Religion and History in Oman

Oman is the only country where Ibadi Islam is the tradition of the majority, and Ibadism is neither Sunni nor Shia. It descends from the earliest schism in Islam, the Kharijites who abandoned Ali at Siffin, but it separated from the militant wing of that movement and developed a quietist jurisprudence that rejected the assassination of opponents and the declaration of other Muslims as unbelievers. Its distinctive doctrine concerns the imamate: the imam is elected by the learned for his qualities rather than inheriting the office, may be deposed if he fails, and the community may exist without one when circumstances require, a position with obvious political consequences.

Ibadi Oman elected its first imam in the eighth century, and for more than a thousand years the interior of the country was governed by imams from centres such as Nizwa and Rustaq, while the coast looked outward. That divergence produced the country's central historical tension, between an inland Imamate and a maritime Sultanate that at its height in the nineteenth century ruled Zanzibar and much of the East African coast and moved its capital there. The two were reconciled by force in the 1950s, and the modern state dates from the accession of Sultan Qaboos in 1970.