Omani

The Omani are the Arabs of southeastern Arabia, settled on the Batinah coast and inland. Their forebears include Magan and Arab tribes led by the Azd who migrated from Yemen after the collapse of the Marib Dam.

Islam reached them in the seventh century, and after the Battle of Dibba in 632 they adopted Ibadi Islam; the first elective Ibadi imamate was founded around 750. The Nabhani kings controlled the frankincense trade from 1154 until the Portuguese seized Muscat in 1507.

In 1624 Nasir bin Murshid founded the Yaruba dynasty, whose imams expelled the Portuguese by 1650 and took Mombasa in 1698 and Bahrain in 1700. Civil war and Persian intervention ended the dynasty, and Ahmad bin Said founded Al Bu Said rule in 1744; his successors made Oman an Indian Ocean power centered on Muscat and Zanzibar.