Oman Post Omani Historical Personalities

OMAN POST on 7 December 2021 issued a set of five First Day Cover stamps recognising historical Omani personalities.

100 baisa - Ahmad bin Majid Al Sa’adi was an Omani navigator and cartographer. He was one of the best-known navigators of the Indian Ocean and among the finest scholars in the art of navigation and its history among the Arabs. He was the inventor of the magnetic needle (magnetic compass), which is used for navigation and orientation at sea. He was also the author of nearly forty works of poetry and prose. Among his many books on oceanography, Fawā’id fī-Usūl Ilm al-Bahr wa-al-Qawāid or (The Book of the Benefits of the Principles and Foundations of Seamanship), which was compiled in the year (880-895 AH / 1475-1490 CE) at the end of his life, which is considered as one of his best.

200 baisa - Abū Saʿīd al-Muhallab ibn Abī Ṣufra al-Azdī (c. 632 – 702 CE) was was a Persian weaver who migrated from the Persian Gulf island of Kharak to Oman before settling in the Arab garrison town of Basra in Iraq. According to this account, he was accepted by the Azd as one of their own by demonstrating his courage in battle. The Azd had dominated Oman (Uman) since the pre-Islamic era and hence were known as the "Azd Uman" to distinguish them from the "Azd Sarat", who were based in western Arabia. As an Arab general from the Azd tribe, he fought in the service of the Rashidun, Umayyad and Zubayrid caliphs between the mid-640s and his death. He served successive terms as the governor of Fars (685–686), Mosul, Arminiya and Adharbayjan (687–688) and Khurasan (698–702). Al-Muhallab's descendants, known as the Muhallabids, became a highly influential family, many of whose members held high office under various Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs, or became well-known scholars.

200 baisa - Sheikh Abdullah Al Harthy was born in 1886 in Mudharib in the Wilayat of Al Qabil in Al Sharqiya Governorate, and was educated by a few scholars of his time besides his father, Sulaiman Al Harthy. He was known for his wisdom in dealing with different aspects in life. He established the Agricultural Organization in Zanzibar. He participated in the foundation of the Arab National Association in Zanzibar and nominated as the chairperson of the association in 1940. He was selected to be the head of Al Falaq Newspaper (A national, social, political, and agricultural) newspaper that was published weekly in Zanzibar. He held that position during the 1950s. He was also known of his poems on faith and love.

400 baisa - Nasser bin Salim al- Rawahi, nicknamed (Abu Muslim al- Bahlani) was an Omani poet. He was born in Oman in 1860 and spent most of his life in Zanzibar where he died in 1920. His poetry is a good example of a strong link between art and politics. While the themes are centred around criticizing society and aiming to instigate revolution against people who do not follow Islamic laws, the techniques create harmony in the structure of this discourse. The author argues that this poetry is based on Ibādī suluk , which itself can be considered as an extension of the Kharijite trend. Although, suluk is linked with zuhd as a way of giving less value to this life, suluk has some other implications which do not exist with zuhd. Hence, suluk is not only a way of worshipping God, it is also a set of ideas which aim to change society and establish an Ibādī imamate.

500 baisa - al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi was born in 718 CE in Oman, southern Arabia, to Azdi parents. He was Arab philologist, lexicographer and leading grammarian of Basra based on Iraq. He made the first dictionary of the Arabic language – and the oldest extant dictionary – Kitab al-'Ayn ("The Source") – introduced the now standard harakat (vowel marks in Arabic script) system, and was instrumental in the early development of ʿArūḍ (study of prosody), musicology and poetic metre. His linguistic theories influenced the development of Persian, Turkish, Kurdish and Urdu prosody. The "Shining Star" of the Basran school of Arabic grammar, a polymath and scholar, he was a man of genuinely original thought.