"تاريخ أئمة وأسياد عُمان بقلم سليل ابن رزيق، من ٦٦١-١٨٥٦ م، مترجم من الأصل العربي، ومُحرّر بملاحظات وملاحق ومقدمة تواصل التاريخ حتى سنة ١٨٧٠، بقلم جورج بيرسي بادجر، عضو في الجمعية الجغرافية الملكية والقس الراحل في رئاسة بومباي." [‎٤‎١] (٦١٢/٧٤)

and analysis.
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family is not stated. Concurrent tradition describes Seif-
bin-Sultan as a profligate and debauchee, and his character
may have rendered him unpopular with the more religious
portion of the community. The new Imam was installed in
the mosque at Nakhl, a.d . 1738.
Sultan-bin-Murshid's first efforts were directed against
Seif-bin-Sultan, whom he hunted from one place to another
until he drove him from Maskat, taking possession of that
town. Seif once more resorted to the Persians at es-Sir,
and promised to give them Sohar in perpetuity, if they suc
ceeded in re-establishing him in the Imamate. They ac
cordingly invested the latter place by sea and land, and also
detached a large force against the forts of Maskat, which
they eventually captured, and the fort at el-Matrah and
other defences besides. Seif-bin-Sultan, disappointed at
finding that his foreigu allies were not disposed to make
over their conquests to him, quitted them by stealth for el-
Hazm, and on entering that fortress remarked to one of his
officers: ff This is my castle and my grave. I am become
an eyesore to every one, and the quiet of death will be pre
ferable to any happiness which dominion has afforded me."
The Persians continued the siege of Sohar for nine months
with an army said to have amounted to 00,000 men, their
land forces discharging as many as 3,000 cannon-shot at
the fort every day,—the reader may make whatever allow
ance he pleases for exaggeration in these numbers,—while
Ahmed-bin-Said sallied out repeatedly, killing, as the author
naively remarks, as many of the enemy as he could. The
Imam Sultan-bin-Murshid on the other hand, hearing of
the capture of Maskat and el-Matrah by the Persians, levied
a large force from er-Rastak, ezh-Zhahirah, and the Wadi of
the Benu-Ghafir, and marched with them towards the coast.
On the way all these levies abandoned him, with the excep
tion of two hundred men, thirty of whom belonged to his
own people, the el-Yaarubah. Advancing with this little
9