Arab, Dhofari

Dhofari Arabs are the Arabic-speaking people of Dhofar, the southern governorate of Oman, centred on Salalah and the old frankincense ports of Taqah and Mirbat. Dhofar was ruled by local dynasties and the Hadrami Kathiri sultanate before the Al Bu Said took control in the 19th century, and its Arabic-speaking tribes and townspeople share more history with Yemen's Hadramawt than with northern Oman. They include sections of Al Kathir (Al Shanfari, Al Rawas, Al Marhoon, Bait Fadhil), the old town families of Al Hafa and the coast, and sada families of Hadrami origin. Dhofari Arabic (adf), described by Rhodokanakis in 1908 and Davey in 2016, differs from both Omani and Yemeni Arabic and keeps old Arabic words rare elsewhere; it is also the lingua franca of Dhofar's Jibbali and Mahri speakers, so many families are bilingual and the lines between these peoples are blurred.

Life follows the khareef, the summer monsoon that turns Dhofar's hills green from June to September and brings a festival season and Gulf tourists. Frankincense from Dhofar's Boswellia trees is burnt daily in homes, perfumes clothing and is sold in the Al Hafa souq. Women's traditional dress is a heavy velvet gown that trails on the ground behind; men wear the dishdasha with a turban. Coconut palms, bananas and papaya grow on the Salalah plain, and cattle and camels graze the hills. Folk arts include the habbot (sword and chant, like the northern razha), the bar'ah dagger dance, and in Mirbat elegies and songs for sailors long at sea. Tribal and family networks are strong and marriage within the tribe is preferred.

Dhofaris are Shafi'i Sunnis, unlike the Ibadi north. Some tribes take their cues from Saudi scholars and have prayed Eid on Saudi Arabia's date rather than Oman's (2008, 2019, 2024). Sufi-tinged customs persist alongside: visits to the tombs of the Prophet Job (Nabi Ayub) on Jebel Itin and of Muhammad bin Ali in Mirbat, and frankincense burnt to ward off the evil eye and jinn.

There is no Scripture, film or audio in Dhofari Arabic; Joshua Project lists translation as started. Standard Arabic Bibles and Gulf Arabic recordings are understood. No Dhofari believers are known.

A tribal revolt against Sultan Said bin Taimur's neglect of Dhofar became, after 1968, a Marxist insurgency backed by South Yemen. Sultan Qaboos, who deposed his father in 1970, defeated it by 1975 with British, Iranian and Jordanian help, an amnesty that brought fighters into the state (the firqat militias) and a development drive that built roads, schools and clinics. The war left a strong regional identity and a tradition of tribal alliances with the sultan: Madinat al-Haqq is named for the tribes that joined Qaboos.