Defence of Muscat

During the night of 10–11 January 1915 some 3,000 warriors from the tribes of the Omani interior attacked Muscat, the capital of the sultanate at the south-eastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. They were led by the leaders of the revived imamate, which had been fighting the Sultan for two years. The town was defended by an Indian Army garrison deployed around the fort of Bait al-Falaj. After a night of fighting and a counter-attack in the morning, the attackers were driven off with heavy losses.

Imam against Sultan

The Sultanate of Muscat and Oman had long been under strong British influence. The Sultan ruled the coast, but the tribes of the mountainous interior, who followed Ibadism, found his rule increasingly hard to bear. They were irritated by the ban on the slave trade, and even more by the arms warehouse set up in Muscat under British pressure in 1912, which curbed the profitable arms trade. On top of this came the country’s economic decline and the ambitions of the two most important sheikhs of the interior, Himyar bin Nasir al-Nabhani and Isa bin Salih al-Harthi.

In May 1913 an assembly of sheikhs elected Salim bin Rashid al-Kharusi as imam. The imam’s forces quickly took Nizwa and then further towns and forts. Sultan Faisal bin Turki asked the British for help. In July 1913 a detachment of Indian infantry arrived in Muscat, followed later by others. The soldiers were stationed in the fort of Bait al-Falaj, in the valley between the port of Mutrah and the village of Ruwi, through which the road into the interior ran. On the crests of the surrounding hills they built a chain of stone picquets. In the autumn of 1913 Faisal died, and power passed to his son Taimur.

The night attack

For a year and a half the expected attack on the capital did not come. At the end of 1914, however, the British received reports that the imam was gathering his forces, and the Ottoman Empire’s entry into the war and the proclamation of jihad had won him supporters. Rumours circulated among the tribes that Germany was winning the war and that the Kaiser had converted to Islam. The British suspected that German agents were stirring up the tribes.

At the beginning of January 1915 the forces of the imam and of Isa bin Salih joined up and advanced on Muscat. It was defended by a garrison of the Indian Army of about 750 soldiers, reinforced at the end of 1914. It consisted of the 102nd King Edward’s Own Grenadiers under Colonel S. M. Edwardes, who commanded the whole defence, and six companies of the 95th Russell’s Infantry under Major F. F. Major. A small detachment of the Sultan’s Arab mercenaries, which was to cover the village of Dar Sait, fled at the first shots.

The attack came in darkness, at about 2 a.m. during the night of 10–11 January. The attackers fired on the line of picquets, most heavily on the grenadiers’ right flank. After two hours of fighting one of the picquets was taken. At 6.30 a.m. a detachment under Major A. C. Edwardes with two machine guns went over to the counter-attack. A frontal assault and an outflanking movement drove the enemy from hill to hill, and the infantry of the 95th coming up from Ruwi hastened his retreat. Despite their numerical superiority and the difficult terrain, the imam’s warriors had to withdraw.

Aftermath

According to British figures the garrison lost 7 killed and 15 wounded. The attackers’ losses were estimated at about 350 men, including 186 killed. Isa bin Salih himself was wounded and his brother was killed. The delighted Sultan wanted to set off in pursuit and recover the lost forts, but the British Political Agent talked him out of it. In February 1915 the Viceroy of India, Lord Hardinge, visited Muscat and warned Taimur that he could not rely on British soldiers indefinitely and should come to terms with the imam.

The imamate never again attacked the capital, but the conflict dragged on throughout the war, and the Indian garrison remained at Bait al-Falaj. The dispute was ended only by the Treaty of Seeb, concluded in September 1920. The interior of Oman retained broad autonomy under the imams, while the Sultan ruled the coast.