There Is No Bone In The Tongue
Talk is cheap
5th of Safar, 802 (AH)
7th of October, 1399 (Julian)
Royal Palace, Muscat
Khalfan ibn Saleh al-Dadi paused a moment, readjusting his dishdasha unconsciously as the thought of what was to come raced through his mind.
"If it was going to rain, we would have seen the clouds by now." His older compatriot spoke, the words were meant to calm the young man as the pair continued down the polished sunlit corridor of sandstone, one side open to the sea. Khalfan turned to him, his long black hair blowing slightly in the open breeze and his jaw clenched with worry and thought, "We've both heard what happened in Nizwa; even if the tales are exaggerated it does not bode well for the character of this Sultan. He cannot be our only option!"
"We have no other options." Tariq returned morosely, "What armies do we have? What men to lead them?" That last question served with a hard stare. "If Watban Sa'ud catches word of us approaching the Sultan, we may not even have a home to return to."
"But-"
"-But nothing, you fool. You already risk much, and neither I nor my daughter need you gallivanting around playing prince and having your head loped off. I spoke with Imam Yosef yesterday, and he assured us an ear with the Sultan and the assistance we seek. This meeting is a formality."
Khalfan kept his mouth shut, he knew when arguing would be pointless. The persecution of their people and religion, the heresy before God by Malik Watban Sa'ud al-Najd would not go unpunished, but it should be done by their people, not a foreigner. The two continued in uneasy silence until they reached their destination, the way blocked by two large and ornately carved wooden doors, the relief containing religious scripture and equestrian iconography.
Imam Tariq ibn Jad al-Ahsa proceeded onwards, pushing the doors open with a smile he didn't feel upon his face, the room they were entering was well lit and finely decorated to the point of opulence; a masterfully woven carpet sat upon the floor, and atop it was an exquisitely carved table and chairs in which sat the porcine Sultan Mazhum Nabhan and the Imam, Yosef.
Upon seeing the pair of travelers, the Sultan and Imam immediately rose, the customary greeting coming unbidden as they touched noses and shook hands with Khalfan and Tariq, "Peace be upon you".
"God's blessings be upon you." came the response as the four took their seats. Khalfan watched with piqued curiosity as Imam Yosef began pouring tea from an oddly glazed and painted pot. The Sultan took quick notice, and began speaking with no small sense of pride, "Ahh my boy, you like the pottery? My merchants sailed very far for very long to the east for this. The wonders and riches out there are incalculable, I value the set nearly as much as my prize horse."
Before Khalfan could speak, Tariq interrupted, "Indeed, have I heard of these eastern foreigners, and that the horses of Sultan Mazhum Nabhan are unmatchable in health and vigor, of such pure breeding that they can be traced to the very stables of Muhammad himself. Perhaps we could discuss purchasing some of them at a later date, however." The words brought a smile to the jowls upon Mazhum's face, "Delightful! Now let us get down to this other business of yours...."
---
It was long after sunset when Khalfan and Tariq had left the palace. Mazhum Nabhan stood at an open veranda, staring out at the moon and starlit sea, reflecting quietly on what had transpired. Yosef stood a scant few feet away.
The silence was broken as Yosef spoke, "Sultan, we have three thousand infantry with another thousand elite cavalry. Give me a year and I will raise four thousand more. We must strike now, decisively. Isma'il I Rasulid will not intervene in this conflict, the people of Aden have their own problems to contend with, and Malik Ahmad Hawashim has already declared his support. God is with us."
"That is not what troubles my thoughts, Yosef. I cannot keep my promise to Imam Tariq, or his son-in-law. I will not allow Liwa province to become an independent state right on my very border! The sheer audacity... They ask me, not to save their lives, but to give them a kingdom! When this war is over, and their part has been played, I must remove them before their tyranny spreads any further, for the good of my people. God wills it."
"God wills it." the Imam replied solemnly, bowing slightly before slipping back from the veranda, and leaving the Sultan to mull over the coming war.
A quick look at things in the beginning of 1399
The year of 1399 proved an interesting and auspicious one for the nation of Oman; Mazhum Nabhan the most moral of Sultans brought about swift changes just prior to his war with Najd, enforcing new reforms and centralizing additional power under the state through new political stations while confiscating and securing the resources of free men and minor nobles alike in the outer provinces. This of course, was of issue to those who lost power, prestige or holdings to the Sultan, and with a war all but officially declared, the Sultan was placed in a most precarious position as particularists led by Makhzum Nasser arose in the northern province of Qawasim, selfishly intending revocation from the Sultan and Omani people.
Oman's First Royal Army was quickly dispatched to deal with the rebellion while the Sultan personally oversaw the recruitment and training of another thousand elite cavalrymen in Muscat. By the end of November, Makhzum Nasser, grizzled though he was, had already been soundly defeated once, the stragglers of his army retreating as quickly as they could into the province of Suhar, where they maintained some tenuous support. The Omani army gave no respite and the particularists were fully defeated within the span of another month as their army was surrounded, trapped and massacred in the battle of al-Tarif.
By this time, the war against Najd was in full swing. The Malik of Hedjaz, Ahmad Hawashim, was already clashing with the armies of Najd in their bordering provinces and territories, putting up a serious fight despite being outnumbered. However, just before Oman's troops could begin the assault in earnest from the east, the Sultan's worst fear became realized. Yemen joined the war, in
assistance of his enemies. The Royal Army was quickly divided, with a token force continuing their assault against Najd's eastern provinces, while the bulk of the army moved south, linking up with another thousand recently trained cavalrymen in the province of Nizwa; prepared to move either northwest against Najd, or southwest against Yemen. Another thousand strong regiment of infantry moved southwards to occupy the Yeman province of Mahra, along the Sea of Oman.
The Arabian Peninsula as it erupts into violence and bloodshed,
By the beginning of the following year, the situation on the Arabian peninsula had quickly spiraled into total war. Malik Ahmad Hawashim of Hedjaz had soundly defeated Malik Watban Sa'ud of Najd's armies in the field, but had been unable to decisively annihilate them, leaving the stragglers free to re-orient and re-group. Meanwhile an estimated four-thousand strong Yemen army was spotted moving northwards from Najran province into Hedjaz's territory along the Red Sea coastline. The situation was dire for the Oman-Hedjaz alliance. Realizing the likely cost of the war, and with the urging of Imam Yosef, the Sultan of Oman began excessive minting to pay for the new soldiers and armies he would soon be in desperate need of.
Imam Yosef saw immediately the need of Oman's armies to take the field in one direction or another, and in his great wisdom and insight, convinced the Sultan Mahzum Nabhan of Oman to finally commit to the war fully. Pressing the attack north and taking the opposing garrisons by surprise, the Oman Royal Army quickly occupied all of Malik Ahmad's provinces along the Persian gulf, and sent the Malik's demoralized armies reeling into the interior to lick their wounds. However, while the land battles were a resounding success for Oman, the naval battle was another matter entirely. In support of the royal army in the gulf, the Oman fleet (Some might find it hard to call it a fleet, as it consisted of a single Carrack, the
Masirah and militarized merchantman, the
Tux at Masirah) was trapped and engaged by the slightly larger Yemen fleet.
As the two navies pirouted, engaged, disengaged and generally made hell for each other in the gulf, Malik Ahmad of Hedjaz made a surprising counter-attack against the Yemen forces to his south, having quickly conscripted several thousand additional soldiers into his army, they nearly equaled the Yemen force in strength. Though they had fought hard battles in the east, the people of Hedjaz were not going to prove mere pushovers to their southern neighbours.
As if to compound Sultan Mahzum Nabhan's troubles, his recently passed reforms came to be another thorn in his side. Though the reforms benefit the administration of the country and helped keep the royal coffers full, more than a few people were less than pleased by the rights and property they were stripped of and the combination of these reforms, the recent massacre in Nizwa, the annihilation of the particularist army in Suhar (who still held some support among locals in the outer provinces) and the preoccupation of the Royal Army with the war, caused the minor grumblings among some of the people of Oman to flare up and threaten yet another uprising for the Sultan to deal with.
The Sultan must make a decision: Defeat a rebellion in the midst of a war, or concede some of his power and allow greater freedom among the people of Oman
Once again, it was the Imam's wise council that saved the day. Though the Sultan was furious at the prospect of giving up any power to the ingrateful peasantry and nobles whom he was already fighting to protect. Had the situation abroad been a little more peaceful and a little less full of violence, whatever revolt occurred would have likely been struck down with an iron fist by the Sultan's army, no matter the advice of Imam Yosef. The concessions were granted, with gnashed teeth.
Following this, it became apparent that the army of Malik Watban Sa'ud of Najd had once again regained their strength, and were quickly marching to relieve the besieged Capital in Qatar province, outnumbering the locally stationed forces almost three to one. A situation that would not have come about if the Sultan had ordered his troops to pursue and annihilate their foe.
Imam Yosef, realizing that the Sultan's capabilities as a general were proving inadequate, to the point that the Sultan even refused to enter the field of battle and command troops, immediately issued the promotion of one of the best and brightest of the Oman military officers, Ya'rub Issah. Though this would prove to be a turning point decision for the Oman military, it was not done in time to save the army in Qatar, who were forced to retreat from the province and consolidate to the south with the additional troops stationed there.
Malik Watban Sa'ud of Najd nearly struck a crippling blow to the Oman military at this critical junction in the war. Having driven a significant portion of the military out of Qatar and into Beni Yas province, it was only the quick action of Ya'rub Issah and several thousand mercenaries that saved the Royal Army from complete and utter destruction and turned a defeat into a near Phyrric victory. Both the military forces of Najd and Oman were low on reserves, however the battle in Beni Yas placed the tempo back in Oman's hands, and Ya'rub Issah proved to have no intention of allowing Malik Watban's forces to retreat yet again and so, as the Malik's army attempted to consolidate back into Qatar province, Emir Ya'rub Issah's cavalry forces ran them down to the man.
By August of 1400 (Dhu al-Hijjah, 802 AH), nothing was left to defend the provinces of Najd from the Omani military.
Another (surprising!) victory for Oman came a scant few months later, as the Oman fleet, though outnumbered, managed to outmaneuver and defeat the Yemen fleet in the Gulf, sending them scurrying back to port and capturing one small ship in turn. Meanwhile, with Najd completely occupied and Yemen's military soundly beaten by Hedjaz in the west, the Liberation of Liwa by Oman was drawing to a close, a resounding success for the two allied nations.
Political instability, the benefits of a long and drawn out conflict.
Of course, nothing is ever so easy. As the end of the war loomed on the horizon the vultures, political and otherwise, began showing their unseemly hides. Noblemen and their serfs, Imams and their flocks, Merchantmen and their money, all quickly began throwing their clout in Oman's political arena, fighting over the soon-to-be-acquired scraps of land, influence and assets. Thankfully the instability never flared up into significant revolts or rebellions.
Though the war was all but finished by late 1402, mopping up the Yemen military and occupying the state took another two years. Time well spent divying up the spoils of war. With the occupation of Najd complete the annexation of the state followed quickly, along with the very public execution of Malik Watban Sa'ud for crimes against God and the Shiite people of Liwa. For taking part in the war, Yemen was forced to convert to the Shiite faith with concession of two of their easternmost provinces to Oman.
Though they played their own part in helping the war along, Khalfan ibn Saleh al-Dadi and Imam Tariq ibn Jad al-Ahsa were summarily executed and their families exiled by the Sultan, though rumors abound that Khalfan managed to escape the Sultan's men and some other noblemen had been killed in his place. The executions caused outrage among the people of Liwa and Beni Yas, who had assumed the Sultan would keep to his word of freeing the states to their own. Support for revolt was high among the newly acquired provinces, particularly within these two.
The annexation and demands of Sultan Mahzum Nabhan, in addition to the executions of Khalfan and Tariq shocked much of the Muslim world. What had otherwise been an admirable war with an admirable goal was turned on its face by the actions of the Sultan and his retainers. Those kings who had been watching from the sidelines began to take very careful notice of this Sultan of Oman.
The state of Oman in September of 1404. (Rabi' al-awwal, 807 AH)
