'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.' [‎89] (250/612)

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I
THE IMAMS OF 'OMAN.
89
lacs One lakh is equal to one hundred thousand rupees ol silver and gold. He also renewed the aqueduct of
the tank between Azka and Nezwa; and, what through in
advertence has been overlooked by most historians, ho
fostered trade, and during his Imamate sent men to India,
Persia, Sanaa, el-Basrah, and 'Irak to supply the demand
of the Mussulmans for horses, arms, etc. To sum up,
Oman revived during his government and prospered : the
people rested from their troubles, prices were low, the roads
were safe, the merchants made large profits, and the crops
were abundant. The Imam himself was humble towards
the one Almighty God, compassionate towards his subjects,
> condoning their offences when such condonation was law
ful, and never keeping himself aloof from them. He used
to traverse the streets without an escort, would sit and
talk familiarly with the people, and saluted the small and
great, the freeman and the slave. Thus he persevered in
ordaining what was lawful and forbidding what was unlaw-
> ful, always observing the fixed times of prayer, until he
died. God have mercy upon him and absolve him! He
died on the morning of the 16th of Dzul-Kaadah, a.h.
1059 [11 th November 1649], 1 and was buried where the
Imam Nasir-bin-Murshid was buried.
1 This date is evidently wrong, for the year is the same in which
Nasir-bin-Murshid, Sultan-bin-Seifs predecessor, is recorded to have
died, (see p. 74.) That date is presumably correct, since Nasir-bin-
Murshid was recognized as Imam a.d . 1624 (p. 54) and ruled twenty-
six years (p. 74), which would bring the date of his death to a.d . 1650
or 1649. The mistake—probably of the transcriber—is most unfor
tunate, because it prevents our ascertaining the exact time when the
I'ortuguese were expelled from Maskat—a point on which all available
authorities differ. Hamilton places that event "about the year 1650;''
, Niebuhr, u about 150 years" after their capture of the town in 1508 ;
Wellsted says that " Seif-bin-Sultan [it should be Sultan-bin-Seif]
drove the Portuguese out of Muscat in 1658," which tallies with Nie-
buhr's approximate statement. The Arabic narrative leads us to infer
that Sultan proceeded with his army from er-Rastak towards Mdskat
very shortly after the death of his predecessor in April, 1649. From the
remarks made by the Banian Merchant of Indian extraction. , in his treasonable correspondence with
12