Male national dress

The national dress for Omani men is a simple, ankle-length, collarless gown with long sleeves called the dishdasha. Underneath the dishdasha, a plain piece of cloth covering the body is worn from the waist down. Omani men may wear a variety of head dresses. The mussar is a square of finely woven woollen or cotton fabric, wrapped and folded into a turban. Underneath this, the kummah, an intricately embroidered cap, is sometimes worn.

Culture

Although Arabic is Oman's official language, there are native speakers of different dialects, as well as Balochi (the language of the Baloch from western-Pakistan and eastern Iran), or offshoots of Southern Arabian, a Semitic language only distantly related to Arabic, but closely related to Semitic languages in Eritrea and Ethiopia. Swahili and French are also widely spoken in the country due to the historical relations between Oman and Zanzibar the two languages have been linked historically. The dominant indigenous language is a dialect of Arabic and the country has also adopted English as a second language. Almost all signs and writings appear in both Arabic and English. A significant number also speak Hindi, due to the influx of Indian migrants during the late 1980s and the 1990s

Economy of Oman

Oman is a remarkably stable country in the Middle East. Current GDP per capita has expanded continuously in the past half-a-century. It grew 339% in the Sixties reaching a peak growth of 1,370% in the Seventies scaling back to modest 12% growth in the turbulent Eighties and rising again to 34% in the Nineties

Geography

Geography of Oman

A vast gravel desert plain covers most of central Oman, with mountain ranges along the north (al Jebel al Akhdar) and southeast coast, where the country's main cities are also located: the capital city Muscat, Matrah and Sur in the north, and Salalah in the south. Oman's climate is hot and dry in the interior and humid along the coast. During past epochs Oman was covered by ocean. Fossilized shells exist in great numbers in areas of the desert away from the modern coastline. The peninsula of Musandam (Musandem), which has a strategic location on the Strait of Hormuz, is separated from the rest of Oman by the United Arab Emirates and is thus an exclave. The series of small towns known collectively as Dibba are the gateway to the Musandam peninsula on land and the fishing villages of Musandam by sea. Boats may be hired at Khasab for trips into the Musandam peninsula by sea. Oman has one other exclave, inside UAE territory, known as Madha. It is located halfway between the Musandam Peninsula and the rest of Oman.[7] Belonging to Musandam governorate, it covers approximately 75 km² (29 sq mi). The boundary was settled in 1969. The north-east corner of Madha is closest to the Fujairah road, barely 10 m (32.8 ft) away. Within the exclave is a UAE enclave called Nahwa, belonging to the Emirate of Sharjah. It is about 8 km (5 mi) on a dirt track west of the town of New Madha. It consists of about forty houses with its own clinic and telephone exchange.[8]

In the 1690s Saif bin Sultan, the imam of Oman, pressed down the east African coast. A major obstacle was Fort Jesus, housing the garrison of a Portuguese settlement at Mombasa. After a two-year siege, it fell to Saif in 1698. Thereafter the Omanis easily ejected the Portuguese from Zanzibar and from all other coastal regions north of Mozambique. Zanzibar was a valuable property as the main slave market of the east African coast, and became an increasingly important part of the Omani empire, a fact reflected by the decision of the greatest 19th century sultan of Oman, Sa'id ibn Sultan, to make it from 1837 his main place of residence. Sa'id built impressive palaces and gardens in Zanzibar. He improved the island's economy by introducing cloves, sugar and indigo though at the same time he accepted a financial loss in cooperating with British attempts to end Zanzibar's slave trade. The link with Oman was broken after his death in 1856. Rivalry between his two sons was resolved, with the help of forceful British diplomacy, when one of them, Majid, succeeded to Zanzibar and to the many regions claimed by the family on the east African coast. The other, Thuwaini, inherited Muscat and Oman.