Qaboos ibn Sa'id (born 1940), ruler of Arabia's strategically important Sultanate of Oman, defeated a Communist-inspired insurgency and guided an extensive socio-economic modernization of his once backward realm.

Qaboos ibn Sa'id headed Arabia's oldest reigning dynasty, the Al Bu Sa'id, rulers of Oman since 1744. Born on November 18, 1940, in Salalah, capital of Oman's southern province of Dhofar, he was the only son of Sultan Sa'id ibn Taymur, who died in 1972. His mother was daughter of a shaykh (sheik) of the Bayt Mu'ashani clan of Dhofar's dominant Qara tribe.

Until the mid-19th century Oman was a leading maritime state in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Gulf region. Then disaster overtook the country, and by the early 20th century its increasingly impotent rulers were dependent upon British support; its economy was stagnant and its society was disintegrating as many emigrated to more prosperous lands.

This decline was reversed only after Sultan...