Tag Archives: Study in Oman

An independent sultanate, already constituted until 1970 by the imamate of the same name and by the sultanate of Masqaţ, Oman has been independent since 1971 and is an absolute monarchy; all power is held by the sovereign, who governs assisted by a consultative Assembly of his own designation. In 1992 this Assembly was, however, replaced by an advisory Council of the Sultan, more representative and with broader functions than the previous one; since 2000, the Council has been elected by limited suffrage. The judicial system in force is based on the Common Law British and Islamic law; international jurisdiction is not recognized. Justice is administered by the Supreme Court, but a system of civil courts at the regional level is being implemented. The death penalty is in force in the country. The defense of the state is divided into three traditional weapons: army (one of the best equipped armed corps in the region), navy and air force. The military service is carried out on a voluntary basis, starting from 18 years of age. As far as the education system is concerned, a school reorganization program began in 1970 and significant progress has already been made, both in terms of attendance and in terms of the increase in school buildings and teachers. Despite the measures taken, the illiteracy rate recorded in the country is still high (15.6%). L’ education is not compulsory; the primary one concerns children included in the age group ranging from 6 to 11 years. The secondary one, which goes from 12 to 17 years, is divided into two cycles of 3 years each. The only university in Oman, the Sultan Qaboos University was opened in 1986. Although the official language is Arabic, English is also used in secondary schools. The Ismaili and Hindu minorities, on the other hand, have their own schools and teachers. According to COUNTRYAAH, Oman is a nation in Western Asia, the capital city of which is Muscat. The latest population of Oman is 5,106,637. ACEINLAND: Lists and descriptions of main religions and beliefs in Oman, including religion demographics and statistics on Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc.
GEOGRAPHY
A vast country, but for the most part arid and poor, Oman forms a kind of large arch at the southeastern end of the Arabian Peninsula, overlooking the homonymous gulf and the Arabian Sea between Cape Masandam, on the Strait of Hormuz, and Cape Dharbat Ali, for approx. 1600 kilometers. It includes various historical-geographic regions, including essentially to the N the Mascqaţ (a narrow mountainous band facing the Gulf of Oman), and in the center the much larger Oman proper, a predominantly flat territory, closed to the N by the reliefs of Masqaţ and broadly facing the Arabian Sea to the E, while to the West, where the borders are largely inaccurate, it extends towards the desert depression of Ar-Rub ‘al-Khālī; at the southern end is the Dhufar (or Ẓufār), a mountainous region overlooking the Arabian Sea between the Naws and Dharbat Ali chiefs, and bordering on Yemen. From a geographical point of view, the main and most interesting element of the country is constituted by the reliefs of the Masqaţ, tectonically unrelated to the Arabian Peninsula and which can rather be ascribed to the Iranian mountain system, from which they are divided by the Gulf of Oman. They appear with a series of folds, arranged according to the course of the coast, with powerful sedimentations, mostly calcareous, superimposed on archaeozoic rocks; they develop for approx. 600 km, with shapes that are rarely steep or uneven, but rather similar to those of a vast plateau. The system, which is generally maintained at altitudes of 1200-1500 m, touches 3017 m in the Al-Jabal Al Akhḍar, or Green Mountain: they are the monsoon winds, that by discharging relatively copious rainfall on the sides of the massif, such as to allow a certain development of vegetation in a region marked by aridity, have earned the mountain this appellation. After the monotonous expanses of the Omanic region, the country becomes more rugged in the Dhufar. Raised rim from the immense Arabian plateau, the Dhufar mountains (Jebel al Qamar, Jebel al Qara ‘) mark the extreme eastern stretch of the coastal relief of southern Arabia, which is much more vigorously represented, in the western cusp of the peninsula, by the mountains of Yemen. The presence of the reliefs, which reach 1463 m in the Jebel Simhan, also favors human settlement in the Dhufar, due to the best hydro-climatic conditions: in fact, on the coast there are numerous oases, fed by uidian coming down from the mountains. § The reliefs of Masqaţ slope more gently inside in the Al Dhahira region, furrowed by uidian that are dispersed in the saline areas of the Ar-Rub ‘al Khali: along these courses of temporary water arise several oases, so that even the Al Dhahira is fairly populated. § Crossed by the Tropic of Cancer, Oman falls within the domain of hot and dry tropical climates; the very low rainfall, on average 100 mm per year, is brought about by monsoons: only on Al Jabal Al-Akhḍarl it reaches 300 mm of rain per year. The altitude, in addition to “capturing” the humidity of the air masses, intervenes to mitigate the temperatures, but in most of the country there are very high values: in Muscat the annual average is 28 ºC, with warm winters (23 ºC) and hot summers (34 ºC), made more difficult by the very high percentage of humidity in the air. Moreover, in the summer the interior of ʽOman can be hit by hot and dry winds, including the simun, which comes from the desert.