author - oman observer

Inside the Royal Opera House Muscat, a person stands beside a light switch. He presses it and a lamp comes on. It is an utterly ordinary act. Yet ask who turned on the light and the answer opens onto...

Suppose a ruler woke up one morning determined to change his people's religion. Could he do it? The question sounds absurd. Faith is not a garment discarded with a ruler's robes, nor an...

The past is not history, though history is about the past. The past is everything that happened and is now beyond our reach. History is what we construct from the traces left behind: documents,...

A real plot can be exposed. A conspiratorial mind makes itself impossible to refute. Conspiracies exist. Governments deceive, states collude, companies conceal and factions plot. The error begins when...

One of the defining features of contemporary Arab public discourse is not a shortage of information but a shortage of judgment. We have become remarkably adept at producing answers before asking...