Dying shortly afterwards, Ahmad bin Said left the government to his son, Said bin Ahmad, who was declared Imam, but was confined till the date of his death, in 1802, to Rustak and its territory by his younger brother, the ambitious and warlike Sultan bin Ahmad. This prince occupied the islands of Khishm, Hormuz, and Bahrayn; he attempted to protect his commerce from the pirates of Julfar and Ra’as el Khaymah, especially the Kawasim, in our hooks called Jowasmee:[[77]] these Algerines of the East had now become Wahhabis, and were hacked by all the influence of Saúd, Lord of Daraiyyah. After vainly attempting to obtain aid from the Pasha of Baghdad, Sultan bin Ahmad was attacked whilst sailing to Bandar Abbas by five ships of the Kawasim, and was shot in the mêlée on Nov. 18, 1804.
This decease brought to power the late Sayyid Said,[[78]] the second son born to Sayyid Sultan bin Ahmad in A.D. 1790. His maternal uncle, Sayyid Bedr bin Sayf, and the Wahhabi Chief, Saúd, enabled him to defeat Sultan Kays bin Ahmad of Sohar, another uncle who aimed at usurpation; but the danger was shifted, not destroyed. At length, in A.D. 1806, Sayyid Said’s aunt, the Bihi Mauza, daughter of the Imam Ahmad, and popularly known as the Bint el Imam, determined that Sayyid Bedr must be slain at a Darbar. Sayyid Said, a youth of 16, was unwilling, but the strong-minded woman—in every noble Arab family there is at least one—prevailed, and on July 31 the dangerous protector whilst descending the stairs, was struck in the back by his nephew’s dagger. Sayyid Bedr sprang from the window, and mounted a stirrupless horse which stood below, when he was wounded with a spear; the ‘Imam’s daughter,’ with a blood-thirstiness truly feminine, cheering on the assassins, till after riding half a mile on the highway from Birkat to Sohar, he fell from his animal and was speedily despatched. The young prince was, they say, so strongly affected by the scene, that through life he could hardly be persuaded to order a death.[[79]]
Thus Saíd became, with the consent of his elder brother, Sayyid Salim, an independent ruler, and the fourth of his dynasty, the Bú Saídí. His proper title was ‘Sayyid,’ which in Oman and amongst the Eastern Arabs means a chief or temporal ruler, whereas ‘Sherif’ is a descendant of the Prophet. Many Anglo-Indian writers ignore this distinction. ‘Imam’ is an ecclesiastical title, signifying properly the man who takes the lead in public prayer, and it demands both study and confirmation: in sectarian theology it is the hereditary head of El Islam. The ‘Imam of Mascat,’[[80]] therefore, never followed the practice of his predecessors. His acclamation took place on Sept. 14, 1806. He was immediately involved in troubles with Mombasah, Makdishu, and the unruly Arab settlements of the East African Coast. His possessions in Oman also were invaded and overrun by the Wahhabis, under Saúd who died in 1814, and afterwards under his son Abdullah: these energetic Puritans converted, by much fighting and more intrigue, several tribes to ‘Unitarianism’; the land was at once fettered with a five per cent. Zakát (annual tribute), of which Maskat paid 12,000 German crowns, and Sohar $8000. Yet his valour and conduct gradually raised Sayyid Saíd to wealth and importance, and the warlike operations of Mohammed Ali Pasha against the Wahhabis gave him power to throw off the yoke. His personal gallantry in the disastrous affair with the Benu Bú ’Ali (1820-21), won him the praise of India, and the gift of a sword of honour from the Governor-General. His tolerance, so unusual in Arabia, the patriarchal character of his rule, and his love of progress, as shown by his concessions to European and Hindu traders, and by a squadron of three frigates, four corvettes, two sloops, seven brigs, and twenty armed merchant vessels, entitled him to a place amongst civilized powers. With England he became an especial favourite, after he had entered into the Palmerstonian views upon the subject of slave exportation. He began by sacrificing, it is said, 100,000 crowns annually, and he declined the various equivalents, £2000 for three years, and other paltry sums offered in A.D. 1822, as a compensation by Captain Moresby, R.N. His friendship with us, indeed, cost him dear: more than once he threatened that if other concessions were demanded by the unconscionable abolitionist he would escape the incessant worry by abdicating and retiring to Meccah.
Sayyid Saíd first left Maskat for Zanzibar in 1828, and finally in 1832, justly offended by our refusing to assist him, according to treaty, against Sayyid Hamud bin Azran bin Kays, the rebel chief of Sohar. Our policy on this occasion is generally supposed to have been prompted by Captain, afterwards Colonel, Sam. Hennell, British Resident at Bushire. This official, acting doubtless under orders, and living in constant dread of ‘breaking the peace of the Gulf,’ preserved it by yielding every point to every man; and the ignoble attitude which, amongst a warlike race, provoked only contempt, laid the foundation of the last Persian war. It was on a par with the orders which, under pain of dismissal, bound the officers commanding the Honourable East India Company’s cruisers in the Persian Gulf not to open fire upon a squadron of pirates unless they began the cannonade; and which caused the capture by boarding of more than one man-of-war.
Zanzibar had, since its conquest by Oman, been governed by an officer appointed from Arabia. Sayyid Saíd found the town a line of cajan huts, with the fort commanding the harbour, which served only for an occasional pirate or slaver. Till A. D. 1822 some 15 or 16 Spaniards and Portuguese ranged these seas, committing every kind of atrocity: they were dangerous outside the port, and when at anchor they were guilty of every crime; as many as three and four have been killed in a single night, and a priest was kept for the purpose of shriving the stabbed and burying the slain. These, however, were the days of large profits. The share of one Arab merchant in a single adventure was worth $218,000—he now (1857) begs his bread.
Sayyid Saíd at Once began to encourage foreign residents. With a remarkable liberality he at once broke up the monopoly of trade which the Wasawahili had preserved for eight centuries, including the 200 years when it was perpetuated by the avidity and the fanaticism of the Portuguese. The United States, who being first in the market for ivory, copal, and hides, had dispersed their cottons and hardwares throughout Eastern Africa, concluded with him, in Sept. 1835, an advantageous treaty, and established, about the end of 1837, a trading consulate at his court. Four years afterwards (December, 1841) Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton was directed to make Zanzibar his head-quarters as ‘H. B. Majesty’s Consul, and H. E. I. Company’s Agent in the dominions of H. H. the Imaum.’ Captain Romain Desfossés, the Mentor of the Prince de Joinville, and commanding the naval division of Bourbon and Madagascar, escorted by a squadron, signed a treaty on November, 1844. He was accompanied by a consul without a chancellier, and the former at once receiving his exequatur, began residence.
The Sayyid was unfortunate in sundry attempts to subjugate the Zanzibar Coast: his conduct of war argued scant skill as a general, but he never forfeited his well-earned favour for personal gallantry. With the true Arab mania for territorial conquest, he eventually succeeded in flying his flag at all the ports that belonged to the Yu’rabi Imams, and which had descended, by the irregular right of succession, to his ancestor, Ahmad bin Saíd the Hinawi. The Mazara’ (Mazrui) clan, alias the Arabo-Mombasah princes, a turbulent and hot-tempered feudality, who, after the massacre of the Portuguese, had been allowed, by Sayf bin Sultan, to retain the city on condition of sending occasional presents and of doing certain baronial services, refused (A.D. 1822) allegiance to the Ayyal Bú Saíd. Captain Vidal, R.N., finding this important place threatened by Zanzibar, accepted an application from the citizens, who had hoisted the British flag; advised that they should be received as protégés, and persuaded the claimant to withdraw. The Sayyid remonstrated against these measures with the Bombay Government; and the ministers of the Crown to whom the question was referred, eventually removed our establishment.
Sayyid Saíd, early in 1828, sailed with a squadron carrying 1200 men, to attack the town, but after taking and garrisoning the fort, he was compelled to make Zanzibar, and eventually Maskat. The retreat was in consequence of the troubles excited by Saúd bin Ali bin Sayf, the nephew of Sayyid Bedr, supported by the sister of Sayyid Hilal, chief of Suwayk, who had been treacherously imprisoned. He was enabled, by the aid of Isá bin Tarif and his dependents, to invest, with a squadron carrying a force of 4000 to 5000 men, about the end of December, 1829, Mombasah Fort, from which his garrison had been repulsed. The Mazru’is, numbering a total of some 1500, gallantly held their ground: the Sayyid’s soldiers, suffering severely from fever, refused to fight: briefly two campaigns had little effect upon the besieged, and the Sayyid was obliged to accept the semblance of submission, in order to return triumphant to Zanzibar. After visiting Maskat, and putting down Hamud bin Azran, who had taken Rustak, and was threatening the capital, he broke the treaty with Mombasah, and blockaded it throughout the N. East monsoon from November, 1831, to April, 1832. During the next year he attacked the place for the third time; but, after a week’s campaign, he returned once more with Oriental triumph to Zanzibar in February, 1833. Then treachery was called in to do the perfect work. Ráshid bin Salim bin Ahmad, the Mazru’i Wali or governor, and twenty-six of his kinsmen, enticed by the most solemn oaths, which were accompanied by a sealed Koran—it is wonderful how liar trusts liar!—embarked on one of the Sayyid’s ships, which carried his son Sayyid Khalid and Sulayman bin Ahmad. The vessel instantly weighed anchor, stood for Zanzibar, and consigned its cargo to life-long banishment and prison, at Mina and Bandar Abbas. The Mazara’ at once sank into utter obscurity.
Sayyid Saíd was persuaded (Jan. 6, 1843) to attack that notorious plunderer, Bana M’takha, chief of Sewi, a small territory near Lamu, who had persuaded one Mfumo Bakkari, and afterwards his brother Mohammed bin Shaykh, to declare himself Lord of Patta, and independent of the Arab prince. The ruler of Zanzibar here failed to repeat his success at Mombasah, the wily African shutting his ear to the charmer’s voice. The second son, Sayyid Khalid, then disembarked his 1200 to 1300 troops, Maskatis and Wasawahili, ‘cowardly as Maskatis,’ who with the Súri are the proverbial dastards of the race. He served out with Semitic economy five cartridges per head, and he marched them inland without a day’s rest, after a ‘buggalow’-voyage from Arabia. Short of ammunition, and worn out by fatigue, they soon yielded to the violent onslaught of the enemy. The Wágunya, or as some write the word Bajúní, warriors, described to be a fierce race of savages, descended from the Wasawahili, the Somal, and the Arab colonists, charged in firm line, brandishing spear-heads like those of the Wamasai, a cubit long, and shouting as they waved their standards, wooden hoops hung round with the dried and stuffed spoils of men.[[81]] The Arabs fled with such precipitation, that some 300 were drowned, an indiscriminate massacre and mutilation took place, the ‘England’ and the ‘Prince of Wales’ opened an effectual fire upon their own boats and friends; the guns which had been landed were all captured, and the Sayyid Khalid saved himself only by the speed of his horse. The operation was repeated with equal unsuccess next year, Sayyid Said himself embarking on board the ‘Victoria:’ the general, Hammad bin Ahmad, fell into an ambuscade, and again the artillery was lost. After a blockade of the Coast, which lasted till the end of 1866, the Kazi of Zanzibar, Muhiyy el Din of Lamu, landing upon his native island, talked over the insurgents. Bana M’takha afterwards sent back the Arab cannon, saying that he could not afford to keep weapons which ate such vast meals of powder, and acknowledged for a consideration the supremacy of Zanzibar, retaining his power, and promising but never intending to pay an annual tribute of $5000. Hence the Baloch mercenaries speak of their late employer as a king who bought and sold, and who was more distinguished for the arts of peace than for the nice conduct of war. Even his own subjects complained on this occasion of his folly in commencing, and of his want of energy in carrying on, the campaign.
The Sayyid’s matrimonial engagements were numerous. In 1827 he married the daughter of the Farmán-farmá (Governor) of Fars, and a grand-daughter of Fath ’Ali Shah, under an agreement in the marriage contract that the bride might spend every summer with her own family at Bandar Abbas or Shiraz. Disgusted with Arab homeliness, and with six years of monotonously hot life at Maskat, she obtained leave, and once in a place of safety she wrote back a strong epistle. It began, ‘Yá Dayyus! yá Mal’ún’[Mal’ún’], alluding to the report that Sayyid Khalid had violated the harem of his father, as the latter was also said to have done in his younger days. The Arab prince had lowered himself in the eyes of his subjects by representing himself to be a Shiah. She called him a dog-Sunni, and upon this ground she demanded instant divorce. The Sayyid despatched two confidential elders with orders to represent that his spouse could not legally claim such indulgence: a singular bastinado upon the soles of their feet soon made the venerable learned discover that divine right was upon the lady’s side. Her next exploit was to bowstring, in jealousy, a Katirchi (muleteer) with whom she had intrigued; and, driven from Shiraz by the fame of this exploit, she died at Kazimayn, in child-bed, her lover being this time a Hammamchi, or bath-servant.