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Matthew Patay's
Note of the Month
November 2008
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Map and flag images provided by Graphic Maps
This month's featured note
is from Oman.
The denomination is 1 Rial and the Standard Catalog of World Paper Money
(SCWPM) Number is P-43.
The note is dated 2005 and
commemorates the 35th National Day.
(front)
The banknote is red and purple on multicolored underprint.
Sultan Qaboos bin Sa‘id al Said (November
18, 1940 to present) is at right.
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The following information
was obtained from:
Wikipedia the on line
Encyclopedia
Sultan Qaboos bin Sa‘id al Said
(November 18, 1940 to present)
(For the full article, please refer to
the link above.)
Qaboos bin Sa‘id al Said: born November 18, 1940 in Salalah, Oman) is the Sultan of the Sultanate of Oman. He rose to power after overthrowing his father, Sa‘id ibn Taymur, in 1970. He is the 14th descendant of the Al Bu Sa‘idi dynasty.
Early life
Sultan Qaboos ibn Sa‘id was born in Salalah in Dhofar on 18 November 1940. He is the only son of Sultan Sa‘id bin Taymur and is one of the 8th generation of the Al Bu Sa‘idi dynasty. He received his primary and secondary education in Salalah and at Pune, India and attended a private educational establishment in England from the age of sixteen. At 20 he entered the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. After graduating from Sandhurst, he joined a British Infantry regiment, The Cameronians, and served in the 4th Battalion in Germany for one year. He also held a staff appointment with the British Army.
After his military service, Sultan Qaboos studied local government subjects in England and, after a world tour, returned home to Salalah where he studied Islam and the history of his country.
Rise to power
For six years prior to Said bin Taymur's overthrow, Qaboos experienced virtual house arrest in the royal palace of Salalah. In July 1970, soldiers supporting Qaboos clashed with forces loyal to Said bin Taymur, and deposed him. Qaboos maintains that his father abdicated the throne. The British government helped to consolidate Qaboos' power.
Qaboos acceded to the throne on 1970-07-23, moving to Muscat. There he declared that the country would no longer be known as Muscat and Oman, but would change its name to "the Sultanate of Oman" in order to better reflect its political unity.
The first pressing problem that Qaboos bin Said faced as Sultan was an armed communist insurgency from South Yemen, the Dhofar Rebellion (1965–1975). The Sultanate eventually defeated the incursion with help from Iran, British special forces, and the Royal Air Force.
Reign as Sultan
The political system which Qaboos established is that of an absolute monarchy. Unlike the situation in neighboring Saudi Arabia, Qaboos' decisions are not subject to modification by other members of Oman's sultanic family. Government decisions are said to be made through a process of decision-making by "consensus" with federal, provincial, local and tribal representatives, though critics allege that Qaboos exercises de facto control of this process. Qaboos ibn Sa‘id also regularly engages in tours of his realm, in which any citizen with a grievance or request is (at least in theory) allowed to appeal to the sultan in person. Critics claim these meetings to be scripted as well.
More recently, Qaboos has allowed parliamentary elections (in which women have voted and stood as candidates) and pledged greater openness and participation in government. As yet, however, this parliament lacks substantial political power.
Qaboos' supporters point to his relative success in governing the country. By Persian Gulf standards, Oman boasts good public order (it is basically a safe country, even for foreigners), middling prosperity (given its level of oil revenues) and a relatively permissive society. Since he acceded to the throne, Oman has broadened international relations, allowed newspapers, established high schools, built highways, opened hotels and shopping malls and spends a substantial portion of its dwindling oil revenues on health care and education. Full democracy, they say, might threaten these accomplishments.
Unlike the heads of other Persian Gulf Arab states, Qaboos ibn Sa‘id has not publicly named an heir. Article 6 of the constitution actually provides that the Ruling Family Council chooses the successor after the throne becomes vacant, and that the sultan's preference, to be expressed in an official letter (which Qaboos maintains has already been sealed and delivered to the defence minister), is only resorted to in the event of lack of familial consensus. Critics fear, however, that the resulting uncertainty could inspire a power struggle among members of the dynasty and/or the military. A power vacuum could thus coincide with the expected depletion of Oman's oil supplies, threatening the nation's continued peace and prosperity.
In 1998, Qaboos ibn Sa‘id was presented with the International Peace Award by the National Council on US-Arab Relations. He also forges and maintains good relations with other Arab States and partners in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
The Sultan's birthday, 18 November, is celebrated as Oman's national holiday.
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(back)
The back contains a sailing ship, mosque tower, a fort and representative
crafts.
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The following information
was obtained from:
Wikipedia the on line Encyclopedia
Oman
(For the full article, please refer to
the link above.)
Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman, is an Arab country in southwest Asia on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It borders the United Arab Emirates on the northwest, Saudi Arabia on the west and Yemen on the southwest. The coast is formed by the Arabian Sea on the south and east and the Gulf of Oman on the northeast. The country also contains Madha, an exclave enclosed by the United Arab Emirates, and Musandam, an exclave also separated by Emirati territory.
History
Oman before Islam
From the 6th century BC to the arrival of Islam in the 7th century AD, Oman was controlled and/or influenced by three Iranian dynasties, the Achaemenids, Parthians and Sassanids. Achaemenids in the 6th century BC controlled and influenced the Oman peninsula. This was most likely exerted from a coastal center such as Sohar. By about 250 B.C. the Parthian dynasty brought the Persian Gulf under their control and extended their influence as far as Oman. Because they needed to control the Persian Gulf trade route, the Parthians established garrisons in Oman. In the third century A.D. the Sasanids succeeded the Parthians and held the area until the rise of Islam four centuries later.
The arrival of Islam
On the advent of Islam, the faith reached Oman within Muhammad's lifetime. The conversion of Omanis is usually ascribed to Amr ibn al-As, who visited the region. By the middle of the eighth century AD, Omanis were practicing a unique sect of the faith, Ibadhism, which remains a majority sect only in Oman. Ibadhism has been characterized as "moderate conservatism," with tenets that are a mixture of both austerity and peace.
The Portuguese settlement
The Portuguese occupied Muscat for a 140-year period 1508–1648, arriving a decade after Vasco da Gama discovered the seaway to India. In need of an outpost to protect their sea lanes, the Europeans built up and fortified the city, where remnants of their colonial architectural style still remain. Revolting tribes drove out the Portuguese, but were pushed out themselves about a century later 1741 by the leader of a Yemeni tribe leading a massive army from various other tribes, who began the current line of ruling sultans. A brief Persian invasion a few years later was the final time Oman would be ruled by a foreign power. Oman has been self governing ever since.
Oman and East African Empire
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.
Geography
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. Belonging to Musandam governorate, it covers approximately 75 km˛ (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.
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 Pakistan), 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.
Oman is famous for its khanjar knives, which are curved daggers worn during holidays as part of ceremonial dress. Today traditional clothing is worn by most Omani men. They wear an ankle-length, collarless robe called a dishdasha that buttons at the neck with a tassel hanging down. Traditionally this tassel would be dipped in perfume. Today the tassel is merely a traditional part of the dishdasha.
Women wear hijabs and abayas. Some women cover their faces and hands, but most do not. The abaya is a traditional dress and it is currently having different styles. The Sultan has forbidden the covering of faces in public office. On holidays, such as Eid, the women wear traditional dress, which is often very brightly colored and consists of a mid-calf length tunic over pants.
A very important part of Omani culture is hospitality. If invited into an Omani house, a visitor is likely to be greeted with a bowl of dates, qahwa (coffee with cardamom) and fruit. The coffee is served fairly weak in a small cup, which should be shaken after three servings to show that you have finished. The dates are in lieu of sugar. Halwa and other sweets are often given at celebrations such as Eids.
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For more information about Oman visit:
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