Oman’s Rite of Spring: Sultan Kaboos Takes His Court Into Desert to Meet Subjects

MUSCAT, Oman â€”  Every spring, Sultan Kaboos ibn Said, “the Great and the Blessed,â€� takes his royal court out into the desert and mountains of his Persian Gulf country for a meet-the-people tour.

Driving a racing-green Mercedes jeep with a cavalcade of cabinet ministers and courtiers in tow, the 47-year-old sultan journeys for nearly a month, calling on villages and remote tribal communities by day, pitching his tent at night.

He has to complete his trek before the harsh, burning sands of the Omani summer make desert traveling a nightmare. Even the hardiest of sovereigns feels the heat when the temperature soars to a pulverizing 130 degrees.

The bearded sultan sets off from his palace in the lush palm groves of the Seeb oasis to travel around his land, the second-largest country in the Arabian Peninsula.

The palace chefs go along too, dishing up meals on wheels of roast goat and rice for the sultan and his 100-strong retinue.

The seat of government always moves with him. Visiting dignitaries who want to see the British-educated ruler have to head out into the desert to wherever the royal camp happens to be.

Each morning of his tour, the sultan wakes at sunrise and takes a stroll alone before breakfast. He rarely goes to bed before midnight, eschewing the luxuries of modern living except for a torch by his camp bed.

Men beat their drums and dance impromptu jigs when they see him coming. Small girls shower pink bougainvillea petals onto the hood of his jeep. They talk of him by his given name, Kaboos.

Bedouin tribesmen salute the royal convoy when it trundles past their encampments. The sultan waves back, stopping now and then to ask them where their nearest doctor is and where they find forage for their camels.

When the sultan calls a halt, aides unroll an outsized wicker mat for him to kneel on, camel stick in hand, as the crowds gather and the royal petitions begin.

One man wants a job. Another needs money to build a house. One needs help to repair his well.

But the majority of royal petitions concern roads, electricity and telephones, the bricks and mortar of the modern state the sultan is striving to build with Oman’s oil wealth.

Kaboos, considered one of the most shrewd leaders in the Arab world, came to power in 1970 when he deposed his father, Sultan Said ibn Taimur, in a bloodless coup.

His father had ruled since 1932 and kept Oman locked in a medieval time warp to keep his people safe from what he considered the dangers of the modern world.

He forbade his subjects to own radios, foreign books, even spectacles. And he refused to build roads or schools. Until Kaboos took over, there wasn’t even a paved road in the country.

In the last 18 years, Kaboos, a graduate of Britain’s Sandhurst Military Academy, has pulled his long-isolated country into the 20th Century with an ambitious development program.

The sultan, who is involved in most areas of government, aims to build up an economy that will function even when the oil runs out, as it is expected to do in 30 years.

Strangers would find it difficult to spot Kaboos in a crowd. Like everyone around him, from barefoot toddlers to tribal sheiks, he wears the uniform of male Oman, a loosely tied turban and a dishdasha, an ankle-length white robe.

The Khanjar, a curved Omani dagger worn on his waist, and the pistol in his belt are de rigueur, like the ministerial rifles.

People who have traveled with him say he has a keen grasp of the administrative machinery of local government. It’s a subject he studied for two years in England before, at age 29, he seized the throne.