Sultan Qaboos bin Said al-Said, modern-day Oman’s founding father and the longest-serving Gulf monarch, has died, state media said.
Sultan Qaboos, who ruled Oman for more than four decades, is credited with transforming the country from a backward, divided and unstable state on the tip of the Arabian peninsula into a relatively modern and prosperous oil-driven economy.
An absolute monarch who stressed stability at home and neutrality abroad, his passing leaves a cloud of uncertainty over the political direction of the country, one of six in the Gulf Cooperation Council. The bachelor sultan had no children and he hadn’t publicly named an heir.
Located by the strategic Strait of Hormuz waterway, Oman has been vulnerable to escalating regional tensions, particularly after President Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran.
Under Sultan Qaboos, Oman navigated that tension by remaining neutral, avoiding some of the more confrontational stances of its partners in the Gulf Cooperation Council and upholding relations with both Iran and the Assad government in Syria.
Oman didn’t join the Saudi and Emirati coalition fighting Iran-backed Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen, instead serving as a mediator for secret talks between the two sides in 2018. It also served as the venue for secret talks between Iran and the U.S. in 2013 that led to the 2015 nuclear accord.
“People saw talks with Iran as an attempt to have peace and stability in the region,” one Omani academic said.
Tehran and Washington used Sultan Qaboos to relay messages following the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.
“The question is to what extent is Omani foreign policy Qaboos?” said Michael Stephens, Research Fellow for Middle East Studies at the London-based Royal United Services Institute. “One of the things people want to know is whether they [Oman] would continue a policy of nonalignment.”
At home, the sultan moved swiftly to quash the beginnings of the 2011 Arab Spring in Oman by quickly responding to protests with socioeconomic measures. He fired government ministers, raised the minimum wage and created 50,000 new jobs.
Unlike some of his counterparts, he didn’t face sectarian conflicts or battles with Islamist extremists. In Oman, a country of about four million, Sunni and Shia Muslims live alongside others from Islam’s Ibadi sect, to which the sultan’s al Bu Saidi dynasty adheres.
Ibadism is perceived as a more moderate and secular form of Islam due to a history of being a minority, academics say.
In an October 2011 speech, Sultan Qaboos spoke of stability, security and ensuring the younger generation did not fall into “the abyss of intruding ideas that call for violence, extremism, hatred, fanaticism, being opinionated and non-acceptance of the others.”
That unrest was the most significant domestic challenge Oman faced since 1970, when Sultan Qaboos wrested power from his father, Sultan Said bin Taimur, in a coup backed by the U.K.
Sultan Qaboos, who was 29 at the time, had trained as an officer in the U.K. at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, the choice of many Gulf royals for education. He had been placed under house arrest by his father, who was afraid of plots against him.
Oman, though producing oil, was ill-governed and had few roads, schools or hospitals. Sultan Qaboos set about unifying fractious tribes and communities from the mountainous interior, the coastal areas and Dhofar.
“Sultan Qaboos inherited a territory without a state and without a nation,” said Marc Valeri, senior lecturer and director of the Centre for Gulf Studies at the University of Exeter.
The most important achievement, he said, was imposing “an Omani nation as a collective framework of belonging.”
In 1985, he founded the region’s first symphony orchestra. In 2011, he opened a beautiful opera house, another first.
In 2010, the United Nations Human Development Report noted that Oman had developed more in 40 years than any other country.
Yet speech and press freedoms are still largely nonexistent. There are no political parties and civil society is limited, although Sultan Qaboos had talked of increasing the powers of the elected, consultative Majlis al-Shura council.
Under Omani law, the royal family is to deliberate on a new ruler for three days, and if no consensus is reached, they must open a sealed letter from Sultan Qaboos that recommends his choice.
The three sons of the sultan’s uncle have been talked about as potential successors: Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is culture minister; Shihab was an adviser to the sultan; and Assad a personal representative. The latter’s son Taimur bin Assad has also been mentioned.
The succession question has generated unease for a while; the sultan was hospitalized in Germany from July 2014 to March 2015 for an undisclosed illness.
The economy is also under strain from the increased public spending in recent years. Youth unemployment is high.
But the sultan retained popular support. Akhtar bin Rasul al-Balooshi, 49, a trader in Muscat’s Muttrah souq, said he was like a father to the nation.
“Before sultan, there was nothing,” he said. “Now we have a country.”
—Nicolas Parasie contributed to this article.
Write to Rory Jones at rory.jones@wsj.com and Isabel Coles at isabel.coles@wsj.com
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