FROM INVASION TO DEFEATManifestations of the Portuguese occupation in Omani poetry

Poetry accompanied Oman throughout its long historical journey. Omani poets documented major events and preserved many of the defining moments that shaped the country across different eras.
Omani cultural memory contains a substantial body of what may be described as ‘war poetry’ — verse recording battles, conflicts and struggles, whether internal wars or confrontations against foreign invaders.
Prof Issa bin Mohammed al Sulaimani writes in ‘War Poetry: A Reading of Omani Poetry during the Ya‘areba State’: “This kind of poetry deserves careful attention because it touches upon history, society, psychology, culture and identity. It is ultimately a human experience born of suffering and engagement with events, especially when connected to the fate and dignity of homeland and people”.
One of the gravest catastrophes in Omani history was the Portuguese occupation, which controlled Oman’s coastal regions for 147 years. Omanis endured severe oppression and violence, much of it documented even in Portuguese memoirs and official records.
Yet despite the scale of this event, traditional Omani historical sources contain surprisingly little reference to the occupation. Only in modern times did researchers begin reconstructing this neglected chapter. Scholars have offered several explanations for this silence, particularly since poetry formed part of the broader literary and intellectual production of both the late Nabahna period and the rise of the Ya’areba State.
Dr Abdullah bin Nasser al Harthy explains in Oman in the Era of Bani Nabhan that Nabahna rulers brought poets close to their courts and rewarded them generously in return for praise poetry, making the period a golden age for poets and panegyrics.
At the same time, many Omani historians focused primarily on scholars and imams rather than political history. Since many of them were jurists loyal to the imamate, they often neglected Nabahna rulers, whom they regarded as tyrants undeserving of preservation in historical memory.
Dr Saida bint Khatir al Farsi adds in The Golden Age of Omani Poetry: The Nabahna State that invasions, political turmoil and the destruction of books also contributed to the disappearance of much Nabahna history. Researcher Nasr al Busaidy further suggests that there may even have existed a tendency to erase Portuguese colonialism from collective memory altogether.
Another explanation may be added. Arabic literary culture has often preferred to immortalise victories while overlooking moments of defeat and humiliation. As a result, historical narratives sometimes reached later generations incomplete and shaped by omission.
The Nabahna Era
Despite the loss of many historical records, the Nabahna period produced important intellectual and scientific achievements. Distinguished scholarly families emerged, including the Al Midad and Al Mufarraj families, while Unesco later recognised two Omani figures from the era among globally influential personalities: the navigator Ahmad bin Majid and the physician-poet Rashid bin Umairah.
Major poets also flourished during this period, including Al Sattali, Al Lawah al Kharousi, Al Kidawi and the poet-sultan Suleiman bin Suleiman bin Muzaffar al Nabhani.
Although Ahmad bin Majid was not a poet in the conventional sense, he composed navigational knowledge in verse form. The earliest Omani poetic reference to the Portuguese appears in his famous poem Al Sufaliyya, included in Three Treatises on the Knowledge of the Seas. Referring to the Portuguese as ‘the Franks’, he writes:
They came to Calicut in ominous days,
In nine-oh-six through storm and ocean haze.
They traded first, then seized the reins of might,
With bribes and tyranny they spread their blight.
Foes of Islam, they stirred up fear and dread,
Till grief and terror through the people spread.
He told of what the Frankish forces wrought
Along the coasts where darkened waters fought;
They conquered all the distant Maghreb shore,
And brought Andalusia beneath their yoke once more.
Dr G R Tibbetts notes that Ibn Majid witnessed the Portuguese destruction of Arab sultanates in East Africa and their expansion into India and Indonesia.
Yet beyond Ibn Majid’s writings, Portuguese occupation is almost absent from Nabahna poetry, despite the fact that major poets such as Al Lawah and Al Kidawi lived during the occupation itself. Their poetry focused largely on rulers, personal concerns and internal conflicts. Dr Mohammed bin Said al Hajri comments on a poem by Sultan Suleiman al Nabhani:
How many famed and fearsome fields I’ve known,
Where bravest men would falter and postpone;
No host has marched against my battle line,
Except I broke its force by grand design.
Al Hajri observes that such poetry exaggerated tribal rivalries while remaining silent about the Portuguese presence.
Dr Hilal al Hajri similarly remarks in The Portuguese Occupation in Omani Literature: The Image of National Identity and Resistance that major poetic collections from the period overflowed with praise poetry while ignoring Portuguese violence in Oman’s coastal cities.
The Ya’areba Era
Poetry during the Ya’areba State underwent a striking transformation towards documenting battles, victories and military campaigns. Although it may not have reached the artistic sophistication of the Nabahna period, the era produced many important poets, including Ibn Qaisar, Al Habsi, Khalaf bin Sinan, Al Ma’wali, Al Ghashri and Al Fazari.
Prof Issa al Sulaimani notes that poets of this period reflected war through vivid poetic imagery shaped by direct participation, observation or oral transmission. Dr Mohammed al Hajri likewise describes the Ya’areba age as a flourishing era of war poetry, fuelled by campaigns to unify Oman and resist Portuguese control of the coast.
Most poets, however, did not dedicate independent poems solely to anti-Portuguese resistance. References to these struggles appeared mainly within panegyrics praising the imams and celebrating their victories. Nevertheless, these texts preserve valuable details about armies, battles, liberated cities and military campaigns against the Portuguese, referred to as ‘the Franks’, ‘the Christians’ and sometimes ‘Banu Al Asfar’.
These poems possess particular authenticity because their authors lived through the events themselves. Some were closely attached to the imams, while others held positions as governors, judges or military leaders.
One of the earliest historical works from the Ya’areba State is The Biography of Imam Nasser bin Murshid by Abdullah bin Khalfan Ibn Qaisar al Suhari. The work combines prose narration with poetry. Among the victories it records are Imam Nasser bin Murshid’s triumphs in Suhar, Sur, Muscat and Dibba:
In Dibba’s land fierce battles rose and burned,
Till even hardened warriors shook and turned;
There many heads were felled upon the plain,
And faithless foes were buried with the slain.
The banner of Islam stood high in might,
Triumphant over Christian foes in fight.
Among the most celebrated poets of the Ya’areba State was Rashid al Habsi, widely regarded as the state poet of the dynasty. He composed numerous poems praising the Ya’areba imams and documenting their victories over the Portuguese. Describing Imam Sultan bin Saif’s liberation of Bahrain, he writes:
A blessed night the flashing sabres blazed,
Till darkness seemed like noonlight brightly raised;
The warriors surged like crimson storming skies,
Through dust and fire where war’s wild thunder cries.
The battle raged until their ranks gave way,
In shame and panic driven to dismay.
Another major poetic source from the period is Khalaf bin Sinan al Ghafiri, who witnessed the reigns of several Ya'areba imams. Praising Imam Sultan bin Saif’s conquests, he writes:
Victory, glory, triumph crowned your name,
While foes were left to taste defeat and shame;
Glad tidings came with conquest vast and grand,
The like of which was rare in any land.
The poet Bashir bin Amer al Fazari also played an important role in documenting the era. Praising Sultan bin Saif and his campaigns against the Portuguese, he writes:
Victory from God was granted to His knight,
Saif bin Sultan, noble in men’s sight;
O Franks, how many fortresses you raised,
Yet all were stormed where flashing sabres blazed.
The Imam charged against you, fierce and bold,
And seized those towers before your watching hold.
Historical sources also preserve a remarkable poem by the poet, jurist and governor Mohammed bin Mas’ud al Sarmi, who embodied the image of the warrior-poet. The Omani Encyclopaedia records that he led an Omani army from India to Pate in East Africa to fight the Portuguese.
His celebrated poem traces the campaign from departure to victory almost like a military chronicle in verse. It opens with scenes of farewell:
Their radiant faces shimmered like the dawn
As laden camels readied to be gone;
They swayed towards me with tender words of blame,
Their smiles like springtime blossoms white as flame.
The poem later records the defeat of the Portuguese:
The Franks from Pate were driven in defeat,
Brought low by shame and ruin complete.
Anyone examining Omani poetry from the Nabahna and Ya’areba periods can clearly see the contrast between them. Nabahna poetry largely ignored the Portuguese invasion despite the literary sophistication of the era, whereas Ya’areba poetry overflowed with accounts of resistance, liberation and military victory. It documented the struggles of coastal cities defending their freedom while celebrating the leaders who unified the country and rallied its people against the invaders.

Hassan al Matrooshi The writer is an Omani poet and writer

Translated by Badr al Dhafri
This is an adapted translation of the original article published in the print edition of the cultural supplement of the Oman Arabic newspaper on April 30.