Musical Life in Sohar, Oman

Sohar’s highly diverse population is historically linked to East Africa, the Arabian Gulf, and the Makran coast of Iran and Pakistan, as well as to the interior of the Arabian Peninsula. In 1975, the anthropologist Fredrik Barth identified more than thirty distinct groups in Sohar, the most numerous being sedentary Arabs, descendants of African slaves, bedouin, Baluchis, Fārisī, and Ajam (Persians). All these were cross-cut by their adherence to one or another of various schools of Islam,...