Seyyid Said (1790-1856) was the energetic and resourceful sultan of Oman who transferred his capital from Arabia to Zanzibar, where he initiated clove production and greatly expanded the East African slave trade.

Seyyid Said became sultan of the Persian Gulf state of Oman in 1806. Although the area was neither rich nor easy to govern, Omani fortunes rose during the Napoleonic Wars, when European merchants relied heavily on Arab shipping throughout the northern and western Indian Ocean. This prosperity proved short-lived after Britain gained control of Indian Ocean ports, thereby enabling British companies to monopolize shipping in that "English lake"; simultaneously the British navy worked to eliminate piracy in the Persian Gulf. Said's prolonged struggles with the fierce Wahhabis from the desert marshes of Oman finally convinced him of the futility of attempting any expansion of his power within the Arabian peninsula. Oman quickly descended to the depths of...