Sultan Qaboos

Sultan Qaboos ibn Said al Said ruled from July 23, 1970, until his death on January 10, 2020, in Oman. His successor is his cousin Haitham ibn Tariq. As an absolute ruler, the Sultan is the chairman of a cabinet, holding the most important positions himself in this cabinet and appointing other ministers according to his will. There are no free elections for the people, no parliament with political or personnel powers, or other democratic institutions in Oman. The Sultan unites the executive, judicial, and legislative branches in himself. Qaboos held absolute power in his sultanate, which is comparable in size to Germany and possesses a significant share of the world's oil reserves. Qaboos ibn Said al Said ruled for a total of five decades and transformed Oman into a very progressive state in the Arab world.

Before his term

Born on November 18, 1940, Qaboos grew up in the south of Oman. At 16, he was sent to England to attend a private school, which later reflected in his modern thinking regarding Oman. It was there that he first came into contact with the Western world. He took as much information, knowledge, and experience as possible. By then, Qaboos was already anchored in the consciousness of the cultural and historical responsibility he bore as the eighth descendant of the Al-Bu-Said dynasty, founded in 1744 by Imam Ahmed ibn Said. His ancestor was the one who ended the long and bloody civil war that had prevailed in the country up to that point and united Oman. Qaboos served as a cadet of the military academy in the British Army at Sandhurst, studied administration, and took a three-month journey around the world. Even at that time, Qaboos was very open-minded and became Sultan of Oman in 1970.

Qaboos' goals

Even in his inaugural speech, the then 30-year-old Sultan promised his people to lead them economically, culturally, and in the field of education into a new era. He succeeded in this. A functioning education system , a moderate interpretation of Islam, and a functioning government under the absolute leadership of the Sultan, as well as a flourishing economy and a people blessed with a certain wealth who know how to preserve the traditions of their ancestors without falling into extremism, are today the results of his decades of work.