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Sultan in Oman
In 1955 the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman, southeast of Saudi Arabia on the Arabian Sea, was a truly medieval Islamic State, shuttered against all progress under the aegis of its traditionalist and autocratic ruler. But it was also nearly the end of an imperial line, for in those days the British Government was still powerful in Arabia. Rumors of subversion and the intrigues of foreign powers mingled with the unsettling smell of oil to propel the sultan on a royal progress across the desert hinterland. It was an historic journey--the first crossing of the Omani desert by motorcar. Jan Morris accompanied His Highness as a professional observer, and was inspired by the experience to write her major work of imperial history, The Pax Britannica Trilogy.
- GenresTravelHistoryNonfiction
166 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1957
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About the author
Jan Morris
166Ìýbooks462ÌýfollowersJan Morris was a British historian, author and travel writer. Morris was educated at Lancing College, West Sussex, and Christ Church, Oxford, but is Welsh by heritage and adoption. Before 1970 Morris published under her assigned birth name, "James ", and is known particularly for the Pax Britannica trilogy, a history of the British Empire, and for portraits of cities, notably Oxford, Venice, Trieste, Hong Kong, and New York City, and also wrote about Wales, Spanish history, and culture.
In 1949 Jan Morris married Elizabeth Tuckniss, the daughter of a tea planter. Morris and Tuckniss had five children together, including the poet and musician Twm Morys. One of their children died in infancy. As Morris documented in her memoir Conundrum, she began taking oestrogens to feminise her body in 1964. In 1972, she had sex reassignment surgery in Morocco. Sex reassignment surgeon Georges Burou did the surgery, since doctors in Britain refused to allow the procedure unless Morris and Tuckniss divorced, something Morris was not prepared to do at the time. They divorced later, but remained together and later got a civil union. On May, 14th, 2008, Morris and Tuckniss remarried each other. Morris lived mostly in Wales, where her parents were from.
In 1949 Jan Morris married Elizabeth Tuckniss, the daughter of a tea planter. Morris and Tuckniss had five children together, including the poet and musician Twm Morys. One of their children died in infancy. As Morris documented in her memoir Conundrum, she began taking oestrogens to feminise her body in 1964. In 1972, she had sex reassignment surgery in Morocco. Sex reassignment surgeon Georges Burou did the surgery, since doctors in Britain refused to allow the procedure unless Morris and Tuckniss divorced, something Morris was not prepared to do at the time. They divorced later, but remained together and later got a civil union. On May, 14th, 2008, Morris and Tuckniss remarried each other. Morris lived mostly in Wales, where her parents were from.
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February 20, 2020
Movement and Journey, But�.
I read this thin volume back 35 years ago, but didn’t remember anything, so I recently took the same trip with James Morris. Succinctly put, the writer took a long, overland trip with the Sultan of Oman in 1955. He was the only journalist allowed to accompany the voyage by truck across the stony backblocks of that Arabian Peninsula country. The Sultan, with Morris and six other truckloads of people and things, raced through country hardly ever seen by an outsider synchronized with a British-backed military maneuver to oust a would-be ruler from the interior mountain fastness of northern Oman. The Omani military attacked and overcame this “Imam� and his followers from the east, while the Sultan appeared unexpectedly from the west. Bolstered by the victorious royal forces, the Sultan made a progress through the towns, villages, and countryside accepting the renewed allegiance of his flag-waving subjects. They then returned to Muscat. How it happened that Morris was chosen to be the sole outsider on this expedition is not quite clear. It seems to me he did not know Arabic either. It shows.
If you look at Wikipedia, you will see that the author once said, “My books are not about movement and journeys; they are about places and people.� In the case of this book, I would have said the opposite. The descriptions of the journey across mountains, deserts, and valleys are topnotch and we see very well how the interesting inhabitants of a then almost-medieval country appeared to him. He claimed to be one of the first Europeans to visit these areas, but found oil drilling teams already there. They are not “counted� I suppose, as they were not bona fide explorers! Curious. The book no doubt describes Oman as a place back in 1955, when even its boundaries were not clear. “Movement and journey� is what you will get from SULTAN IN OMAN, it is about Morris� experience, without any idea at all of what the Omanis thought or said. Even the Sultan remains a distant, almost ghostly figure. I didn’t much like his fond reminiscing about the various colonial military units the British formed around Asia and Africa. Of course they were all very posh and spiffy back in the day. He draws bright, detailed pictures and the text is carefully edited, so I’m giving 4 stars, but there’s no depth. OK, he was under 30 at the time. But I realized why I hadn’t remembered anything.
I read this thin volume back 35 years ago, but didn’t remember anything, so I recently took the same trip with James Morris. Succinctly put, the writer took a long, overland trip with the Sultan of Oman in 1955. He was the only journalist allowed to accompany the voyage by truck across the stony backblocks of that Arabian Peninsula country. The Sultan, with Morris and six other truckloads of people and things, raced through country hardly ever seen by an outsider synchronized with a British-backed military maneuver to oust a would-be ruler from the interior mountain fastness of northern Oman. The Omani military attacked and overcame this “Imam� and his followers from the east, while the Sultan appeared unexpectedly from the west. Bolstered by the victorious royal forces, the Sultan made a progress through the towns, villages, and countryside accepting the renewed allegiance of his flag-waving subjects. They then returned to Muscat. How it happened that Morris was chosen to be the sole outsider on this expedition is not quite clear. It seems to me he did not know Arabic either. It shows.
If you look at Wikipedia, you will see that the author once said, “My books are not about movement and journeys; they are about places and people.� In the case of this book, I would have said the opposite. The descriptions of the journey across mountains, deserts, and valleys are topnotch and we see very well how the interesting inhabitants of a then almost-medieval country appeared to him. He claimed to be one of the first Europeans to visit these areas, but found oil drilling teams already there. They are not “counted� I suppose, as they were not bona fide explorers! Curious. The book no doubt describes Oman as a place back in 1955, when even its boundaries were not clear. “Movement and journey� is what you will get from SULTAN IN OMAN, it is about Morris� experience, without any idea at all of what the Omanis thought or said. Even the Sultan remains a distant, almost ghostly figure. I didn’t much like his fond reminiscing about the various colonial military units the British formed around Asia and Africa. Of course they were all very posh and spiffy back in the day. He draws bright, detailed pictures and the text is carefully edited, so I’m giving 4 stars, but there’s no depth. OK, he was under 30 at the time. But I realized why I hadn’t remembered anything.
February 1, 2025
When I was a young boy, the name Oman seemed rather magical as did Muscat, its capital. Along with Bahawalpur, the princely state within the Indian subcontinent & now part of Pakistan, such names were not so much launching points for future travel but places in an album to position colorful stamps.
My sense of geography was enhanced via the stamps I collected as a child, many of them sent "on approval" from vendors in New York. It was a curious way to do business & in that long ago period, one actually placed coins in a brown envelope & posted the remittance to the vendor.
Later, while teaching in East Africa, I learned that Trucial Oman, as it was once called, had held sway over a large section of the East African coast, including the island of Zanzibar, this before becoming a British Protectorate. This bit of history did not bring me any closer to a visit to Oman but my sense of wonder was perpetuated by the seeming nearness to a part of the world soon to be independent & governed by a sheik or a sultan in the case of Oman.
Sultan in Oman by Jan Morris represents an interesting connection because ages ago, someone made me a gift of a travel book called Places, written by the erstwhile James Morris, in part I suspect because one of the places profiled was Chicago, a city I was newly a resident of.
In terms of transformation much has happened to both Morris and Oman in the intervening years since its publication and I found this evocative glance back at the beginnings of Oman's pending post-colonial era quite interesting.
Morris suggests that the story of his 1955 journey within Oman is "not one to be compared with those by Thesiger or Burton but still the last of the classic journeys of the Arabian peninsula", one undertaken not by camel but as a part of a motorized convoy led by an Arab prince & "serviced by industrious slaves."
At this time, the Sultanate of Muscat & Oman was "a truly medieval Islamic state shuttered against all progress under the aegis of its traditionalist & autocratic ruler." The British government was still powerful in Arabia but making its last gasps as a colonial force, with the crown jewel of India no longer a part of the empire and the African territories increasingly restive.
Much of Sultan in Oman is more the stuff of a journal rather than an attempt at a formal history of the region. Here is just one sample of an encounter observed & detailed by Morris:
Morris details the many tribal skirmishes within Oman calling them "constant Montague & Capulet disturbances", often even separating families in a particular village. The author passes through the ancient city of Nizwah, said to be the Mecca of his journey from the interior of Oman to the coast & is confronted with the fact that this area once served as a center of the slave trade from Africa, with slaves ferried from Zanzibar & the African coast to interior Arabian customers, with the region also serving as a Saudi gateway for arms & influence headed to Oman & the Gulf sheikdoms.
With the descriptions of various stops along the journey by Morris come phrasings that now seem either quaint or in some cases racist, among them "young bucks" & "negress", though in 1955 these words may have seemed commonplace. There are also many references to "slaves" as the journey proceeds.
Among the last vestiges of the British Empire in 1955 there were still officers dressed in impeccably starched tropical uniforms with medals & regulation Sam Browne leather belts, bringing the faint English aroma of tobacco, Brasso, leather, whisky, soft armchairs at teatime & dogs hung about the stairs of the soldiers' houses, like visiting a pre-war Empire festival in Britain.
And here is just a section of Morris's view of the waning British Empire:
Many if not all of the changes over the last 50 years under the gentle & wise rule of Sultan Qaboos have been very beneficial, including the coming of health care & schools to most in Oman, with Sultan Qaboos, a quietly gay man presiding over what seems an oasis of peace. There is also a sense that its history has been retained, vastly different than what I experienced in Dubai, Abu Dhabi & Qatar.
On my final night in Muscat, in an East meets West encounter, I attended a concert at the beautiful, newly built Royal Opera House in that city, with the Beethoven Violin Concerto played by Anna-Sophie Mutter & an Italian youth orchestra conducted by Ricardo Muti. Many of those in the audience were Omanis wearing their traditional dishdashas (long white robes). After her concerto, Ms. Mutter offered an Bach encore dedicated to the good health & long life of the Sultan of Oman who had only recently returned from Germany after 6 months of therapy for cancer. It was a quintessentially memorable evening.
When I asked the very pleasant guide I'd hired if he went to particular mosque, he commented that it made no difference which one he attended as each mosque is open to all. Indeed, Omanis are Ibadi Muslims, described as "tolerant puritans & political quietists." Let us hope that this place remains peaceful & serves as a lesson to the rest of the region and the world at large.
*The 1st image is of author James, who later became Jan Morris; the 2nd is of an older Omani postage stamp with its geographic position; lastly, the 3rd is of the late Sultan Qaboos, who died in early 2020.
My sense of geography was enhanced via the stamps I collected as a child, many of them sent "on approval" from vendors in New York. It was a curious way to do business & in that long ago period, one actually placed coins in a brown envelope & posted the remittance to the vendor.
Later, while teaching in East Africa, I learned that Trucial Oman, as it was once called, had held sway over a large section of the East African coast, including the island of Zanzibar, this before becoming a British Protectorate. This bit of history did not bring me any closer to a visit to Oman but my sense of wonder was perpetuated by the seeming nearness to a part of the world soon to be independent & governed by a sheik or a sultan in the case of Oman.
Sultan in Oman by Jan Morris represents an interesting connection because ages ago, someone made me a gift of a travel book called Places, written by the erstwhile James Morris, in part I suspect because one of the places profiled was Chicago, a city I was newly a resident of.
In terms of transformation much has happened to both Morris and Oman in the intervening years since its publication and I found this evocative glance back at the beginnings of Oman's pending post-colonial era quite interesting.
Morris suggests that the story of his 1955 journey within Oman is "not one to be compared with those by Thesiger or Burton but still the last of the classic journeys of the Arabian peninsula", one undertaken not by camel but as a part of a motorized convoy led by an Arab prince & "serviced by industrious slaves."
At this time, the Sultanate of Muscat & Oman was "a truly medieval Islamic state shuttered against all progress under the aegis of its traditionalist & autocratic ruler." The British government was still powerful in Arabia but making its last gasps as a colonial force, with the crown jewel of India no longer a part of the empire and the African territories increasingly restive.
Much of Sultan in Oman is more the stuff of a journal rather than an attempt at a formal history of the region. Here is just one sample of an encounter observed & detailed by Morris:
We turned to leave & the headman of the village looking about him hastily, grabbed a nearby goat in his two arms & offered it to us as a farewell gift. When we refused it, thanking him gracefully, he placed it on the ground with an air of unutterable disappointment. The bystanders too looked as if they had experienced some severe personal loss. The women shook their heads sadly & even the goat, I thought, seemed a little crestfallen.There are descriptions of "small groves of a queer, twisted sort of tree, looking about a million years old & graced only with a modicum of obstinate life: the frankincense tree." The incense was once taken by slow-moving dhows from Salalah in Oman to Syria, Iraq & elsewhere in the Middle East, including of course being conveyed as tribute by the Biblical Magi.
Morris details the many tribal skirmishes within Oman calling them "constant Montague & Capulet disturbances", often even separating families in a particular village. The author passes through the ancient city of Nizwah, said to be the Mecca of his journey from the interior of Oman to the coast & is confronted with the fact that this area once served as a center of the slave trade from Africa, with slaves ferried from Zanzibar & the African coast to interior Arabian customers, with the region also serving as a Saudi gateway for arms & influence headed to Oman & the Gulf sheikdoms.
With the descriptions of various stops along the journey by Morris come phrasings that now seem either quaint or in some cases racist, among them "young bucks" & "negress", though in 1955 these words may have seemed commonplace. There are also many references to "slaves" as the journey proceeds.
Among the last vestiges of the British Empire in 1955 there were still officers dressed in impeccably starched tropical uniforms with medals & regulation Sam Browne leather belts, bringing the faint English aroma of tobacco, Brasso, leather, whisky, soft armchairs at teatime & dogs hung about the stairs of the soldiers' houses, like visiting a pre-war Empire festival in Britain.
And here is just a section of Morris's view of the waning British Empire:
Some deep imperial instinct within me kept me rigidly apart & divided from the people I encountered in Oman. Was I meant to be a perennial stranger, administrator, educator, policeman, exploiter? There was a patronizing element in this instinct, I knew very well that was doing Britain great harm; there was a subtle, lingering conviction that we had some indefinite rights or privileges denied to others.This is not a travel book that would likely be of great interest to many readers of Bill Bryson's travel books but I found it an intriguing sort of timepiece, recovered moments from a part of the world that has changed dramatically, a book that I read just after my own visit to Oman.
But try as I might to eradicate such sentiments, they remained in essence all the same. As I waved goodbye, I saw myself standing there, looking towards the Arabian shore, as a chip in the huge antique mosaic of imperialism.
Many if not all of the changes over the last 50 years under the gentle & wise rule of Sultan Qaboos have been very beneficial, including the coming of health care & schools to most in Oman, with Sultan Qaboos, a quietly gay man presiding over what seems an oasis of peace. There is also a sense that its history has been retained, vastly different than what I experienced in Dubai, Abu Dhabi & Qatar.
On my final night in Muscat, in an East meets West encounter, I attended a concert at the beautiful, newly built Royal Opera House in that city, with the Beethoven Violin Concerto played by Anna-Sophie Mutter & an Italian youth orchestra conducted by Ricardo Muti. Many of those in the audience were Omanis wearing their traditional dishdashas (long white robes). After her concerto, Ms. Mutter offered an Bach encore dedicated to the good health & long life of the Sultan of Oman who had only recently returned from Germany after 6 months of therapy for cancer. It was a quintessentially memorable evening.
When I asked the very pleasant guide I'd hired if he went to particular mosque, he commented that it made no difference which one he attended as each mosque is open to all. Indeed, Omanis are Ibadi Muslims, described as "tolerant puritans & political quietists." Let us hope that this place remains peaceful & serves as a lesson to the rest of the region and the world at large.
*The 1st image is of author James, who later became Jan Morris; the 2nd is of an older Omani postage stamp with its geographic position; lastly, the 3rd is of the late Sultan Qaboos, who died in early 2020.
January 3, 2017
Fabulous narrative of travels in a distant time and place. I highly recommend it for anyone planning to travel to Oman in reality or in an armchair.
September 1, 2022
Amazing brief but detailed story of the author’s ride with Sultan Said bin Taimur across Oman on it’s first ‘reunification� crossing from the South to the North. With many details of the people and the cities in pre 1970s Oman that we barely know of.
Unfortunately like most war writers still believing in their British superiority, the books reels with colonising mentality and questionable ethics of the British meddling in the Gulf, with arguably good results in securing independence and nation building in a then-less contacted Oman, and soft competition against American oil companies. It’s sad and interesting how Oman became ‘the place� where all those ex-British mercenaries moved from India (and elsewhere) to serve British interests.
Regardless, a very good and interesting read of Said bin Taimur’s life on what is essentially the birth of modern Oman.
Unfortunately like most war writers still believing in their British superiority, the books reels with colonising mentality and questionable ethics of the British meddling in the Gulf, with arguably good results in securing independence and nation building in a then-less contacted Oman, and soft competition against American oil companies. It’s sad and interesting how Oman became ‘the place� where all those ex-British mercenaries moved from India (and elsewhere) to serve British interests.
Regardless, a very good and interesting read of Said bin Taimur’s life on what is essentially the birth of modern Oman.
June 24, 2017
Jan Morris's brand of prose-poetical musing has never really been my cup of tea (although it is highly regarded by many people who aren't, for whatever reason, me) but this books treats of a straight-up, if mild, adventure: the Sultan leads a convoy in triumph into his reconquered interior territories and invites Morris along for the ride.
It was, and it makes much of the fact, a last chance to indulge old orientalist stereotyping of the old orientalist Arabia before oil money and religious fanaticism changed it beyond recognition.
It was, and it makes much of the fact, a last chance to indulge old orientalist stereotyping of the old orientalist Arabia before oil money and religious fanaticism changed it beyond recognition.
March 2, 2018
Absolutely superb piece of timeless travel writing. This book relates a piece of history, as the first transit through the interior of Oman by motor car, from Dhofar to Muscat via Nizwa, Buraimi and Sohar, whilst also creating history as the Sultan of Muscat (and Oman) through this journey unites the country to create what is now Oman.
November 10, 2019
Maybe if I hadn’t already read In the Service of the Sultan and didn’t know where this all ended, I wouldn’t have found it all a bit propaganda-ish � which Morris addresses but only in the last ten pages (alas too little too late). Nevertheless an interesting snapshot of a time and place.
June 11, 2021
I am halfway through this little book and don't think I will finish it.
I lived in Oman for 2 years and have always remained curious about it. I was excited to read a portrait of life in Oman prior to the 1970 coup. Good travel writing, for me, gives you a flavour or glimpse into the place and/or people. So far this book does none of that. I get a sense of Jan Morris and colonial values. Given the age of the book, I expected the values to be different but I still anticipated learning about the country. Though well written, the descriptions of the people and places are not engaging or particularly insightful.
This is my first Jan Morris book, I very much doubt I will buy another.
I lived in Oman for 2 years and have always remained curious about it. I was excited to read a portrait of life in Oman prior to the 1970 coup. Good travel writing, for me, gives you a flavour or glimpse into the place and/or people. So far this book does none of that. I get a sense of Jan Morris and colonial values. Given the age of the book, I expected the values to be different but I still anticipated learning about the country. Though well written, the descriptions of the people and places are not engaging or particularly insightful.
This is my first Jan Morris book, I very much doubt I will buy another.
September 19, 2024
A typically enjoyable Jan Morris study of a place, in this instance drawn from a single journalistic visit rather than an extended residency. Quite interesting to read about Oman in its pre-modern state, when oil resources had only just begun to be exploited in this part of the world, and the culture was still strongly local and traditional. I'd like to go visit Oman now, knowing that it would be so different from what Morris experienced in 1955, but hoping still to recognise some of the sights and experiences that she described.
May 19, 2020
Read this short story prior to my trip to Oman in late 2019. I enjoyed it and in particular the topography of the country and the colonials who had occupied Oman for its' natural oil resources. The story of a journalist accompanying the sultan across the mountains of Oman to meet and greet the various tribes was to solidify his support as the sultan.
June 8, 2017
Could not get through it. Read when I was going to Oman, and when I was in Oman. Mostly found it to be the same thing over and over and was left bored and un-inspired.
June 14, 2020
Greatly inferior to Morris' later work, and filled with many of the least admirable prejudices and stereotypes of many an upperclass Englishman of the era.
January 10, 2022
Best book on that period in Oman, also exceptionally well written and very entertaining!
July 28, 2024
Dairies describing the trip of the Sultan and his convey including the Brits, to force their control on the disputed territories with the Imam.
March 16, 2017
Dated, yes, but still a fascinating insight into a period of time when the British Empire was on its last legs and the Gulf States were finding their identity. A quick read, if at times a dense read, but recommended.
January 3, 2015
James, later Jan, Morris was a very good travel writer, with the ability to understand the fundamental aspects of a country and to distil the essence in her books, so that others can understand the country too. Here she turns her observant and critical eye on Oman, which at the time was a rather backward-looking, tradition-driven state.
July 16, 2013
Jan Morris does Justice to the beauty, Not alone of the country but also the ever friendly folks! She gives you an insight on How Oman was just waking up from the long slumber and started taking baby-steps towards Modernisation and Development.
September 1, 2012
Classic Morris, one of her best. Beautiful writing, great insights.
May 23, 2013
Realised I'm not a fan of travel memoirs so I stopped reading it.
July 4, 2021
This was a great read for me. The author did not mask his imperialist look at the Arabs of Oman and s/he definitely was pretty open about Britain's role in the Sultanate.
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