Muscat ~ June 23

Once again we are on the go from dawn to late evening. I have taken my first colloquial Arabic class, can now use and return the proper greeting, “Assalaamu Aalaikumm, Wa Aalaikumm assalaam,” know more about the 19th and 20 th century Muscat merchant community, and have participated in a series of focus groups with distinguished Omani men and women from the public and private sectors.

Our morning began with the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque tour. The Mosque, designed for Muslims of all Islamic sects, incorporates the architectural styles of each region of the Muslim world, and is a remarkable representation of Islamic faith and the achievement of the modern Sultanate. Many years in the planning, it took 6 years to complete at significant cost, was dedicated in 2001, and can accommodate 20,000 worshippers. Each piece of limestone, marble, semiprecious stone and wood carving is numbered. Semi-precious stone inlays recall the Mughal Empire, arches in black and white echo the Grand Mosque in Cordoba and so on. The entire Quran is scripted around the Mosque walls using innovative new technologies to hydraulically carve the calligraphy. Rare woods from all over the world are used in doors, ceilings, decorative panels, and screens. The chandeliers are German crystal with Swarovski beads. The hand woven Persian carpet took 400 women 6 years to complete & was, at one time, the largest in the world. Our visit concluded with a panel of three religious Omani men discussing Modern and Classic Islam, followed by an engaging Q & A session – topics ranging from the media misrepresentations, the Taliban (disliked), male ego, and multiple wives.

We next toured the Bait Al Zubair Museum, originally the home of Sheikh Al Zubair bin Ali and one of the country’s architectural icons. Three generations of this prominent merchant family lived in the house until it was demolished in the 1940s to provide road access for cars to the Sultan’s Palace. The museum has three separate buildings, one the carefully restored original home, another a recreation of the living area of the Al Zubair home with furnishing as it was in the 1940s, and the third houses various collection of weapons, jewelry, historical photographs, a fabulous map room which includes the 1863 Johnson Map, the first American made map of the Arabian Peninsula.

The final even of the day, hosted by Oman Brand management Unit in collaboration with AMIDEAST, was a series of four roundtable discussions on Education, Economic Development, and Omani women. Fulbright scholars had the opportunity to participate in an important cultural exchange – our conversations as we moved from group to group were engaging, informative, and mutually rewarding. Participating in a focus group as part of the Brand Oman project, an ambitious effort to create a brand that “reflects the diversity that is Oman…,” was a rare opportunity. The program concluded with dinner with our hosts, more conversation.. and the presentation of gifts – bags appliquéd with traditional women’s dress for the women in our group and similar for the men with a commemorative coin depicting the tall ship, Sultanah, which visited New York in 1840 to establish trade and create American awareness of Oman and Zanzibar, which was controlled in that era by Oman.