Ja'lān Banī Bū 'Alī

Ja'alan Bani Bu Ali became the scene of two campaigns by the ruler of Muscat and the East India Company at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The Bani Bu Ali had rejected Sayyid Said's authority, and British officials accused them of attacks on shipping. In 1820 a force landed at Sur and advanced into Ja'alan with Said's troops, but suffered a severe defeat.

A larger expedition under Lionel Smith returned in 1821. The victors destroyed forts and took leaders prisoner. The consequences continued in correspondence from 1823 to 1825, including complaints about the campaign and British attempts to justify it. These records also discuss the destruction of date groves by the ruler of Muscat and the removal of prisoners to Bombay. The conflict reached beyond a battlefield, damaging the cultivated landscape and carrying local disputes into imperial administrative correspondence.