family quarrel between certain Wahhabi chiefs, and the Turks thus obtained a footing in Katr, which they have retained ever since. Turkish occupation (now firmly established throughout El Hasa) includes Katif (the ancient Gerrha), and El Bidia on the coast of Katr. But the pearl fisheries of Katr are still under the protection of the chiefs of Bahrein, who are themselves under British suzerainty. In 1895 the chief of Katr (Sheikh Jasim ben Thani), instigated by the Turks, attacked Sheikh Isa of Bahrein, but his fleet of dhows was destroyed by a British gunboat, and Bahrein (like Zanzibar) has since been detached from Oman and placed directly under British protection.
Oman is a mountainous district dominated by a range called Jebel Akhdar (or the Green Mountain), which is 10,000 ft. in altitude, and is flanked by minor ranges running approximately parallel to the coast, and shutting off the harbours from the interior. They enclose long lateral valleys, some of which are fertile and highly cultivated, and traversed by narrow precipitous gorges at intervals, which form the only means of access to the interior from the sea. Beyond the mountains which flank the cultivated valleys of Semail and Tyin, to the west, there stretches the great Ruba el Khali, or Dahna, the central desert of southern Arabia, which reaches across the continent to the borders of Yemen, isolating the province on the landward side just as the rugged mountain barriers shut it off from the sea. The wadis (or valleys) of Oman (like the wadis of Arabia generally) are merely torrential channels, dry for the greater part of the year. Water is obtained from wells and springs in sufficient quantity to supply an extensive system of irrigation.
The only good harbour on the coast is that of Muscat, the capital of the kingdom, which, however, is not directly connected with the interior by any mountain route. The little port of Matrah, immediately contiguous to Muscat, offers the only opportunity for penetrating into the interior by the wadi Kahza, a rough pass which is held for the sultan or imam of Muscat by the Rehbayin chief. In 1883, owing to the treachery of this chief, Muscat was besieged by a rebel army, and disaster was only averted by the guns of H.M.S. “Philomel.” About 50 m. south of Muscat the port of Kuryat is again connected with the inland valleys by the wadi Hail, leading to the gorges of the wadi Thaika or “Devil's Gap.” Both routes give access to the wadi Tyin, which, enclosed between the mountain of El Beideh and Hallowi (from 2000 to 3000 ft. high), is the garden of Oman. Fifty miles to the north-west of Muscat this interior region may again be reached by the transverse valley of Semail, leading into the wadi Munsab, and from thence to Tyin. This is generally reckoned the easiest line for travellers. But all routes are difficult, winding between granite and limestone rocks, and abounding in narrow defiles and rugged torrent beds. Vegetation is, however, tolerably abundant—tamarisks, oleanders, kafas, euphorbias, the milk bush, rhamnus and acacias being the most common and most characteristic forms of vegetable life, and pools of water are frequent. The rich oasis of Tyin contains many villages embosomed in palm groves and surrounded with orchards and fields.
In addition to cereals and vegetables, the cultivation of fruit is abundant throughout the valley. After the date, vines, peaches, apricots, oranges, mangoes, melons and mulberries find special favour with the Rehbayin, who exhibit all the skill and perseverance of the Arab agriculturist of Yemen, and cultivate everything that the soil is capable of producing.
The sultan, a descendant of those Yemenite imams who consolidated Arab power in Zanzibar and on the East African coast, and raised Oman to its position as the most powerful state in Arabia during the first half of the 19th century, resides at Muscat, where his palace directly faces the harbour, not far from the British residency. The little port of Gwadar, on the Makran coast of the Arabian Sea, a station of the Persian Gulf telegraph system, is still a dependency of Oman.
See Colonel Miles, Geographical Journal, vol. vii. (1896); Commander Stiffe, Geographical Journal (1899). (T. H. H.*)
OMAR (c. 581-644), in full ‘Omar ibn al-Khaṭṭab, the second of the Mahommedan caliphs (see Caliphate, A, §§ 1 and 2). Originally opposed to Mahomet, he became later one of the ablest advisers both of him and of the first caliph, Abu Bekr. His own reign (634-644) saw Islam's transformation from a religious sect to an imperial power. The chief events were the defeat of the Persians at Kadisiya (637) and the conquest of Syria and Palestine. The conquest of Egypt followed (see Egypt and Amr ibn el-Ass) and the final rout of the Persians at Nehāwend (641) brought Iran under Arab rule. Omar was assassinated by a Persian slave in 644, and though he lingered several days after the attack, he appointed no successor, but only a body of six Muhajirun who should select a new caliph. Omar was a wise and far-sighted ruler and rendered great service to Islam. He is said to have built the so-called “Mosque of Omar” (“the Dome of the Rock”) in Jerusalem, which contains the rock regarded by Mahommedans as the scene of Mahomet's ascent to heaven, and by the Jews as that of the proposed sacrifice of Isaac.
‘OMAR KHAYYĀM [in full, Ghiyāthuddīn Abulfath ‘Omar bin Ibrāhīm al-Khayyāmi], the great Persian mathematician, astronomer, freethinker and epigrammatist, who derived the epithet Khayyām (the tentmaker) most likely from his father's trade, was born in or near Nīshāpūr, where he is said to have died in A.H. 517 (A.D. 1123). At an early age he entered into a close friendship both with Nizām-ul-mulk and his school-fellow Ḥassan ibn Ṣabbāḥ, who founded afterwards the terrible sect of the Assassins. When Nizām-ul-mulk was raised to the rank of vizier by the Seljūk sultan Alp-Arslan (A.D. 1063-1073) he bestowed upon Ḥassan ibn Ṣabbāḥ the dignity of a chamberlain, whilst offering a similar court office to ‘Omar Khayyām. But the latter contented himself with an annual stipend which would enable him to devote all his time to his favourite studies of mathematics and astronomy. His standard work on algebra, written in Arabic, and other treatises of a similar character raised him at once to the foremost rank among the mathematicians of that age, and induced Sultān Malik-Shāh to summon him in A.H. 467 (A.D. 1074) to institute astronomical observations on a larger scale, and to aid him in his great enterprise of a thorough reform of the calendar. The results of ‘Omar's research were—a revised edition of the Zīj or astronomical tables, and the introduction of the Ta’rīkh-i-Malikshāhī or Jalālī, that is, the so-called Jalālian or Seljūk era, which commences in A.H. 471 (A.D. 1079, 15th March).
‘Omar's great scientific fame, however, is nearly eclipsed by his still greater poetical renown, which he owes to his rubā‘īs or quatrains, a collection of about 500 epigrams. The peculiar form of the rubā‘ī— viz. four lines, the first, second and fourth of which have the same rhyme, while the third usually (but not always) remains rhymeless—was first successfully introduced into Persian literature as the exclusive vehicle for subtle thoughts on the various topics of Sūfic mysticism by the sheikh Abū Sa‘īd bin Abulkhair,[1] but ‘Omar differs in its treatment considerably from Abū Sa‘īd. Although some of his quatrains are purely mystic and pantheistic, most of them bear quite another stamp; they are the breviary of a radical freethinker, who protests in the most forcible manner both against the narrowness, bigotry and uncompromising austerity of the orthodox ulemā and the eccentricity, hypocrisy and wild ravings of advanced Sūfis, whom he successfully combats with their own weapons, using the whole mystic terminology simply to ridicule mysticism itself. There is in this respect a great resemblance between him and Hāfiz, but ‘Omar is decidedly superior. He has often been called the Voltaire of the East, and cried down as materialist and atheist. As far as purity of diction, fine wit, crushing satire against a debased and ignorant clergy, and a general sympathy with suffering humanity are concerned, ‘Omar certainly reminds us of the great Frenchman; but there the comparison ceases. Voltaire never wrote anything equal to ‘Omar's fascinating rhapsodies in praise of wine, love and all earthly joys, and his passionate denunciations of a malevolent and inexorable
- ↑ Died Jan. 1049. Comp. Ethé's edition of his rubā’īs in Sitzungsberichte der bayr. Akademie (1875), pp. 145 seq., and (1878) pp. 38 seq.; and E. G. Browne's Literary Hist. of Persia, ii. 261.
