A few fotes

I thought you might like a couple of photos. I have not been out and about to take any yet, but nothing a bit of google images can't fix.

This is the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque. I drive past it on the way to work. According to my driver, Nasser, it is only 3 years old.


This is a view of Old Muscat. According to http://www.freewebs.com/alsalmi/capitalofoman.htm this is the History of Muscat...

"Muscat's recorded history goes back to the fist century A.D. when it was almost certainly the 'concealed harbour' mentioned by the Greek geographer Ptolemy. In the early Islamic times, Muscat was minor port by comparison with Sohar, but it was of growing importance by the 9th century A.D. Ships sailing from the Gulf to India called at Muscat to draw their last supplies of water for the voyage. During the 14th and 15th centuries A.D. Muscat increased considerably in importance. The famous Arab sailor Ahmed bin Majid sailed from Muscat and has left description of its trade in 1490 A.D.:" Muscat is a port, the like of which cannot be found in the whole world, where there are businesses and good things which cannot be found elsewhere. Muscat is the port of Oman where year by year the ships load up with fruit and horses and they sell in it cloth, vegetable oils and grain and all ships aim for it. It is a cape between who different routes, safe in every wind and possesses fresh water and a hospitable and sociable people who love strangers." Muscat reached its greatest prosperity under the first ruler of Al Bu Said dynasty. Imam Ahmad bin Said, the founder of the dynasty, ruled from Rostaq (60 kms south of Muscat). Under his peaceful and progressive rule Muscat flourished as never before. Under Imam Ahmad's son, Muscat became the capital of Oman. Through the eyes of a visitor C.E Parsons visited Muscat in 1776 A.D. The town was then the emporium of the Western Indian Ocean, and so effective was the rule of law that theft from the valuable cargoes that flowed through the city was unknown. Parsons wrote: "Muscat is a place of very great trade, being possessed of a large number of ships which trade to Surat, Bombay, Goa, along the whole coast of Malabar, and to Mocha Jedda in the Red Sea. It is the great deposit for the goods which they bring from those part: it is resorted to by vessels from every port in Persia, from Basra and all the parts of Arabia within the gulf and from the coast of Qaramaniah without the gulf as far as the Indus River, and many places adjacent to that river."