Original subtitles

♪

♪ I took a walk through this ♪

♪ Beautiful world

♪ Felt the cool rain on my shoulder ♪

♪ Found something good in this ♪

♪ Beautiful world

♪ I felt the rain getting colder ♪

♪ La, la

♪ She la, la, la, la

♪ She la, la, la, la

♪ She la, la, la

♪ She la, la, la, la

♪ She la, la, la, la, la

♪

It's morning in the Arabian desert,

the place explorer Bertram Thomas called

"the abode of death."

But it's a beautiful place.

The kind of place I look for more and more these days.

Stark, empty, clean sand

that stretches out seemingly forever.

♪

Oman defies expectations.

It shouldn't... according to

the cruel logic of the world... exist.

But it does, and it's incredible.

The sultanate of Oman is an absolute monarchy,

a predominantly Islamic state

and a vital strategic choke point

in the world's oil supply.

It is surrounded by some of the trickiest

and most contentious powers in the region.

And yet, here it is, relatively small,

tolerant, welcoming to outsiders,

peaceful, and stunningly beautiful.

But Oman is facing uncertainty with succession issues

and declining oil reserves.

The question of what's next is a big,

if often unspoken one.

So, pre-1970, this was a very different,

very different place to live.

Very different country.

Quite simply, there was nothing.

We had only three schools all over Oman.

And only for boys.

We had only two hospitals.

- For the whole country. - Yes, for the whole country.

And nine miles of paved road in Muscat.

And what happened outside of Muscat was really of no concern

to leadership. Absolutely, yes.

Sheikh Zayed bin Sulaiman al-Ghafri

is a businessman and the son of a tribal leader.

He's the kind of guy who will likely be prominent

in the future of the country.

The current Sultan replaced his father

and took the country, really, from the 19th century

into the 20th century very, very quickly.

Absolutely. His Majesty took over

and he changed the whole scene.

This is not a democracy.

But everybody, everybody, it seems,

has genuine affection and respect for the Sultan.

Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said is the much-admired

and enigmatic absolute ruler and monarch.

He's presided over everything Omani for the last 47 years.

In that time, he's raised a nation... literally...

From a dusty, primitive backwater

to a modern, functioning, largely secular society.

His vision was to deliver the surfaces first.

Electricity, water, heath care, education.

It was like a one man show.

And usually, one man shows are not a good thing.

- That's right. - I mean, historically,

seldom does that work out.

But, you know, you look around and see how

the county's doing now, it's pretty impressive.

It's a tremendous job that His Majesty has done.

People just felt like he's the man

that they were waiting for to enlight their life.

And to open doors for them.

♪

Oman, it should be understood,

sits at the top of the Indian Ocean rim.

The empire once stretched from Pakistan to East Africa,

with important trade routes that reached

from southern Africa all the way to the China Straits,

Indonesia and deep into East Asia.

Modern Oman is a fraction of that size now.

But its DNA, its culture, cuisine... and to some extent...

Attitude toward the outside world

is a reflection of that history.

Muttrah is a port town in the capital of Muscat.

For centuries, a central hub of commerce and trade.

One of the first things I noticed about the city

is it's very low slung. Yeah.

It seems like a calculated, aesthetic decision.

If you're someone who wants to build your house,

you first submit your plans to municipality.

And if you're going above a certain height,

it's generally frowned upon.

'Cause the idea is to keep

a sort of traditional Omani vernacular.

Aisha Stoby is a curator and PhD student

focused on Middle Eastern art history.

She is, like many young people here,

patriotic to the point of being nerdy, as she puts it.

We have such an old history.

And I think Muttrah is a really great example of that, you know?

This is something that functions in our daily life.

It functions very similarly to, say, how it would've functioned

if you were coming into Muttrah and going into the Souq,

say, 200 years ago.

And now we're coming to the Corniche, which is...

Oh, I just love that word. I love any city with a Corniche.

It's such a beautiful word.

The food of Oman is a mix of flavors

and ingredients and tastes from Arabia

and from all over Oman's former empire.

Bait Al Luban is an old boarding house

turned restaurant, where you can

try dishes like pakora and kachori...

Which both came back from India...

Chapati, from East Africa,

and shuwa, Oman's classic special event dish.

They do one version or another of this all over the world.

But shuwa is special.

They slather a goat with a spicy paste

consisting of cumin, coriander, red pepper,

cinnamon, cardamom, and nutmeg.

Then wrap the meat in palm or banana leaves,

dig a hole,

throw in some meat,

cover it up,

and leave underground for a day or two

over hot coals.

Oman has changed in a way that's unique

to anywhere I've been.

I mean, I haven't seen any place

that has sort of maintained

the architecture and the character

that this country has.

And that's a really unusual thing.

That's Omani... The only country, I think

of the Gulf region that kept their tradition.

And if you travel outside Muscat,

you see the flavor of the old life still there.

♪

Hassan Meer is one of Oman's preeminent fine artists,

who works in painting and photography.

Muzna Almusafer is a filmmaker, artist, and provocateur,

representing the increasingly vocal point of view

of young Omani women in the Middle Eastern art scene.

I think in Arabia, we have a tradition of storytelling

and saying things without saying them directly.

They took this from poetry.

They have a certain language with a lot of tact,

with a lot of... Subtext.

- Yeah. - There's an unusual mix here.

Very graceful, very proud mix of cultures and languages.

I mean, the mix was existent from the beginning.

There is a beauty in being different

and understanding the other.

Such a difficult time to make that argument.

The whole world seems to be going

in exactly the opposite direction.

I mean, my country, the last thing anyone

seems to wanna do is highlight the other.

I think people discuss, like, fears of multiculturalism.

But within Oman, because of our seafaring history,

it's a traditional reality.

It's our background. It's who we are.

♪

♪

♪

You know about the Vietnam War.

What you might not know is that while that conflict raged on,

Oman, along with an elite force of British special operators

and military advisors, was engaged in a war

in the country's southern Dhofar region

that was in every way far more vital

to American security interests

and of far more importance

to global strategic and economic concerns.

Where we operated were the frankincense trees.

The frankincense that the Wise men brought to Christ.

All the sudden, they came through mountains

where we were fighting.

And you're sitting behind a machine gun

on a track, which had been used for 3,00 years.

One felt like an intruder in history.

And if the trees were cut,

you could smell the frankincense.

The smell of explosives.

The smell of blood.

The smell of the food. Cardamom, the smell of the tea.

I loved it.

This was a civil war.

Civil wars, typically, are the worst wars of all.

I mean, you know that well enough in your country.

But most people have not heard of it.

No, they haven't. But you'd have heard about it

if we'd lost it, I can tell you. Right.

The war began as a local rebellion

by the Dhofari people against the autocratic

and outdated rule of then Sultan, Said bin Taimur,

who had kept his nation isolated and stunted

out of his concern for his hold on power.

What started as a local uprising

quickly became a serious, full-blown,

communist-backed insurgency,

as Soviet and Chinese influence poured in through Yemen.

Ian Gardner remembers the conflict well.

He fought in it, alongside Omani infantry

as a British Royal Marine.

And later wrote about the experience

in his memoir, "In the Service of the Sultan,"

a rare chronicle of the brutal, incredibly difficult

and almost entirely unknown war,

fought in the rugged southern mountains.

The old Sultan was not an inhuman man.

But he was an old man. He was deeply reactionary.

So he wanted to keep his country in a medieval time warp.

The thing that changed it was the advent of

the Japanese transistor radio.

And the first time, his people could hear

what the other Arab countries were doing with their oil.

And they wanted some of that.

By the 1920s, Winston Churchill had switched

the British Royal Navy's mode of power

from coal to oil.

And suddenly, everything changed.

They needed oil and lots of it.

Which made Oman vital.

Not for its limited oil resources,

but for where it is.

The Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf's

femoral artery.

20% of the world's oil flows through here,

making it one of... if not the...

Most strategically important waterways on the planet.

♪

By 1970, Sultan Taimur's

counterinsurgency was not going well.

He was deposed by his son, Qaboos bin Said al Said,

in a relatively bloodless coup.

Immediately, the young Sultan set out

on a different tact for winning the war.

Longs before the shooting had stopped,

we would institute a civil aid program.

Build roads, build a school, build a mosque,

build some shops, a clinic.

But was in this way the Sultan was able

to demonstrate that he was the one

who had his people's best interests at heart,

not the communists.

Things seldom work out so well

post-insurgency or counterinsurgency.

This tactic failed spectacularly in Vietnam, of course.

What made the difference here?

In every war in history,

you end up living with the other side.

And if you can open a respectable door successfully,

then the less likely the aftermath

is gonna be beset with rancor,

with hatred and a thirst for revenge.

The Sultan took this very brave,

highly intelligent political risk,

which I think was the difference.

And I think has been the foundation

of the unambiguous and enduring peace in this country.

In 1976, the Omanis laid down their weapons.

And never picked them up again.

The resulting peace has lasted for 40 years.

And while Oman ain't your system, and it ain't my system,

and it's far, far from being either perfect

or a Western-style democracy,

there is a palpable pride here

in the collective identity of being Omani.

♪

Notably, as well, the Sultan has placed emphasis

on the role of women,

decreeing... at least, as a matter of policy...

Equal access to education,

to work, to political office.

♪

Zahara al-Oufi,

daughters Asilah and Aisha

and friend Samia Alharthy...

Four extraordinary women.

What started as a way for Zahara to fund her charity work

spawned a lucrative cottage industry

of catering for events.

Now, rather than using her family money,

her business is able to fully finance her work

to educate children in the nearby mountain villages.

- "The Simpsons." - Yeah!

I was asking myself, had I seen "The Simpsons"?

- I was on "The Simpsons." - Oh yeah?

- Yes. - Really?

Yes. This is the first time

I've been recognized from "The Simpsons."

That's really nice.

So, some of the money that she's making

is going to open schools in rural villages.

Is that correct? Not only a part of the money;

it goes all of it for them.

To build, for them, the schools

and to provide them the education.

Why is this important to you?

Kabuli Laham is slow-cooked goat

in a rich, rice pilaf, scented with star anise.

Musanif djaj... A local specialty...

Are pan-seared dumplings, stuffed with chicken, pepper,

ginger, turmeric, and onions.

And of course, there's Omani bread with honey.

That's a chili. Are you okay with that?

Yes. I like spicy.

- Oh! Okay. - Good. Mmm.

Very good.

Everyone here says that the economy

is going to have to shift away from oil

towards other industries. Yeah.

How would you like to prepare your daughters

for the future?

What do the young ladies, when they reach adulthood,

what are your hopes and dreams?

And the other... The young lady?

Ah, strong women in this family.

Yeah.

Very strong ones.

♪

As one moves away from the coast and into the interior,

everything changes.

This is the country's more conservative core;

its spiritual center.

Uniquely, Oman's majority is neither Sunni or Shia,

but rather, Ibadi,

a very old and particularly tolerant

non-sectarian form of Islam.

This is a distinction we in the West would be wise to notice.

Islam is not a monolith.

It comes in many forms.

Ibadi theology arguable forms the backbone

of many of Oman's codes of conduct.

It places value on concepts like politeness,

acceptance, unity, and understanding.

Perhaps as a consequence of that,

the sultanate embraces grace and tact

as a matter of foreign policy.

Internally, too, Oman has avoided radicalism

and sectarian violence.

It is considered shameful, by Ibadi teachings,

to draw blood over religious conflicts,

unless attacked.

The terror and bloodshed in neighboring Yemen

feel very far away up here.

Jabal Al Akhdar, the Green Mountain.

This area... oh, my God, it's...

Look at this, it's so beautiful. Yeah.

There are 64 villages at Jebel Al Akhdar.

- 64? - 64.

And this place is going; they are dying.

How many generations has your family lived here?

- 200 years, maybe. Maybe more. - 200 years.

- Yeah. - More than.

More than 200 years.

Can you see all the small famers?

- Yeah. - All of our grandfathers

built that.

And they built all these things

with only their hands.

They didn't have any machines.

Can you imagine that?

♪

Hamdan Al Saqri, his father Ali

and his uncle Hilal come from a very long line

of hard-working farmers.

They all grew up here, generation after generation.

A tribal area of ancient villages

and terraced farm land, which have produced

pomegranate, nuts, and dates...

The premier cash crops of Oman...

For many centuries.

But like so many places I go...

So many traditional agricultural communities...

The young men... and increasingly the young women...

Are looking elsewhere, beyond the farm

to seek higher education and opportunity in the city.

This is a common story. I mean, the young men,

they go to university, you know...

I have to study there because, you know, the future

and I want to get a good job.

Many young Omanis, they study abroad,

they study in America or England.

But most of them seem to come back.

Mm. You are only going outside

to study and get something.

That thing, you want to return back to your country.

I grown up in this village.

It's something simple and I really miss it.

- Muscat, you don't like it? - Sometimes.

- It's not a life for you? - Sometimes?

Sometimes you go there for big shop... malls.

You go to the malls.

Yeah, I like to sometimes.

- So what do we have here? - We have food.

It's delicious.

- Delicious. All right. - Yeah.

Oh, man. That looks good.

What's in the biryani? This is rice and potato.

- Potato? - Yeah.

We often eat this meat at celebrations.

We call it [speaks native language].

- Lamb? - Yeah.

Mmm. Oh, that's fantastic.

- You like? - Wow.

Never had this. Really?

This is the harees. Very famous dish.

- Yeah, yeah. - How do you say "delicious"

in Arabic? Ladhidh.

- Ladhidh? - Ladhidh, yeah.

- Ooh. - Ladhidh.

That's what it is.

How did you learn to cook this well?

In Muscat, I lived with my friends.

- Mm-hmm. - I'm not trained from it.

So I have to learn how to cook

because no one is taking care about you.

You should care about yourself.

So if you'd rather be here, why not just continue

as your parents and your grandparents?

Mm, I want to really improve my country economy.

I want to invent something. You're planning

for a post-oil Oman. Yeah.

Like, after the oil

I think the whole country feels this way.

I mean, the government feels this way as well.

As you say, the country is changing.

You have a luxury resort right over there.

- Yeah. - The future will

look much like this.

Resort opens up. The have a big golf course,

they have jobs for people to carry golf bags for tourists.

- Yeah. - For more money than he could

make farming.

Is this good or is this bad?

You have to deal with your traditional way and your life.

So you want to keep all things safe.

It's more the government responsibility.

To make balance between advantages

and disadvantages of tourism.

But it's a very delicate balance here

These are old and complicated systems that have been

working for a very long time.

It's really difficult because there is many sides here.

Life is keep changing.

We cannot keep everything

as it is before.

Do you know this cat or just a...

- No. - Just a village cat?

Yeah.

- It's the guard for us. - It's the guard?

Yeah.

♪

Oman's history and future

both are linked inexorably to the sea.

The sultanate began with trade.

And it is likely that a new, multi-billion dollar port...

At Duqm, on the coast... Intended as a center

for international shipping,

will play a significant role in the coming years.

♪

♪

Omar Abdullah al-Gilani and Mohammad Shaban

spend every free moment at sea,

free diving and spear fishing... Without oxygen...

For grouper, king fish, cuttlefish, and tuna.

Said al-Naamani is the captain and owner of this boat.

Saleh Said Al Jabri is a former Navy officer

who famously sailed a hand-made

ninth century-style dhow 3,000 miles to Singapore.

The fist Omani boats

that went out to sea around how far back?

How many years?

I would say more than 3,000 years.

- So B.C.? - B.C., yeah.

Now, in the beginning it was fishermen.

- Yeah. - But then, start to trade

all up and down East Africa, Iran, Pakistan,

up the China Straits to China. Yeah.

And the evidence about it, even in their China language,

there's some Arabic. Interesting.

- It's very interesting. - What did the Chinese

have to trade that the Omanis wanted?

They exchange it with the silk fabric

and all the kind of things.

And of course, coming back was spices.

Not only Arabs went, the Indians comes as well.

So if you look at the eastern coast,

they like the spices and all this kind of food.

Well, the people also. I mean, you know,

it's a real mix of Arab, southern Indian, African.

I mean, maybe that's why the food's so delicious.

This food is so delicious

because we like the taste.

♪

Lunch is fresh sardines grilled over charcoal...

some incredible prawns...

And mishkak, an Omani cookout staple.

Cubed beef on skewers, rubbed with cumin,

garlic, and cardamom, then grilled.

And local slipper lobsters, of course.

♪

And do not forget the cuttlefish masala.

♪

Delicious. Wow, that cuttlefish is incredible.

♪

We cannot live without the sea.

Our relationship with the sea is too strong.

So you go in the water every day?

Myself, I like being in the water.

Even 24 hours I don't mind.

♪

This is what's great about Oman itself.

People cannot go away from the sea itself.

From the sand itself.

What we like is, like, nature.

We want to make it as natural as it looks

and it appears and how it was before.

We born in this beautiful country

and we try to look after it.

It have to stay good, inside the heart, here.

It's like the flower.

If we keep it and look after it,

give them the right water, it will grow.

♪

♪

♪

130 miles south of Muscat,

the pavement ends and you hit this.

♪

Sharqiya Sands, on the edge of Rub' al Khali,

the largest sand desert in the world.

♪

Once you get up in a soft sand, things change.

Everything changes.

You change.

♪

This is the traditional domain of the Bedouin.

Who, for thousands of years,

have moved across this harsh, dry,

seemingly endless landscape, making it their home.

Amir Al Wahabi and his family continue the tradition.

Ahmed Al-Naroudi is a hardcore ambassador

for the empty places of the desert.

He's spent more time there, much of it alone,

than just about anyone.

The Bedouin have been crossing the Empty Quarter

hundreds of years?

Thousands of years? Thousand of years.

Thousand of years.

The Bedouin are the kings of the desert.

It's their place. It's their area.

And they know how to live and they know how to survive.

Mark Evans... a polar and desert expedition leader...

Knows firsthand how difficult the Empty Quarter can be.

Guided by Amir, and accompanied

by Khalid Mohammad Al-Zadjali,

he recently made the crossing,

walking over 600 miles with camels in tow.

The first 12 days of our journey,

crossing the Empty quarter, we didn't touch

our own food at all.

And it became a competition to become more generous

than the previous... So you need people out there,

all along the way. You would.

Even though nobody lived there,

people would find you and travel.

♪

♪

Usually, the guy who come, he have to open the head.

Okay. Oh, I know just what I'm going for.

I got it. Pull it.

Yeah, that is all. Cheek.

Yeah. Remove the eyes.

Here. Ooh, ooh.

It's too hot.

This is the part. Mmm. Good.

It's good if have got whiskey, or brandy or...

You know, the Empty Quarter is emptier than it's ever been.

It's almost impossible to do what the old explorers did

because they relied upon local people being in sit...

The Bedouin have migrated to the edge of the deserts,

where life is easier, really.

But they don't want to let go completely.

Amir sends his children to school in Bidiya.

But yet, he wants them to live in the sand,

where they have the freedom and that connection

to their roots.

♪

♪

♪

Does someone cross the Empty Quarter alone?

Absolutely alone? No, you need people with you.

You need people.

In my earlier years, I was taking lots of young people

on expeditions up to the Arctic,

which is very different to here.

But the Inuit and the Bedouin

have a lot of similarities.

They both live on the edge of human tolerance.

They're much more open and friendly people.

♪

♪

♪

It's like coming home when you come out here.

It's very incredibly powerful

and enables you to put everything in perspective.

Fridtjof Nansen, a Norwegian explorer

said that salvation will not come from

the rushing centers of civilization.

Deliverance will come from the lonely places.

In other words, we all need places to think

and calm down and...

♪