'History of the imâms and seyyids of 'Omân by Salîl-ibn-Razîk, from A.D. 661-1856; translated from the original Arabic, and edited with notes, appendices, and an introduction, continuing the history down to 1870, by George Percy Badger, F.R.G.S., late chaplain in the Presidency of Bombay.' [‎87] (248/612)

THE IMAMS OP 'OMAN.-
87
Auxiliaries went to 'Oman and chose one hundred men, to
whom death was sweeter than wine to the lips of the wine-
bibber. On their arrival he gave them a large sum of
money, and they then proceeded to attack the two ships in
small boats. And God gave them the victory over the
infidels, for they destroyed the two ships and killed all the
polytheist crews. 1
The Imam then appointed Bin-Belarab, el-Yaaruby, Wali
of Maskat, and left many soldiers with him. He enjoined
him to be firm, to decree what was lawful and to forbid
what was unlawful, and to administer justice impartially.
He also exempted Narutem and his family from taxation, as
a recompense for the services which he had rendered to
him and to the Mussulmans.
When the Imam returned to Nezwa, all the people, high
and low, congratulated him on his achievements and on the
conquest which God had vouchsafed to the Mussulmans
through him over the polytheists. He then ordered a Jihad-
against the polytheists who swept the coast of the sea of
1 The incidents mentioned in the foregoing account of the capture of
Maskat from the Portuguese is so strikingly characteristic of the two
contending parties, and the tone throughout is so dispassionate and im
partial, that there can be little doubt of the general authenticity of the
narrative. Owing to the negligence, or the national pride, of cotem-
porary Portuguese annalists, we possess no version of theirs wherewith
to compare it. Captain Alexander Hamilton's story of the immediate
cause of the attack, which he attributes to the insolence of the Portu
guese governor in having sent 44 a piece of pork, wrapped up in a paper,
as a present to the Arab king" who was then in the neighbourhood
with his army, in reply to a civil message from the latter requesting him
to grant him 44 the liberty of his markets to buy provisions," is pre
sumably a fable, with as little foundation as most of his other trans
mitted hearsay statements regarding the Arab King and his " Queen,
who was of Seid extraction, who are a tribe or family descended from
Mahomet, by Fatima his daughter and Ali his apostle." See Pinkertoris
Voyages and Travels, vol. viii. p. 285. Hamilton's New Account of the
East Indies, from which the foregoing is an extract, embraces his trading
and travelling experience from 1688 to 1723.
2 A war against infidels.