ABSTRACT
Two features dominate the latter half of the eighteenth century in ʿUmân: the rapid decline of the imamate and the remarkable growth of maritime revenues and influence. From the viewpoint of the nineteenth century, there is an apparent reflection of these features in the division between the interior and the coast. There was, however, no simple causal relationship between seaborne commerce and the decline of the imâmate. There were in fact several interrelated factors which together afford a better explanation for the changes in ʿUmân: geographic, tribal, religious and maritime. Foreign occupiers, with the exception of early qanat-building Persians, cared little for the interior and limited themselves to ʿUmânî ports. The tribal interior shaped much of ʿUmân's eighteenth century history. Conditions in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf changed considerably in the course of eighteenth century. Maritime hostilities with the Portuguese lasted well into the eighteenth century and then Persian occupation of ʿUmân's coast complicated the Yaʿrubî civil war.
