The emergence and consolidation of the Omani state after 1970 can be explained by exploring basic concepts that define the country, nation, state, and government. This approach provides insights into the initial development of the post-1970 Sultanate under Sultan Qaboos. The first few years of the 1970s were pivotal, formative, and transitional. This was the time when Oman changed from being an undefined nation searching for a serviceable state to a new capable state elaborating a cohesive national identity. The new Sultan, Qaboos bin Said, was at the heart of this transformation, stepping into the new experience and role as ruler of a country still divided and fragmented.

The Contemporary Omani Nation

At the root of modern Omani identity lies the concept of the nation, one shared by Omanis from diverse backgrounds. Concepts such as “national origin,” “nationality,” and “nation-state,” were new to the Gulf States and Oman, emerging around the beginning of the oil era in the mid-twentieth century. Their impetus can be termed “legal” rather than “ideological” or “emotional,” in that the emergence of these ideas was the consequence of two roughly simultaneous impulses: the consolidation of a primary political role by certain tribes and sheikhly families and the impact of the British. While citizenship or nationality confers Omani legal identity, the sense of who is an Omani and who is not extends well beyond formal citizenship.

There has long existed in Oman a common identity that, although blending into ties beyond the Oman of today, created a sense of being Omani or non-Omani. Over the course of the twentieth century and especially after 1970, this commonality gradually intensified into a fuller feeling of nationalism, of a distinct Omani identity tied to the Sultanate with the Sultan as its symbol. The term “nationalism” has often acquired a rather pejorative connotation, particularly due to its association with the more specific concept of integral nationalism, where individual rights of the citizens are subordinated to the needs of the state, as in the fascist regimes of the twentieth century. The use of the term here, in contrast, relies on the concept of liberal nationalism, whereby a group or groups of people assume a shared identity on the basis of common history, ethnicity, religion, culture, or other self-perceived unity to form a “nation” that ideally is expressed politically within a nation-state.