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Article: Country profile: Oman.
- Article from:
- New Internationalist
- Article date:
- January 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 New Internationalist Magazine. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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By any criterion, Oman is a remarkable country. Separated by the Gulf of Oman and Straits of Hormuz from Iran and by the Arabian Sea from the Indian subcontinent, its culture has as much in common with those two regions as with its Arabian neighbours. Oman stands very much apart from other Arab countries.
Oman is the oldest independent state in the Arab world. Its Portuguese rulers were ousted in 1650, whereafter it became itself a considerable naval power in the Indian Ocean, with colonies on the East African coast. But the twentieth century saw the country decline into ever greater obscurity, reaching its nadir in the later years of the reign of Sultan Said, ...