, and the insolence of the victors must have made the good old man deeply regret the welcome and the Godspeed which he had bestowed upon the exploratory expedition.
The Portuguese having wrested Kilwa and Mombasah from its Arab chiefs, D. Duarte de Lemos, appointed (A.D. 1508) by the King Governor of the ‘Provinces of Æthiopia and Arabia,’ attacked successively Mafiyah, Zanzibar, and Pemba, for failing in the paramount duty of paying tribute. Mafiyah submitted, the people of Pemba escaped to Mombasah, leaving nothing in their houses, and Zanzibar resisted, but the town was taken and plundered. The Shaykh retired northwards, and his subjects fled to the bush, ‘depois de bem esfarrapados na carne con a ponta da lança, e espada dos nossos’—after being well pierced in the flesh by the lance-points and the sword-blades of our men—says the chronicler. From this time probably we may date the pointed arches that still remain upon the Island, and the foundation of the fort, which is popularly attributed to the ‘Faranj.’ Mombasah and Pemba were presently occupied by the Portuguese; and the ruins of their extensive barracoons, citadels, and churches still argue ancient splendour. In other places upon the seaboard I found deep and carefully sunk wells, stone enclosures, and coralline temples, whilst vestiges of European buildings may be traced, it is said, contrary to popular opinion, many days’ journey inland.
We read little about Lusitanianized Zanzibar, where the insalubrity of the climate must have defended the interior, and even parts of the coast, from the spoiler. In A.D. 1519 the Moors massacred certain shipwrecked sailors belonging to the expedition of D. Jorje de Albuquerque. Three years afterwards the Shaykh, or, as he styled himself, the Sultan[[75]] of Zanzibar, who, after submitting to Ravasco, had acknowledged himself a vassal of D. Manuel, fitted out, with the aid of the factors João de Mata and Pedro de Castro, a small expedition against the Quirimba islandry, who had allied themselves with the hostile tribes about Mombasah. The attack was successful, the chief town was pillaged and burnt, and terror of the invader brought all the neighbouring islets to terms. In 1528-9 the Viceroy of India, Nuno da Cunha, being about to attack Mombasah, was supplied with provisions by the Chief, and the Portuguese presently reduced the coast to a single rule whose centres were successively Kilwa, Sofala, and Mozambique. East Africa then became one of the four great governments depending upon the vice-royalty of India; the three others being Malacca, Hormuz, and Ceylon.
In this state Zanzibar remained till the close of the next century. When, however, Pedro Barrato de Rezende, Secretary to the Viceroy, Count of Linhares, wrote his ‘Breve Tratado’ on the Portuguese colonies of India and East Africa (1635), the Island had ceased to be vassal and tributary, but the Sultan remained friendly to Europeans. Many of the latter occupied with their families rich plantations; Catholic worship was protected, and there was a church in which officiated a brother of the order of St Austin. There was the usual massacre of the Portuguese, and expulsion of the survivors in imitation of Mombasah, about 1660; and the Islanders, doubting their power to procure independence, applied for assistance to the Arabs.
The reign of the Yu’rabi of Oman, a clan of the great Ghafiri tribe, began as follows. The Imam, Sultan bin Sayf bin Malik el Yu’rabi, the second of the family, having recovered Maskat (April 23, 1659), and Matrah, created a navy which added Kang, Khishm, Hormuz, Bahrayn, and Mombasah (1660) to the Arabian possessions left by his ancestors. After investing Bombay this doughty chief died in A.D. 1668 or in 1669. His son, Sayf bin Sultan, after defeating an elder brother, Belárab, became the third Imam of the house of Yu’rabi, and summoned to submission the petty chiefs on the eastern mainland of Africa. Between A.D. 1680 and 1698, the powerful squadron of the warlike Moor drove the Portuguese from Zanzibar, Kilwa, Pemba, and Mombasah, where he established as Governor Nasir bin Abdillah el Mazru’i, the first of the great family of that name. He failed only at Mozambique. Arabs still relate the legend how having closely invested the fort they were undermining the wall, when a Banyan gave traitorous warning to the besieged. Pans of water ranged upon the ground showed by the trembling fluid the direction of the tunnel; a countermine was sprung with fatal effect, and the assailants, retreating in confusion to their shipping, raised the siege.[[76]] The squadron, however, pursued its course as far south as the Comoros and Bukini (Madagascar, or rather the northern portion of the Island), whence, hearing of the ruler’s death, it returned home. When the Island became Arab property the Wasawahili fled to the ‘bush’: they presently consented to render personal service, or to purchase exemption by annually paying $2 per head.
Sayf bin Sultan was succeeded, in A.D. 1711, by his eldest son, Sultan bin Sayf, who defeated with his fleet of 24 to 28 ships, carrying 80 guns, the soldiers of Abbas III. and of Nadir Shah. After his decease the chieftainship of Oman was seized by a distant relative, Mohammed bin Nasir, Lord of Jabrin, who according to some, first assumed, according to others, resumed, the title of ‘Imam,’ making himself priest as well as prince, like him of Sana’a in Yemen. It has ever been a Kháriji, and especially a Bayází tenet, that any pious man, not only those belonging to the Kuraysh or the Prophet’s tribe, might rise to the rank of Pontiff. In A.D. 751 they were powerful enough to elect Julandah ben Mas’úd, but the succeeding dynasty rejected the term. The usurped rule was recovered after his decease (A.D. 1728) by Sayf el Asdi, a younger son of Sultan bin Sayf: this indolent debauchee being shut up in Maskat by a cousin, Sultan bin Murshid—some corrupt his father’s name to Khurshid—applied for assistance to that Nadir Shah, whom his more patriotic father had successfully resisted. In 1746 the Persians, aided by intestine Arab divisions, soon conquered Oman: Sultan bin Murshid slew himself in despair, and Sayf el Asdi, duped by his allies, died of grief in his dungeon at Rustak. The latter city was in those days the ordinary residence of the Imams; in fact, a kind of cathedral town as well as capital.
The power now fell from the hands of the Yu’rabis (Ghafiris) into the grasp of their rivals, the Bu Saidi (Hinawis). These ancient lords of Oman claim direct descent from Kahtan (Joetan), great-grandfather of Himyar, founder of the Southern Arabs, and brother to Saba, who built in Yemen the city that bore his name: the stock is held to be noble as any in the Peninsula. Oman remained under foreign dominion, paying tribute to, and owning the rule of, Nadir Shah, till the Chief of Sohar, Said bin Ahmad el Bu Saídí, struck the blow for freedom. Five years afterwards (A.D. 1744) his son, Ahmad bin Saíd, artfully recovering Maskat from Mirza Taky Khan, the Governor of Fars, who had revolted against Nadir Shah, expelled the Persians from Oman. When laying the foundation of the present dynasty he assumed the title of ‘Sayyid’ (temporal ruler); persuaded the Mufti to elect him ‘Imam’ (prince-priest), and was confirmed in his dignities by the Sherif of Meccah. Colonel Pelly (p. 184, Journal Royal Geographical Society, 1865) gives a somewhat different account—‘It appears that the family of the Imams of Muskat were originally Sayeds of a village, named Rowtheh, in the Sedair immediately below the Towaij hills. The founder of the family was Saeed. His son’s name was Ahmed. They came to Oman, and took service under the dominant tribe called Yarebeh. Subsequently they obtained possession of the strong hill-fort called Ilazm, in the neighbourhood of Rostak. Eventually they became the rulers of Oman, and changed their sect from that of Sunnee to Beyãthee.’ Ahmad allied himself with the ex-royal Yu’rabis, by marrying a daughter of Sayf el Asdi. After crushing sundry rebellions, he plundered Diu (A.D. 1760), and massacred the population, a disaster from which the great port and fort never recovered. He then sent an army of 12,000 men against the Ghafiri of Ra’as el Khaymah, who had assisted the Persians to attack the Kawasim, and against the Nuaymi, a powerful clan dwelling south of Sharjah on the Pirate Coast. His success was complete; Khurfakan, Khasab, Ramsah, Ra’as el Khaymah, Jezirat el Hamrah, Sharjah, and Fasht, all in turn submitted to him. In A.D. 1785 he personally visited Mombasah, and by his lion-like demeanour he secured its submission.