The special importance of the Kitb al-ansab (The book of genealogies) from al-'Awtab -- an Omani historian who lived in the 11th century -- is that it is the first historiographic source related to Oman. Therefore, al-'Awtab presents the history of Oman from the descendants of Noah to the fall of the Umayyads (750). At this point, the narration ends abruptly. But the present study concerns the pages devoted to the age that preceded the diffusion of Islam, particularly the period when Arab tribes began to arrive in Oman. Because of the disaster of the Ma'rib dam the majority of inhabitants are forced to leave the town looking for a new home. Regarding migration, according to Arabian tradition, the Azd tribe seem to have separated into different groups of which one, guided by Mlik b. Fahm, arrived in Oman. So, with his actions and words, the brave chief of the Azd determined the first arabization of Oman. The story narrated by al-'Awtab, following a temporal order of facts, is full of suggestions and includes particularly interesting aesthetic and literary points of view. It is mainly a fictional reconstruction of the events. This narration suggests that al-'Awtab assembled the written Arabic sources with oral Omani traditions. It is a story whose function was to recount the arrival of the Azd in Oman and to highlight the origins of this territory and its inhabitants.

This book is a cultural history, offering an historical account of the formation of a distinctive Omani culture; arguing that it is in this unique culture that a specific conception and practice of diplomacy has been developed.

This text provides a study of the history of Oman from the advent of Islam until the fall of the second Ibadi Imamate in AH 280. In pulling together historical material, it gives an account of Oman's position under the early Islamic community.

Examining a single broad tribal identity - al-Azd - from the immediate pre-Islamic period into the early Abbasid era, this book notes the ways it was continually refashioned over that time. It explores the ways in which the rise of the early Islamic empire influenced the peoples of the Arabian Peninsula who became a core part of it, and examines the connections between the kinship societies and the developing state of the early caliphate. This helps us to understand how what are often called 'tribal' forms of social organisation identity conditioned its growth and helped shape what became its common elite culture.Studying the relationship between tribe and state during the first two centuries of the caliphate, author Brian Ulrich's focus is on understanding the survival and transformation of tribal identity until it became part of the literate high culture of the Abbasid caliphate and a component of a larger Arab ethnic identity. He argues that, from pre-Islamic Arabia to the caliphate, greater continuity existed between tribal identity and social practice than is generally portrayed.