If the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 has produced unprecedented consequences for the internal policies of Middle Eastern regimes, this is not related to the upsurge of democratization that was supposed to spread like a contagion through the neighboring countries. Rather, it is due to the increased impact of the Shiʿi issue on the national political agendas of many Arab states. Following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime, many observers thus drew attention to the emergence of what they regarded as a Shiʿi “revival” in the Middle EastFootnote 1—a perception that the military success of the Lebanese Hizbullah against Israel in the summer of 2006 seemed to confirm.
Within this debate, one of the most popular notions has been that of a “Shiʿi crescent.”Footnote 2 The term was first used by King ʿAbdullah of Jordan in December 2004 to describe the alarm he shares with Egyptian and Saudi rulers over an emerging alliance of dominant Shiʿi movements or governments stretching from the Persian Gulf to Lebanon, with Iran, Iraq, and Syria as its backbone. In my view, such an intellectual construction, attractive as it may be, is counterproductive to understanding the complex realities of the Shiʿi factor peculiar to each national arena. The variety of situations encountered by Shiʿa in the Arab world suggests that delimiting a transcendent “Shiʿi agenda”Footnote 3 is hazardous. To be more specific, the “crescent” thesis contributes to an obscuring of the complex social dynamics of Shiʿi Islam in the Arabian peninsula. It conflates the questionable notion of a timeless Shiʿi common cause that stretches from the Mediterranean to Pakistan with the old and well-established transnational ties that connect the local Shiʿi groups of the Gulf with one another, as illustrated by the social, economic, and intellectual organization of the marjaʿiyya (religious authorities).Footnote 4 While being deeply and undeniably anchored within national agendas, the Shiʿi communities in the Gulf states maintain strong religious, individual, and family interconnections across state borders—two apparently contradictory dynamics that can, however, support one other advantageously.Footnote 5
Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, research on the Shiʿa in the Arab world, especially those living in the Arabian peninsula, has been guided by several themes. The first concerns their relationship with the Iranian Shiʿa and more generally with Iran, which has turned itself into the religious center for Shiʿi Islam. Some scholars posit a clear “gulf” between the Arab and Iranian Shiʿa because of the symbolic rivalry that has characterized the history of their relationsFootnote 6; this is why it is not unusual to find analyses of the Shiʿi populations of the Arabian peninsula and Iraq scarcely mentioning relations with Iran.Footnote 7 Louër adopts a different approach, basing her study of Shiʿi political networks in the Gulf on what she considers the complex interpenetration of these two worlds.Footnote 8
A second theme hinges on what Fuller and Francke call “the dilemma of the [Arab] Shiʿa—both an oppressed religious minority in a number of states and an oppressed religious majority in two others”—namely, Iraq under Saddam Hussein and Bahrain.Footnote 9 For Nakash, “Shiʿis in the Arab world entered nationhood feeling excluded from power and seeking to redress political wrong.”Footnote 10 Cole argues that “much of what the outside world has understood as activism and militancy among [Arab] Shi'ites after about 1975 has been a manifestation of attempts to find political representation in their various nations as an ethnic and religious community, as . . . they have often moved from peasant villages to city slums.”Footnote 11 In the context of the Arabian peninsula, this perception is valid mainly for the situation of Shiʿi populations in the Gulf countries that have attracted the most attention from academics: Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.Footnote 12 Indeed, Shiʿa in these two countries have long been perceived in terms of this historical experience of discrimination and deprivation of social opportunities. Yet the situation of their co-religionists in other Arab Gulf monarchies offers a very different picture, in which wealthy Shiʿi families play a prominent role in the economic and financial systems of the state and even enjoy top political positions. This is particularly true in Kuwait,Footnote 13 the United Arab Emirates, and, of course, Oman—the case on which this paper focuses.
Sultan Qaboos's overthrow of his father in July 1970 and his assumption of the title of Sultan followed some fifteen years of civil war. This instability had highlighted the social and political divisions of a territory officially known as the “Sultanate of Muscat and Oman.”Footnote 14 The new ruler's room for maneuver with regard to the British was reduced to a minimum, as was his legitimacy vis-à-vis the Omani population. In discussing the stability of Middle East monarchies, Anderson considers these regimes better equipped than their republican counterparts in the region to appeal to traditions and historical legacies that they can employ to further their goal of political legitimization.Footnote 15 In the Omani case, the building of a contemporary nation lay at the heart of the political project established by Sultan Qaboos as a means of asserting his authority over the whole territory. This nation-building policy was based on one major objective: to set up Sultan Qaboos as the “natural” sovereign, the only individual able to draw together all the ethno-linguistic groups located within Omani territory.Footnote 16 In pursuing this objective, the regime exploited the newly significant oil rent to implement an extensive redistribution system. Within a few years, the state was suddenly transformed into a concrete reality, becoming simultaneously the key contact for any administrative action, an employer providing an inexhaustible pool of jobs open to the skilled and unskilled alike, and the major player in the struggle for power. One of the regime's strategies was to undermine the legitimacy of the traditional ʿaṣabiyyāt (tribes, ethno-linguistic groups and communities)Footnote 17 and to replace them with a state apparatus that the Omanis were unlikely to turn against because they depended on it for their survival. The modern state has come to terms with the ʿaṣabiyyāt so as to co-opt and encapsulate them, not destroying them but depriving them of any potential for political harm.
This was accompanied by a symbolic process of nation building that reshaped cultural and political references by centering them on the person of the sultan. The contemporary Omani nation is built on the negation of the country's pre-1970 history. Labeled the “dark period,” these times have been reconstructed by official historiography as an antonym to the glorious “national awakening” of 23 July 1970—Qaboos's accession to the throne, later renamed Renaissance Day (ʿīd al-nahḍa).
Re-creating a national identity within a framework of an omnipresent state and a selective reading of history and references has also occurred in the religious field, where the authorities have tried to smooth over doctrinal differences between schools in order to promote a consensual and “generic”Footnote 18 Islam that is peculiar to Oman and disregards controversial past influences such as the Ibadi imamate as well as foreign ones such as Wahhabism. This enables the authorities to justify the recurring arrests of “Islamic militants” and other “extremists” portrayed as driven by political interpretations foreign to a supposedly peaceful Omani Islam. Through a double assimilation of the whole of Oman to the state, as “master craftsman” of economic and social development, and of the state to the person of Qaboos himself, the paternalized authority of the ruler has set the basis of its own legitimacy. In order to benefit from rewards both material (royal subsidies, economic contracts, etc.) and symbolic (civil servant posts) in this new political order, individuals and groups had no choice but to participate in the competition for allegiance to the nation and loyalty to the chief.
From this perspective, the experiences of the Shiʿa of Omani nationality, who number between 30,000 and 50,000 (3% of the national population)Footnote 19 and who form an extremely heterogeneous population, shed considerable light on the process of Omani nation building carried out by the state since the 1970s. This article reflects on the place of the Shiʿa within the nation imagined by Sultan Qaboos and particularly on the political and economic roles that some of them currently hold, inherited both from their mercantile tradition and from their commitment to the rulers of Muscat in recent history. This paper argues that the constant proximity of the Omani Shiʿa to political decision makers up to the present explains the special weakness of the links they have maintained with Shiʿi transnational networks in the Gulf since 1970 and thus the low intensity of Shiʿi political activities in Oman under Qaboos. Moreover, in the present context of limited economic opportunities and increased social frustration in Oman, growing prejudices toward the Shiʿa, especially those indigenous to Muscat and Muttrah, stem less from sectarian tensions than from social and economic variables. Given the general context of competitive bidding in declarations of “Omaniness” and demonstrations of loyalty to the ruler, one of the current sociopolitical strategies of the Shiʿa is to redouble their efforts to prove loyalty and justify their full belonging to the nation rather than to emphasize any distinctive Shiʿi identity.
HIGH POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC VISIBILITY INHERITED FROM HISTORY
Lack of Unity
The most observable Shiʿi group—and the one to which this paper will pay the most attention, given its visibility in Oman—is the Lawatiyya (sing. Lawati), also known as “Khojas” or “Hyderabadis,” the latter from the name of the Pakistani town in Sind. Although their origins are still the subject of conflicting interpretations, the Lawatiyya claim a presence in Oman that goes back some four centuries, according to the date recorded on a door in their Muttrah district.Footnote 20 The earliest mention of Lawatiyya in Oman is found in the writings of Ibn Ruzayq, who believed the Lawatiyya were among the principal occupants of Muttrah under Imam Ahmad bin Saʿid al-Busaʿidi (1750–83).Footnote 21 Most of the Lawati families appear to have settled in Oman during waves of migration from Sind between 1780 and 1880,Footnote 22 and at the end of the 19th century most Lawatiyya of Oman either enjoyed the status of British subjects (if they had left India after the British took control) or at least benefited from the protection of extraterritoriality by claiming India as their native country. Initially disciples of the Aga Khan (Ismaʿili Shiʿa), most of the Lawatiyya were excommunicated following a quarrel over the legitimacy of the Aga Khan's succession in 1862 and became Twelver Shiʿa at that time.Footnote 23 They wished to remain British subjects after Pakistan became independent in 1947 and were automatically granted Omani nationality by Sultan Qaboos in 1970. Although they have not maintained any connections with Sind, they retain close contacts with relatives in Dubai and Kuwait.
For a long time the Lawatiyya remained separated from the rest of Omani society because they spoke Khojki (or Lawati), which is close to Sindi and Gujarati, and inhabited a district on the seashore of Muttrah called the sūr al-lawātiyya (the Lawatiyya enclosure). This area was closed to non-Lawati individuals until the 1970s, remains inaccessible to outsiders not accompanied by a member of the community, and is now inhabited by about 100 individuals; it comes to life only on religious occasions. Some Lawati notables wish to make it a UNESCO World Heritage Site.Footnote 24 The Lawati language, in which a few antique commercial agreements kept in Muttrah are written, is still spoken within the community, even by twenty-year-olds, but Arabic is by far the most widely used language. Today, the Lawatiyya are estimated to number between 15,000 and 20,000, and they live exclusively in the capital (Muttrah, Ruwi, and Seeb districts) and in the Batinah region (Barka, al-Masnaʿa, al-Khabura, and Suhar). Despite their small number, they wield considerable economic influence, as will be discussed.
Two other Omani Twelver Shiʿi groups must also be mentioned. The ʿAjam (sing. ʿAjmi) are thought to currently number no more than 20,000. Said to originate from various regions of southern Iran (Lar, Bandar ʿAbbas),Footnote 25 they live in Batinah (Suhar, Saham, Suwayq, and al-Khabura), where they represent the largest Shiʿi group, and in the capital (the new suburb of al-Khudh, and one of the Muscat old town districts called hilla ʿajam). They have been established in Oman for centuries, thanks to very early contacts between the two shores of the Gulf of Oman, and their situation cannot be compared with that of any of the homonymous groups in Bahrain or Kuwait. The Omani ʿAjam rarely speak Persian and do not maintain any family ties with Iran. Today they are overrepresented in low-skilled positions in the police and the army, hold few official positions, and are much less socially visible than the Lawatiyya.
There are considerably fewer Baharina (sing. Bahrani); they are thought to number between 1,000 and 2,000. They have been settled in the Muscat area for at least a century but no more than six to eight generations. Compared to the Lawatiyya, their religious observance is rather weak; for instance, there is currently no imām jumʿa in their main mosque in Muscat.Footnote 26 The Baharina in Oman maintain close contacts and extensive family networks with the Baharina in Bahrain, Kuwait, and southern Iraq. For example, during the 1991 Gulf War and after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, these families accommodated relatives from Basra and Kuwait fleeing the war zones. Because of their high economic and political status under the rule of Qaboos, they are major actors in the contemporary political game.
Finally, the Shiʿi population in Oman includes the family of an Iraqi sayyid (sayyid Sharaf al-Musawi) who settled several years ago in Oman; some converted individuals (no more than fifty annually); and in the Batinah area, a few isolated clans among mainly Sunni tribes (in particular the Bani Jabir and Bani Kaʿab).
The Political and Economic Stature of the Lawatiyya and Baharina since 1970
Along with the Hindu Banyan traders, the Lawatiyya played a major economic role in the prosperity of the Omani empire from at least the mid-19th century. At the height of the Omani maritime empire under Saʿid bin Sultan (1806–56), Hindu and Lawati merchants controlled much of the financial activity of the sultanate and the triangular commercial network between Muscat, Zanzibar, and Bombay. The Lawatiyya were particularly active in importing rice and piece goods from India and exporting dried fish and dates from Muscat. Until the middle of the 20th century, these merchant families were able to take advantage of the protection of the rulers in order to consolidate their economic interests, usually by directly intervening in the decision-making process. In practice they stood above the laws of the sultan, since they benefited from the extra-territorial protection of the British India authorities and could also seek British help in cases of damage or losses suffered, especially in the event of attacks by inner Oman tribes. The latter were forced to mortgage their lands annually to the merchants of Muscat as security for advances on basic goods like rice and sugar, which were not produced in Oman and were available only as imports. Their severe economic dependency, combined with the closeness of the traders’ interests with the British, explains why Omanis from the interior usually raided Banyan and Lawati goods when they attacked Muscat.
The merchants also showed skill in making themselves indispensable to the ruler's political survival and to his maintaining at least a minimal autonomy from the British. Not only were they the only ones able to provide the sultan with the liquid loans he needed but they also paid huge taxes from their resources, which was one of the major sources of the sultanate's revenues. The Lawatiyya and Baharina also knew how to capitalize on the double advantage of remaining outside the pre-1970 competition for political legitimacy between the sultanate and the imamate and of having technical and linguistic skills superior to those of the interior Omanis. Today, the combination of these social and cultural factors—skills acquired before 1970 and socioprofessional clientelism—explains the overrepresentation of the Lawatiyya in key intellectual and technical positions in the public sector and why they carry an economic and political weight disproportionate to their actual demographic share.
One of the oldest Shiʿi Omani merchant dynasties is the al-Sultan family. In 1866, W. J. Towell, a U.S. citizen, founded a shipping transport company in Muscat. In 1906, Muhammad Fadl, a Lawati born in Bombay who had been a clerk and then a partner in the company, became its full owner. The company retained the name of WJ Towell and acted as representative in Oman for the British India shipping line, for Lloyds, and for the Standard Oil Company, though its main activity involved the export of dates and pomegranates to the United States and India.Footnote 27 During the 1930s, Muhammad Fadl's grandson, ʿAbd al-Rida, established a branch in Kuwait, managed by three of his brothers. The decision quickly proved profitable and the family prospered, thanks to sugar imports and the introduction of basmati rice to the Arabian peninsula in the 1960s. This was also a flourishing period for WJ Towell in Muscat, where ʿAbd al-Rida's brother, hajj ʿAli bin Sultan, expanded the company to become Muscat's most powerful economic group, representing world-famous brands such as General Motors.
In the 1970s hajj ʿAli, who remained the Lawatiyya tribal shaykh (shaykh qabīla)Footnote 28 until the end of the 1990s, chaired Oman's first consultative institution, the Agriculture, Fisheries and Industry Council. He was made vice chairman of the first State Consultative Council (1981–83) and was chairman of the Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry from its creation in 1975 until his death in 1999. His son Maqbul has held the post of minister of commerce and industry since 1991. Several holding companies are wholly owned by more than thirty-five cousins descended from Muhammad Fadl.Footnote 29
The other family that traditionally shared the position of shaykh among the Lawatiyya is the ʿAbd al-Latif family. The descendants of ʿAbd al-Latif bin Fadl—who was already active in Muttrah at the end of the 19th century in trade to India and Europe (weapons, pearls, fish) and was close to sultans Taymur and Saʿid—maintain their wide influence. The family group, Bhacker Haji Abdullatif Fazul, is in a quasi-monopolistic position in the maritime freight sector in Muttrah's industrial port, while Husayn bin ʿAli bin ʿAbd al-Latif, ambassador of Oman to the United Kingdom until October 2009 and currently advisor at the Diwan of the Royal Court, is simultaneously chairman of the Abdullatif Trading group.
Omani development after 1970 similarly benefited other influential Lawati families, such as ʿAbd al-Husayn Baqir Sulayman, shaykh qabīla of the Lawatiyya since the beginning of the 2000s, and his son Muhammad, who was appointed in 2006 for a new term as member of the Muscat Municipal Council. The family occupies a leading position in the import and distribution of rice, sugar, and tea through its Muttrah-based company, Bhacker Suleiman Jaffer Co. Similarly, the descendants of ʿAli Salman, Maqbul and Hassan, have, through their many contracts with technical ministries, taken the Al Hassan family company to the top in electricity and electrical-supplies distribution throughout Oman. Khadija bint Hassan was the first Omani woman ambassador; she was appointed to the Netherlands in 1999 and held the simultaneous post of nonresident ambassador plenipotentiary to the European Union from 2002 to 2009.
Other leading companies owned by Lawatiyya include the Ali Redha Trading Company, effectively ruled by businessman ʿAli Rida Darwish, who had a virtual monopoly on sugar refining and distribution in Oman before encountering major financial problems in 2001. Muhammad Mussa al-Yusef, who was, among other positions, undersecretary for financial affairs (1981–89) and minister of state for development (1994–97), chaired the Al Yusef group of companies, which is active in the telecommunications, property, and banking sectors. In May 2001 this Lawati businessman was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for embezzlement and fraud on the Muscat Stock Exchange but was pardoned by the sultan.Footnote 30 His sons Qays and Faisal have assumed his economic roles. Finally, several Lawati individuals hold high-level positions in the Diwan of the Royal Court and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.Footnote 31
The more restricted size of the Baharina community has prevented it from playing a similar role in 20th-century Oman. Even so, ʿAli al-Jamali was secretary to sultans Taymur and Saʿid during the 1920s and 1930s, before going voluntarily into exile.Footnote 32 Returning to Oman after Qaboos's takeover, he became the first Omani ambassador to India in 1974. His son ʿAsim was appointed the first minister of health in August 1970 and served temporarily as acting prime minister in 1971. Another leading Bahrani personality is ʿAbd Allah bin ʿAbbas, former chairman of Muscat municipality with ministerial rank until September 2008 and currently secretary-general at the Diwan of the Royal Court. His brother is director general of the Oman Chamber of Commerce as well as shaykh rashīd of the Baharina of Muscat.Footnote 33
Currently, the most prominent Bahrani family in Muscat is that of Ahmad bin ʿAbd al-Nabi Makki. The grandson of a Basra trader who arrived in Muscat at the end of the 19th century,Footnote 34 he was the first Omani ambassador to the United Nations in the 1970s, ambassador to the United States (1975–78), and minister of the civil service (1991–95). He is currently minister of national economy. His brothers Habib, Munir, and Mahmud sit on many directorial boards of companies listed on the Muscat Stock Exchange, and Habib was director of urban planning in the early 1970s.Footnote 35 Munir is also a former ambassador and runs Fincorp, the leading Omani financial company. Salim bin Hassan Makki, who was in charge of oil affairs in the Interim Planning Council in the early 1970s, was a state council member between 1997 and 2003.
The Darwish family also confirms the role played by the Baharina in the economy. The Darwish brothers came to Oman early in the 20th century and founded a trading company in 1921. During the 1950s and 1960s, Muhsin Haydar, one of the grandsons, was awarded several contracts with major foreign companies, including British Leyland, with Sultan Saʿid's approval. The 1970s saw satisfactory development for the Mohsen Haider Darwish company, which is currently run by Muhsin Haydar and his daughters Lujayna and Arij. Lujayna was Muscat's representative on the Consultative Council from 2000 to 2007 and a member of the Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry board from 2003 to 2006. In January 2005 Muhsin's brother, ʿAdnan, became general manager of the Oman Housing Bank.
THE REGIME–SHIʿA RELATIONSHIP: MUTUAL RESPECT BUT WATCHFUL SUPERVISION
As seen previously, the prominent role of certain segments of the Shiʿi population in politics and the economy has continued under Qaboos's rule, confirming the peaceful relationship they have maintained with the central power.
Wide Autonomy in Religious Matters
The majority of Omani Shiʿa follow the marjaʿiyya of Najaf and thus ʿAli Sistani, but among Lawatiyya, his influence is widely challenged by the Lebanese Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah. Also, some small, active groups in Muscat, composed mainly of Lawatiyya, follow Ayatollah Muhammad Shirazi (1928–2001). Ayatollah Khamenei's influence is marginal, and Hizbullah has no branch in Oman. The marjaʿiyya of Najaf and the Oman government both recognize three official religious authorities in Oman who act as intermediaries between the regime and the Shiʿa, on religious matters exclusively: shaykh Ihsan Saddiq, a Lawati of Muttrah and a former professor of history in Sultan Qaboos University, trained in Iran; shaykh Muhammad Rida, an ʿAjmi of Suwayq also trained in Iran; and the Iraq-trained sayyid Sharaf al-Musawi. Other influential ʿulamaʾ come from abroad, such as the imam of the Lawati mosque in Muttrah, the Lebanese shaykh Radwan, and the Saudi sayyid Munir al-Khabbaz, who is invited to Muttrah every year for the month of Muharram. There is no mujtahid or qadi of Omani nationality (though several Lawatiyya recently asserted that the government was considering the possibility of appointing a qadi), and no religious institute (ḥawza); the main mosques organize religious courses for children only. Several hundred Omanis annually visit Najaf for religious occasions. Currently around fifty young Omanis are training in Qum and a few others in Lebanon and Syria. Since 2006, contacts have been reestablished with Najaf and Karbala for training young Omanis but for now on an individual basis only.
Unlike the Ibadis and Sunnis, who depend directly on the Ministry of Endowments (awqāf) and Religious Affairs, the Omani Shiʿa enjoy a noticeable freedom of action, of which they are extremely proud. As a Shiʿi imam explained, “If you want, you can go to the ministry, but they will not be able to give you any information about us!”Footnote 36 Indeed, the Shiʿa enjoy freedom of worship—but they hardly ever practice with Ibadis and Sunnis. They have their own mosques and mourning houses (māʾtam), approximately ten in the capital and thirty or so in the whole territory. Most mosques are tied to one group or another—Lawatiyya, Baharina, or ʿAjam. If the state provides land, the utilities are financed by the Division of Mosques in the Diwan of the Royal Court, but mosque construction is essentially financed by the Shiʿa. This system is the same for the awqāf: although registered at the ministry, they are managed independently by each of the Shiʿi groups under the supervision of the respective council of awqāf. With regard to the Lawatiyya, this council controls all Lawati awqāf in Oman and is ruled by a manager (mutawalli al-awqāf) appointed by the ʿulamaʾ and composed of members of the merchant families.Footnote 37
For the first time since the 1980s, the 2006 and 2007 ʿAshuraʾ commemorations of Husayn's martyrdom by the Lawati community included processions outside the Lawatiyya sūr. One hundred people covered the short distance between the Sayyida Zaynab māʾtam in Nazimuja and the main mosque in the sūr through nearby lanes leading to the corniche (one of the most crowded streets in the capital) before entering the enclosure. It is unclear why the government gave its formal consent for this public celebration, but one can reasonably assume that perceptions of the new situation of Shiʿa in Saudi Arabia and Iraq played a part and that the regime saw its decision as a way of preempting any nascent threat of contagion to Oman by an apparent Shiʿi regional revival.
In 2008, because the Tenth of Muharram fell on a working day, the shaykh qabīla of the Lawatiyya received a letter from the Diwan forbidding any procession on the seashore; around 100 people therefore took part in a shorter procession between the māʾtam Sayyida Zaynab and the sūr via a quieter route. Effusive demonstrations of mourning such as flagellation and shedding of blood (tatbīr) are not practiced, at least publicly, except by some Pakistani and Indian expatriates on the Ninth of Muharram evening, and most Lawatiyya strongly disapprove of such observances. Instead many Omanis, including followers of Muhammad Shirazi, strike their chests with their hands (latamiyyāt) and participate in massive blood donations to the Ministry of Health, regarding this as an assertion of solidarity with the needy in Oman and an effective way to commemorate Imam Husayn's martyrdom.
The latitude of action in religious matters does not mean that the regime has ever considered giving up its careful observation of the Shiʿi communities, particularly with regard to their integration into the state apparatus. Traditionally the wealthy secularist merchant families have occupied the decision-making positions within the Lawati community and acted as its spokespersons. In 1981, in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution, the Omani authorities decided to emphasize the anchoring of the Shiʿa within the Omani nation by “tribalizing” them. They duly instituted a Lawati “council of shaykhs” (majlis al-shuyūkh), chaired by a shaykh qabīla, to act as intermediary between Lawatiyya individuals and the state.Footnote 38 This has been part of the regime's wider strategy of fostering the survival of reference points of the pre-1970 order as markers of identity by integrating them into the new political order and using them to consolidate its authority. For three decades now, members of the Lawatiyya's council of shaykhs have belonged to the families with the most political and economic, rather than religious, prominence. The only Bahrani shaykh rashīd is in Muscat and has minimal responsibilities, because the Bahrani community is extremely small, has less community feeling, and is very well integrated into the power networks of the capital.Footnote 39 The ʿAjam population, like all northern Oman tribes, has had a shaykh for many years.
Another illustration of the way the reference points of the former social order have been subsumed within the modern state was the official decision in 1981 to give every citizen a patronymic name referring to his native tribe. This move focused on the groups that could not claim Arab tribal descent, such as client groups of the noble branches of the tribes, the Lawatiyya, the Baharina, and Baluchi-native Omanis. It was decided to give the Lawatiyya and Baharina the patronyms “al-Lawati” and “al-Bahrani,” but the decisions were not unanimously approved by the Lawatiyya,Footnote 40 many of whom considered it a way of reducing them to the level of a “nomadic tribe.”Footnote 41
Weak Politicization of Shiʿi Islam
The integration of Omani Shiʿa into Shiʿi transnational networks (except for family ones) is very loose and by no means comparable to what happens in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. This weak integration, combined with their proximity to Oman's decision makers before and after 1970, helps explain why the Omani Shiʿa have never organized themselves for any collective political action. Nevertheless, even if Shiʿi political Islam in Oman has been noticeably weak, the authorities have never hesitated to resort to open repression in order to propel any dissenting voices back into line.
The most obvious expression of Shiʿi religious activism was linked to the arrival in Muscat in 1974 of Hassan al-Saffar, who was close to the Iraqi-Iranian Shiʿi Ayatollah Muhammad al-Shirazi. A sixteen-year old Saudi cleric, al-Saffar belonged to the Movement of the Message (al-Haraka al-Risaliyya), founded in Karbala in the late 1960s by Shirazi's nephews Muhammad Taqi and Hadi al-Mudarrisi.Footnote 42 He was probably invited by ʿAbd al-Rida al-ʿAsfur, a prominent Bahrani merchant in Muscat whose family originates from the town of Saham and maintains connections with relatives in Bahrain. Hassan al-Saffar accepted the proposal of the Baharina to hold the position of imām jumʿa in their mosque in Muscat. He also opened libraries in Muscat and Jabru; the most important of these, the Library of the Supreme Prophet (Maktabat al-Rasul al-Aʿzam), was in Muttrah. Along with an irregularly appearing bulletin entitled al-Waʿi (The Consciousness), he initiated religious courses. As one of his closest allies explained, at that time
people went to pray and nothing more. They did not know what Islam is. Hassan al-Saffar wanted them to evolve but not in al-Mudarrisi's radical perspective. Like Gandhi, Hassan al-Saffar wanted things to get moving in people's minds; he wanted to make them think about themselves and be aware of themselves as Shiʿa.Footnote 43
Al-Saffar apparently had no political agenda in Oman, and his relations with the Omani authorities were fairly good. On several occasions he invited shaykh Ahmad al-Khalili, the mufti of Oman, to the Muttrah library; he also published articles in local newspapers and obtained the government's permission to invite foreign Shiʿi personalities to give religious lectures. Until 1979, the regime certainly perceived the movement as insignificant and, in the context of the social and economic challenges that faced the country after the Dhofar war officially ended in 1975, far less destabilizing than leftist movements such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman.Footnote 44
However, the majority of the Lawatiyya, in particular the merchant notables, took a jaundiced view of this young outsider who claimed to be instructing them in how to improve their practice of Muslim rites, thereby upsetting the accepted order in which the merchant families were the community's natural representatives. In Oman, even if it was not as explicitly stated as in Kuwait, Shiʿi revolutionary ideology, such as that of al-Shirazi, was conceived as a means to challenge the authority of the merchant notables.Footnote 45 Having found a growing audience among young Lawatiyya, al-Saffar sent a few of them to Kuwait to study in the ḥawza established by Ayatollah al-ShiraziFootnote 46 and from 1977 to 1979 succeeded in convincing some Lawatiyya to carry out the ʿAshuraʾ procession with banners and poems along the corniche.
After the Iranian Revolution, a clear break in the relationship between the Shirazi movement and the Omani government occurred. Hassan al-Saffar left Oman for Kuwait and then traveled to Iran to lead the new Islamic Revolution Organization in the Arabian Peninsula. In a preemptive strike, the Omani authorities decided to close the movement's libraries, and several of the latter's employees chose to go into exile in Bahrain or Kuwait or to pursue their studies in Iran, especially in the ḥawza founded in Teheran by Muhammad Taqi al-Mudarrisi. Five were arrested when they returned to Oman in 1981 and spent several days in jail. Religious ceremonies outside the sūr ceased in 1980. Again, fifteen Lawatiyya, including a senior official of the Ministry of National Heritage and Culture, were arrested in December 1987 in connection with the activities of a clandestine library intended for use as the Organization of the Islamic Action's base in Oman but were freed by the regime a few days later.Footnote 47 Today, the Shirazi movement has a weak following. Mostly Lawatiyya, they number around 100 and manage a small māʾtam in the capital. One of their young sympathizers has published several pamphlets based on Muhammad al-Shirazi's precepts and intended for Omani Shiʿa youth.Footnote 48
Since the 1990s, the most active Shiʿi transnational political network in Oman—though again not comparable to what exists in the other Gulf monarchies—has been composed of al-Daʿwa militants.Footnote 49 When the Lebanese cleric Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah emerged in the mid-1990s as a new contender for the role of marjaʿ, a number of Omani al-Daʿwa sympathizers chose to follow him. In the spring of 1994, the Omani government carried out the first police raid against al-Daʿwa sympathizers and arrested thirty-two individuals on charges of prohibited religious activities; they received jail sentences for periods of six months to five years. This happened almost simultaneously with the most significant wave of arrests in Oman since the Dhofar war. Two hundred people were caught and accused of belonging to a secret Islamist organization linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and plotting to overthrow the government.Footnote 50 There was no connection between these two actions, but one year later the Shiʿi militants and the other detainees simultaneously received royal pardons.
Another very important event occurred in the autumn of 1997, when twelve people, assumed to be followers of Muhammad Fadlallah, were arrested for “action against the security of the state,” allegedly involving sympathy and financial support for al-Daʿwa. They were further accused of transmitting confidential documents to Iran and working “to overthrow the government and establish an Islamic regime.”Footnote 51 Among those arrested was the Lawati secretary of Sayyid Shihab bin Tariq Al Saʿid,Footnote 52 the commander of the Omani navy, who was also responsible for Lawati mosques. The twelve were condemned to jail terms of six months to seven years. Contrary to what happened in 1994, the sultan did not grant amnesties, and all appear to have served their full sentences.
Although its accusations seem disproportionate to the real activity and importance of al-Daʿwa cells in Oman,Footnote 53 the regime again chose to deliver an unambiguous message to the movement regarding its inclination to establish connections with foreign Shiʿi political activists. When the 1994–99 uprising disrupted BahrainFootnote 54 and the Manama authorities accused Shiʿi political militants of attempting to overthrow the regime with Iran's support, the Omani regime, wishing to prevent any misunderstandings and to show that it was not ready to accept any form of politicization of religious activities, firmly reminded its Shiʿi population of where the boundaries stood that were not to be crossed.
THE LAWATI DILEMMA REGARDING THEIR INTEGRATION WITHIN THE OMANI NATION
Mutual Prejudices Remaining
Until the mid-1990s, an abundance of material resources, public-sector jobs, and other benefits arising out of oil rents, combined with the subtle moves of the authorities to integrate and co-opt actors into the modern state, helped to moderate claims in Oman based on local or ethno-linguistic identities. Since then, increasingly scarce resources for redistribution by the state, combined with the authorities’ intransigence toward sharing any part of the political decision-making process, have led to an increase in particularistic awareness. Although a politicization of infranational groups remains unlikely under Qaboos's rule, debates are currently occurring over socioeconomic resources and over loyalty to the Omani nation. In this context, the individual is labeled by the rest of the society as belonging to a group, with or without that person's agreement and even if the wish to be above ethnic identities and communities is affirmed. This particularly involves groups that can be described as “peripheral” to the demographic and historical structure because they do not belong to Oman's Arabic-language and Ibadi heart: Lawati, Swahili-speaking, and Baluchi-native Omanis. But although the religious factor is increasingly utilized in debates about undesirable social changes, socioeconomic variables are more important than the sectarian dimension for measuring grievances in Oman.
Because of their high political and economic visibility, the Lawatiyya usually find themselves at the center of other people's complaints, especially during this time of increasing economic difficulty. While the Lawatiyya and Baharina are almost unanimously viewed as a close-knit force with a coherent political agenda and a strong religious commitment, outsiders usually identify them through the more visible group, that is, the Lawatiyya.Footnote 55 Concerning their alleged cohesion and economic success, the Lawatiyya are accused of numerous misdeeds in Oman, such as controlling the major share of the economy in spite of their small population, the implication being that this could only have been achieved by devious means.Footnote 56 Influenced by collective memories of the pre-1970 period (when the Muttrah traders who were mainly Lawatiyya monopolized sugar and rice imports), many interior Omanis are also convinced that the Lawatiyya are able to pursue their interests by threatening trade stoppages. This widespread perception of a Lawati lobby extending its contacts throughout the state's top echelons is clear from this comment by a civil servant involved with the property sector:
The foolproof way to buy land in an area where prices will skyrocket in the future is to follow what the Lawatiyya do! That is what a real estate agent advised me to do last summer when he was explaining that the place in which to buy at that time was Buraymi: “They have a great nose for it . . . or information that others don't have access to!”Footnote 57
The opinion expressed by an Ibadi senior official summarizes the feeling of many Omanis:
Have you read the [2002] U.S. State Department report on Oman? They talk about discrimination towards Shiʿa here. It's not true! There are barely 5,000 [sic], and they control the whole economy. This so-called discrimination is a political weapon to put pressure on Oman.Footnote 58
As a consequence of this high socioeconomic visibility, the loyalty of the Lawatiyya to the Omani nation is frequently questioned by other groups. It is revealing to note that such accusations are never directed toward the ʿAjam, despite their Persian origin. In 1997 rumors proliferated because the regime remained silent about the arrests of Lawatiyya accused of transmitting documents to Iran. The Lawatiyya were collectively depicted in public opinion as a “fifth column” working for Teheran, as (it was implied) they had done for the British until the mid-20th century. Although the regular series of arrests since the beginning of the 1980s cannot hide the historical weakness of Shiʿi Islamism in Oman, these skirmishes have given the regime an excuse to justify the general tightening of the system; any individual developing independent ideas is disqualified and categorically accused of breaching “national security.”Footnote 59 In addition, such arrests reinforce popular attitudes and are an effective way of playing on many Ibadi and Sunni Omanis’ distrust of the Lawatiyya. The latter must then devise social and political strategies aimed at calming suspicions about their loyalty and even overplay their assurances of belonging fully to the Omani nation.
The Lawatiyya in Quest of Omaniness
It is notable that a discourse of victimization, suggesting the notion of a minority experiencing oppression or discrimination, remains rare among the Lawatiyya in Oman. Yet some Lawatiyya report feelings of being regarded as intrinsically disloyal to the Omani nation or complain about what they view as discriminatory attitudes against them in appointments to “visible” political positions.Footnote 60 According to them, the regime's drive to balance the number of positions of responsibility among all sociopolitical groups has taken priority over a disinterested and merit-based human-resources management system that would favor the more skilled and educated Lawatiyya. An ironic statement by a thirty-year old Lawati is a much franker illustration of the prevalent state of mind within the community:
It never was or will be our goal to take political power in Oman. Anyway, we have it already . . . It is often said that money makes power. In Oman, we have the money; therefore we are the ones who hold the power . . . Footnote 61
In order to overcome political suspicions, they emphasise their historical loyalty to the sultan and the nation. As a Lawati imam explained:
The Shiʿa have been close to the Omani rulers. They have traditionally defended the sultan's interests against attacks from other tribes . . . According to historians, Shiʿi districts are close to the forts in many towns, which means that they have their roots here.Footnote 62
In the current context, excessive displays of loyalty are no longer appropriate and indeed are perceived as counterproductive because they revive jealousy and frustration. Like Baluchi-native or “back-from-Africa” Omanis, the Lawatiyya face the challenge of a collective identity imposed by the other groups, so that they are compelled to work on their own history and memory.Footnote 63 It is not uncommon to hear the term “Indian Shiʿa” used to describe the Lawatiyya as opposed to “Arab Shiʿa”—the Baharina. A Bahrani businessman noted:
There are two groups of Shiʿa in Oman: Shiʿa of Muscat and Shiʿa of Muttrah. Shiʿa of Muscat are Arab Shiʿa; they are called “Baharina.” Shiʿa of Muttrah are of Indian origin; you can see from their faces that they do not look like Arabs.Footnote 64
To avoid having the norms of other ethno-linguistic groups imposed on their own identity, the Lawatiyya have felt forced to build a genealogy that connects them to the Arabian peninsula and establishes their Arab origin. The wider context of competitive bidding over claims of “Omaniness” in the country and demonstrations of loyalty to the ruler obliges them—perhaps more than other groups because of society's perception of them as a close-knit and influential community—to demonstrate their assimilation into the post-1970 nation and their fidelity to the values defined by the regime. According to an Omani historian, “the Lawatiyya want to be recognized as an old Arab tribe like the others.”Footnote 65
This article is not intended as a response to the debate on the ethnic origins of the Lawatiyya. More important is the means employed to justify their belonging to the Omani nation and to lessen suspicions toward them. The rereadingFootnote 66 by some Lawatiyya scholars of their own history highlights this strategy. One such historical appraisal claims descent from al-Hakam al-Lat, who participated in the first Arab campaigns in the Indian subcontinent and subsequently became governor of Sind province.Footnote 67 However, the more widely held historical narratives consider the Lawatiyya to be related to the Bani Sama bin Luʾay, an Arab tribe from Hijaz. According to Lawati author Jawad al-Khaburi,Footnote 68 the ahl lawātiyya settled in Oman during the pre-Islamic migrations. Later, around 635 (15 a.h.), along with other peoples from Oman, they participated in the Muslim army's conquests in the Indian subcontinent before settling in the Sind and Punjab provinces and adopting a local language close to Gujarati and Sindi. Part of the group then converted to Ismaʿili Shiʿi Islam, which contributed to their political marginalization; they were thus obliged to concentrate on economic and commercial activities.Footnote 69 An alternative interpretation among the Lawatiyya even connects the Bani Sama with Kharijites who fled to Oman and were later expelled to India.Footnote 70 In all these accounts, the return to the Arabian peninsula is said to have happened in the 17th or 18th century.
Such historical interpretations attach great importance to the Arab-Muslim origins of the Lawatiyya. By a historiographic shift of the major argument underlying their stigmatization in contemporary Oman, their ancient presence in the Indian subcontinent finds its justification in their pure Arab genealogy and their early devotion to the spread of Islam. The Lawatiyya also point out their Arab origins to distinguish them from the Khojas, whom they regard as Hindus converted to Islam. These conceptual reinterpretations of their own history by Lawati historians are clearly intended to tally with the requirements of the contemporary official historiography, in which Arabness and Islamic observance are identified as key elements of the identity of the post-1970 sultanate.
CONCLUSION
The “Kuwaiti model” devised by Laurence Louër to analyse the Shiʿa in the Gulf is certainly relevant to understanding the situation of the Shiʿa of Oman.Footnote 71 Despite the absence of a shared background and origins, all Shiʿi groups in Oman have been invaluable allies of the rulers throughout the 20th century and have vested interests in maintaining the existing political order. Since 1970, the ʿAjam, with their involvement in Qaboos's security forces, and the Lawatiyya and Baharina, with their prominent role in the economy, have been strategically significant for the ruler.
This mutual interest in continuing a special relationship between the regime and the Shiʿa explains not only why they have been granted ample religious autonomy under Qaboos but also why they have generally adopted a low profile rather than displaying any Shiʿi “cultural authenticity.”Footnote 72 They have never questioned the validity of the nation as the political reference point or organized themselves on a wider scale for collective political action under the current ruler. Moreover, the absence of any long-established community of scholars integrated into religious transnational networks, and the continuing predominance of merchant families as leaders of the Shiʿi communities, especially among the Lawatiyya, explains why the insertion of the Omani Shiʿa into cross-border networks (other than family ones) is weak compared with their co-religionists in Bahrain or Saudi Arabia and why transnational issues have also failed to shape the political agenda of the Omani Shiʿa on the national level.
In this context, the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the new Shiʿi experiences in Iraq and Saudi Arabia after years of repression did not produce any religious revival or evolve into a new polarization of identity and intercommunity relations in Oman. Instead, the significant reference point was the mid-1990s, when socioeconomic conditions in the sultanate began to deteriorate. As the opportunities for wealth previously offered by the state have been scaled down, groups have sought to consolidate their own places within the Omani nation. The central purpose of their strategies has been to strengthen their positions of power within the state apparatus and then to benefit from the symbolic and material dividends (posts, favors, public contracts) to which these positions entitle them. The Lawatiyya, because of their political and economic weight and their high degree of visibility within the society, are the most likely to find themselves the source of the other groups’ prejudices and jealousies. Their religious beliefs may have caused the voicing of doubts about their full loyalty to Oman and the raising of suspicions, especially over their presumed sympathy toward Iran or the political claims of Shiʿi communities abroad. Even so, the sectarian issue is not at the heart of the tensions, as evidenced by the fact that the ʿAjam, whose social and economic visibility is low, remain unconcerned by these debates and have felt no need to reevaluate their own history.
In this context, the Lawatiyya have constantly proclaimed their wish to be recognized as fully Omani by the other groups and to receive the same legitimacy as the Ibadis in appropriating the country's historical legacy and taking positions of responsibility in serving the sultan and the state. As an example, most Lawatiyya are proud to have been the only group to offer unfettered support for Sultan Qaboos's policy of logistical assistance to the allied forces in 2003 and to have displayed full loyalty to the ruler, thereby confirming, a fortiori, their enduring sense of belonging to Oman, as conceived by the ruler since 1970.
