M. Reda Bhacker - Trade and Empire in Muscat and Zanzibar, Historia(2)(1)
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Trade and Empire in Muscat and
Zanzibar
This book looks at the role of Oman in the Indian Ocean prior to
British domination of the region. Omani merchant communities played
a crucial part in the development of commercial activity throughout
the territories they held by Oman in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, especially between Muscat and Zanzibar, using long-
established trade networks. They were also largely responsible for
the integration of the commerce of the Indian Ocean into the nascent
global capitalist system.
M.Reda Bhacker, himself a member of a long established Omani
merchant family, looks in detail at the complex relationship between
the merchant community and Oman’s rulers, first the Ya’ariba and
then the Albusaidis. He analyses the tribal and religious dynamics of
Omani politics both in Arabia, where he looks especially at the
Wahhabi/Saudi threat, and in Oman’s sprawling ‘empire’, with
particular reference to Zanzibar where Omani ruler Sa’îd b Sultân
had his court from the 1830s. His aim is to consider all Oman’s
overseas territorities as a single entity, eschewing the conventional
but misleading compartmentalisation of African and Arabian history.
Dr Bhacker finds that, despite their prestige and influence in the
region, neither the merchant communities nor the Omani ruling classes
were able to respond to Britain’s determined onslaught. He traces the
local and regional factors that allowed Britain to destroy Oman’s,
largely commercial, challenge to its hegemony and to emerge by the
end of the nineteenth century as the commercially and politically
dominant power in the region.
This book will appeal to students and scholars of history, economics
and politics, especially those with interests in the economic
development of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in Middle
Eastern, Indian and East African history, and in the growth of the
British Empire.
Exeter Arabic and Islamic series
General Editor: Aziz al-Azmeh
Arabic thought and Islamic societies
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property Rights under the Hanafite Doctrine
Baber Johansen
The Muslim conquest and settlement of North Africa and Spain
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hid Dhanun T
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Arab history and the nation-state
Youssef M.Choueiri
Allah transcendent: studies in the structure and semiotics of
Islamic philosophy, theology and cosmology
Ian Richard Netton
Trade and Empire in
Muscat and Zanzibar
Roots of British domination
M.Reda Bhacker
London and New York
First published 1994
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003.
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
© 1992 M.Reda Bhacker
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0-203-41033-5 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-71857-7 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-07997-7 (Print Edition)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bhacker, M.Reda (Mohmed Reda), 1955–
Trade and empire in Muscat and Zanzibar: roots of British
domination/M.Reda Bhacker.
p. cm.—(Exeter Arabic and Islamic series)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-415-07997-7
1. Oman—Commerce—History. 2. Oman—Foreign economic relations—
Great Britain. 3. Great Britain—Foreign economic relations—Oman.
I. Title. II. Series.
HF3765.B43 1992
337.4105353–dc20
91–47666
CIP
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