Said bin Taimur

Who was Said bin Taimur?

Said bin Taimur was the sultan of Muscat and Oman from 10 February 1932 until his overthrow on 23 July 1970. His second wife was Mazoon al-Mashani. He studied in Mayo College, Ajmer in India from 1922 to 1927 in Urdu and English.

The son of Taimur bin Feisal, he inherited the remains of an Omani Empire, which included the neighboring provinces of Oman and Dhofar, as well as the last remnants of an overseas empire, including Gwadar on the Pakistani coast—the latter was ceded to Pakistan in 1958. Nevertheless, his petroleum-rich country also had long established ties with the United Kingdom, based on a 1798 Treaty of Friendship, and was a British protectorate since 1891.

As sultan, oil wealth would have allowed Sultan Said bin Taimur to modernize his country, and, in fact, he secured British recognition of its independence in 1951. Nevertheless, he also faced serious internal opposition, from Imam Ghalib Bin Ali – a religious leader of Oman, who claimed power in the sultanate for himself. The Imam's revolt in Jebel Akhdar was suppressed in 1955 with the help of the United Kingdom, but this, in turn, earned Taimur the animosity of Saudi Arabia, which supported the imam, and of Egypt, which regarded British involvement in suppressing the revolt as unconducive to the cause of Arab nationalism. In 1957, these two countries supported a renewed revolt by the Imam, which was similarly suppressed by 1959.