Ya'rubids

The Ya'rubids (also Yaruba or Ya'ariba) were a dynasty of Ibadi imams who ruled Oman from 1624 to 1742. They united the country, drove the Portuguese out of Muscat and other coastal forts, and turned Oman into a sea power whose fleets took Mombasa and laid the foundations of Omani Zanzibar. A succession dispute from 1718 led to civil war and Persian invasions, and the dynasty lost power to the Al Bu Said.

Oman was long divided between a dry, thinly peopled interior, where tribes often fought one another, and a busier coast linked by trade to Mesopotamia and Persia. The interior tribes followed the Ibadi branch of Islam, distinct from both Sunni and Shia, and were traditionally led by imams who held religious and political authority. From 1154 the Nabhani kings had reduced the imamate to a largely symbolic role. In 1507 the Portuguese seized Muscat and gradually took control of the coast from Sohar to Sur, strongholds of the Portuguese Empire.

The family claimed descent from the legendary Ya'rub bin Qahtan, traced its roots to Yemen and belonged to the Ghafiri faction. In 1624 Nasir bin Murshid was elected imam. He moved the capital to Nizwa, the old Ibadi seat, rallied the tribes around the goal of expelling the Portuguese, built up an army, and took the main inland towns and the forts of Rustaq and Nakhal. His troops drove the Portuguese from Julfar (now Ras al-Khaimah) in 1633, and took Sohar in 1643.

His cousin Sultan bin Saif (reigned 1649–1688) finished the task, capturing Sur, Qurayyat and Muscat, enlarging the fleet and raiding Portuguese positions on the coast of Gujarat. An Omani attack on Mombasa in 1660 drove the Portuguese back into Fort Jesus. When Sultan bin Saif's son Bil'arab succeeded him, the imamate became in practice hereditary, departing from the Ibadi ideal of an elected imam. His brother Saif, his rival for most of the reign, followed him in 1692.

Saif bin Sultan (reigned 1692–1711) invested heavily at home, digging aflaj, the traditional water channels, across the interior, planting date palms on the Batinah coast, founding schools and making Rustaq castle his residence. Omani forces laid siege in 1696 to Fort Jesus at Mombasa, where some 2,500 people had taken refuge; after 33 months the thirteen survivors of hunger and smallpox surrendered, leaving Oman the leading power on the Swahili coast. Omani migrants began to settle Zanzibar in large numbers, Omani ships attacked Portuguese bases in western India, and Oman took Bahrain from Persia for several years. At his death in 1711 Saif was said to own 28 ships, 700 male slaves and a third of Oman's date palms.

After Sultan bin Saif II died in 1718, factions split over whether his young son Saif bin Sultan II or the older Muhanna bin Sultan should become imam, and rival imams rose and fell. From 1728 Saif bin Sultan II and his cousin Bal'arab bin Himyar each claimed the imamate. Losing ground, Saif asked Nader Shah of Persia for help; Persian troops landed in 1737 and ravaged the interior. Called in again in 1742, they took Muscat in 1743, and Saif died soon after. Ahmad bin Said al-Busaidi, governor of Sohar, held out against a nine-month siege, negotiated an honourable surrender, and was elected imam in 1744. After Nader Shah's death in 1747 he had the remaining Persian garrison killed at a banquet in Barka, and with Bal'arab's death in 1749 he became undisputed ruler. Ya'rubid holdouts survived locally until 1869, when their last fort, al-Hayam, fell.

The Ya'rubids ended Portuguese power in Oman and on much of the East African coast, and their forts, irrigation works and fleet laid the base for later Omani power under the Al Bu Said, including the Sultanate of Zanzibar.

Our maps label this territory "Oman" and draw the Ya'rubid state on the 1650, 1700 and 1715 maps. The later Al Bu Said state has its own page, Muscat and Oman.