"Keep the dogs hungry, they will follow you". Such was in essence, the ruling theory of Said bin Taimur, sultan of Oman and Muscat, the last feudal monarch of Arabia.

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“Keep the dogs hungry, they will follow you”. Such was in essence, the ruling theory of Said bin Taimur, sultan of Oman and Muscat, the last feudal monarch of Arabia. And during the long reign of the seventh sultan of the Al Bu Said dynasty, the so called dogs, his subjects, were hungry indeed, and obediently followed their master.

 In this country of more than 80.000 square miles -- the second largest Arab country east of Suez after Saudi Arabia -- with 750.000 inhabitants, the clock of history was stopped somewhere in the Middle Ages. Everything, it seemed was forbidden. The inhabitants of the coast were forbideen to travel inland, and those of the inland valleys  could not go to the coast, or even from one valley to another. No one was allowed to go to Dhofar, in the extreme southwest.

There were, in all Oman and Dhofar, three primary schools and not a single secondary school. Students who wanted to pursue their studies had to leave their country illegally and start a long life of exile in the Persian Gulf or Kuwait. It was forbidden to build new houses, or to repair the old ones; forbidden to install a lavatory or a gas stove; forbidden to cultivate new land, or to buy a car without the Sultan’s permission.

No one could smoke in the streets, go to movies or beat drums; the army used to have a band, but one day the Sultan had the instruments thrown into the sea. A few foreigners opened a club: he had it shut, “probably because it was a place where one could have fun”, says one of his former victims. Three hours after sunset, the city gates were closed.

No foreigner was allowed to visit Muscat without the Sultan’s personal permission, and sailors on ships anchored at Muscat could not land. Not a single paper was printed in the country. All political life was prohibited and the prisons were full. Sultan Said was surrounded by official slaves in his palace at Salalah, where time was marked in Pavlovian fashion by a bell which rang every four hours. But one day the dogs got too hungry, and they tore the Sultan almost to death.

A fragile rule

The first assassination attempt took place in April 1966, during a parade. Some Dhofaris, who along with his slaves made up the Sultan’s private army, suddenly started shooting at their master. They failed to hit him, and when the ringleader jumped on him, one of the Sultan’s slaves cut the throat of the would-be killer. The Sultan was splattered with blood, but was unharmed. Six people were dead.

After this attempt, the Sultan no longer left his palace except for rare trips to London; he governed from Salalah and through three advisers.

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But a triple menace threatened the Sultan:

- In Dhofar, the Marxist rebels of the Liberation Front of Dhofar vicrtually controlled the hills, mountains and even the small coastal villages. The Sultan controlled nothing but Salalah, which had become an entrenched camp.

- At home, where the population had already revolted against the Sultan with the help of the Saudis during the mid-1950s, insecurity was greater than ever.

- Abroad, in 1966, one of the Sultan’s own brothers, Tariq bin Taimur, self-exiled for several years, launched a movement aimed at overthrowing Sultan Said and restoring democracy,.

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