HM confers Royal Orders on Omani figure
Muscat: His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tarik conferred Royal Orders on a number of Omani figures at al Barakah Palace on Thursday in recognition of their dedicated service and commitment to their professional duties. HM the Sultan conferred the Order of Honnour, First Class, on Sayyida Dr Ghalya bint Fahr al Said and Sayyida Dr Mona bint Fahd al Said, Assistant Vice-Chancellor for International Cooperation at Sultan Qaboos University. The Order of Al Rusoukh (Order of Establishment), Second...
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There we were, sitting side by side on the majlis, a plain bench-like sofa running along all four walls of a bright sitting room, the old-style window air-conditioners buzzing against the heat. (Pronounced maj-liz, not “my lease,” I learned it means “a place of sitting” in Arabic, a symbol of hospitality, designed for face-to-face conversations, not doomscrolling, Netflixing, or WhatsApping.) Before visiting my dear friend and former colleague at her family home in Barka, the coastal...
There are moments in a researcher’s life that quietly reshape the way history is understood. They arrive without ceremony, revealing themselves only through experience. One such moment came when I entered the Bristol Archives expecting to consult only a handful of documents relating to the history of the Sultanate of Oman. Several minutes later,...
Beyond the mountain views and empty houses, Oman’s old settlements invite us to consider the lives people built and why they eventually moved on. The first time I stepped into Harat Al Yemen, in Izki, I felt unnerved. Beyond each alley were more houses, doorways and traces of a once-busy community. How could a village of this size become...
