ABSTRACT
Leaving aside the very early links between Omanis and the inhabitants of the East African coast,3 Omani political and economic interests in East Africa were widespread and recognised, as Bathurst has shown, from the mid-seventeenth century under the Ya’ariba.4 While Omani rulers, since that time, appointed wâlîs (governors) to various principalities in East Africa, they did not establish any centralised political authority over them. Such a relatively modern European-originated concept of central government did not in fact impinge in any way upon their attitudes of thought nor upon their socio-economic infrastructure which was based on tribalism. Thus, as there never was an extensive and grandiose East African ‘empire’ in the heyday of Kilwa in the thirteenth century, despite the insistence of some early writers on popularising such romantic myths.5 Similarly, there was no Ya’rubi nor indeed an Albusaidi ‘empire’ with viable institutions enabling Omani rulers to exercise centralised authority in territories in East Africa, even in those areas where they exercised some degree of control. That control, motivated primarily by the desire
commercial relationships.
