151-591: Qaboos bin Said Al Said ( Arabic : قابوس بن سعيد آل سعيد , IPA: [qaː.buːs bin sa.ʕiːd ʔaːl sa.ʕiːd] ; 18 November 1940 – 10 January 2020) was Sultan of Oman from 23 July 1970 until his death in 2020. A fifteenth-generation descendant of the founder of the House of Al Said , he was the longest-serving leader in the Middle East and Arab world at the time of his death, having ruled for almost half
302-466: A Labourite of Wilson's generation, given its role in both opening up opportunities for ambitious youth from working-class backgrounds and enabling Britain to seize the potential benefits of scientific advances. Under the first Wilson government, for the first time in British history, more money was allocated to education than to defence. Wilson continued the rapid creation of new universities, in line with
453-399: A broad range of reforms during its time in office, in such areas as social security, civil liberties, housing, health, education, and worker's rights. It is perhaps best remembered for the liberal social reforms introduced or supported by Home Secretary Roy Jenkins . Notable amongst these was the partial decriminalisation of male homosexuality and abortion , reform of divorce laws,
604-753: A century. The only son of Said bin Taimur , Sultan of Muscat and Oman , Qaboos was educated in Suffolk , England . After graduating from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst , he served briefly in the British Army . He returned to Oman in 1966 and was the subject of considerable restrictions from his father. In 1970, Qaboos ascended to the Omani throne after overthrowing his father in a coup d'état , with British support. The country
755-575: A collection of related dialects that constitute the precursor of Arabic, first emerged during the Iron Age . Previously, the earliest attestation of Old Arabic was thought to be a single 1st century CE inscription in Sabaic script at Qaryat al-Faw , in southern present-day Saudi Arabia. However, this inscription does not participate in several of the key innovations of the Arabic language group, such as
906-435: A corpus of poetic texts, in addition to Qur'an usage and Bedouin informants whom he considered to be reliable speakers of the ʿarabiyya . Arabic spread with the spread of Islam . Following the early Muslim conquests , Arabic gained vocabulary from Middle Persian and Turkish . In the early Abbasid period , many Classical Greek terms entered Arabic through translations carried out at Baghdad's House of Wisdom . By
1057-618: A degree of secrecy regarding his personal life. His choice to remain single, along with the rumors regarding his private relationships, added an element of ambiguity to his persona. From 2014, Qaboos suffered from colon cancer , for which he received treatment. On 14 December 2019, he was reported to be terminally ill with a short time to live after his stay for medical treatment in UZ Leuven in Belgium and returned home because he wanted to die in his own country. He died on 10 January 2020 at
1208-407: A devaluation would disproportionately harm low-income Britons with savings and poorer Commonwealth of Nations countries in the sterling area . The government instead opted to deal with the problem by imposing a temporary surcharge on imports, and a series of deflationary measures designed to reduce demand and therefore the inflow of imports. In the latter half of 1967, an attempt was made to prevent
1359-1081: A dialect of Arabic and written in the Latin alphabet . The Balkan languages, including Albanian, Greek , Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian , have also acquired many words of Arabic origin, mainly through direct contact with Ottoman Turkish . Arabic has influenced languages across the globe throughout its history, especially languages where Islam is the predominant religion and in countries that were conquered by Muslims. The most markedly influenced languages are Persian , Turkish , Hindustani ( Hindi and Urdu ), Kashmiri , Kurdish , Bosnian , Kazakh , Bengali , Malay ( Indonesian and Malaysian ), Maldivian , Pashto , Punjabi , Albanian , Armenian , Azerbaijani , Sicilian, Spanish, Greek, Bulgarian, Tagalog , Sindhi , Odia , Hebrew and African languages such as Hausa , Amharic , Tigrinya , Somali , Tamazight , and Swahili . Conversely, Arabic has borrowed some words (mostly nouns) from other languages, including its sister-language Aramaic, Persian, Greek, and Latin and to
1510-487: A lesser extent and more recently from Turkish, English, French, and Italian. Arabic is spoken by as many as 380 million speakers, both native and non-native, in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world, and the fourth most used language on the internet in terms of users. It also serves as the liturgical language of more than 2 billion Muslims . In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Arabic
1661-703: A millennium before the modern period . Early lexicographers ( لُغَوِيُّون lughawiyyūn ) sought to explain words in the Quran that were unfamiliar or had a particular contextual meaning, and to identify words of non-Arabic origin that appear in the Quran. They gathered shawāhid ( شَوَاهِد 'instances of attested usage') from poetry and the speech of the Arabs—particularly the Bedouin ʾaʿrāb [ ar ] {{main other| ( أَعْراب ) who were perceived to speak
SECTION 10
#17327830306171812-547: A much-reproduced photograph was taken of him standing on the doorstep of 10 Downing Street . At the age of ten, he went with his family to Australia, where he became fascinated with the pomp and glamour of politics. On the way home, he told his mother, "I am going to be prime minister." Wilson won a scholarship to attend Royds Hall Grammar School , his local grammar school (now a comprehensive school) in Huddersfield , Yorkshire. His father, working as an industrial chemist,
1963-608: A pathway to growth, embodied in the DEA and Mintech, was at the time by no means confined to the Labour Party. Wilson built on foundations that had been laid by his Conservative predecessors, in the shape, for example, of the National Economic Development Council (known as "Neddy") and its regional counterparts (the "little Neddies"). Government intervention in industry was greatly enhanced, with
2114-485: A politically active middle-class family, Wilson studied a combined degree of philosophy, politics, and economics at Jesus College, Oxford . He was later an Economic History lecturer at New College, Oxford , and a research fellow at University College, Oxford . Elected to Parliament in 1945, Wilson was appointed to the Attlee government as a Parliamentary Secretary ; he became Secretary for Overseas Trade in 1947, and
2265-427: A priority to reduce wartime rationing , which he referred to as a "bonfire of controls". Wilson decided that the massive number of wartime controls was slowing the conversion to peacetime prosperity and he was committed to removing them as fast as possible. He ended rationing of potatoes, bread and jam, as well as shoes and some other clothing controls. In November 1948 Wilson announced his Board of Trade had removed
2416-544: A research fellow at University College . On the outbreak of the Second World War , Wilson volunteered for military service, but was classed as a specialist and moved into the civil service instead. For much of this time, he was a research assistant to William Beveridge , the Master of University College, working on the issues of unemployment and the trade cycle. Wilson later became a statistician and economist for
2567-594: A result, many European languages have borrowed words from it. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in European languages (mainly Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese , Catalan , and Sicilian ) owing to the proximity of Europe and the long-lasting Arabic cultural and linguistic presence, mainly in Southern Iberia, during the Al-Andalus era. Maltese is a Semitic language developed from
2718-746: A retired commander of the Royal Navy of Oman ; and Haitham bin Tariq, Minister of Heritage and National Culture. On 11 January 2020, Oman state TV said the Royal Family Council, in a letter to the Defense Council, had decided to defer to the choice that Qaboos named in his will, and thus had opened the letter by Qaboos naming his successor, announcing shortly that Haitham bin Tariq is the country's ruling sultan. Haitham has two sons and two daughters. In June 2022, his Service Medal of
2869-420: A round of competitive devaluations, and concern about the impact price rises following a devaluation would have on people on low incomes. The government's decision over its first three years to defend sterling's parity with traditional deflationary measures ran counter to hopes for an expansionist push for growth. The National Plan produced by the DEA in 1965 targeted an annual growth rate of 3.8%, however, under
3020-462: A script derived from ASA attest to a language known as Hasaitic . On the northwestern frontier of Arabia, various languages known to scholars as Thamudic B , Thamudic D, Safaitic , and Hismaic are attested. The last two share important isoglosses with later forms of Arabic, leading scholars to theorize that Safaitic and Hismaic are early forms of Arabic and that they should be considered Old Arabic . Linguists generally believe that "Old Arabic",
3171-492: A sign of respect. Boris Johnson said that "He was an exceptionally wise and respected leader who will be missed enormously. He will be remembered for his devotion to the development of Oman into a stable and prosperous nation, and as the father of the nation who sought to improve the lives of the Omani people." Unlike the heads of other Arab states of the Persian Gulf , Qaboos did not publicly name an heir . Article 6 of
SECTION 20
#17327830306173322-470: A single language, despite mutual incomprehensibility among differing spoken versions. From a linguistic standpoint, it is often said that the various spoken varieties of Arabic differ among each other collectively about as much as the Romance languages . This is an apt comparison in a number of ways. The period of divergence from a single spoken form is similar—perhaps 1500 years for Arabic, 2000 years for
3473-695: A staff appointment with the British Army. After his military service, Qaboos studied local government subjects in England and then completed his education with a world tour chaperoned by Leslie Chauncy. Upon his return in 1966, he was placed under virtual house arrest in Al Hosn Palace in Salalah by his father. Here he was kept isolated from government affairs, except for occasional briefings by his father's personal advisers. Qaboos studied Islam and
3624-507: A time when unemployment stood at around 400,000. It still stood at 371,000 by early 1966 after a steady fall during 1965, but by March 1967 it stood at 631,000. It fell again towards the end of the decade, standing at 582,000 by the time of the general election in June 1970. Despite the economic difficulties faced by Wilson's government, it was able to achieve important advances in several domestic policy areas. As reflected by Wilson in 1971: It
3775-507: A type of Arabic. Cypriot Arabic is recognized as a minority language in Cyprus. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia , which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. Tawleed is the process of giving a new shade of meaning to an old classical word. For example, al-hatif lexicographically means
3926-507: A variety of regional vernacular Arabic dialects , which are not necessarily mutually intelligible. Classical Arabic is the language found in the Quran , used from the period of Pre-Islamic Arabia to that of the Abbasid Caliphate . Classical Arabic is prescriptive, according to the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh ) and the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as
4077-476: A wider audience." In the wake of the industrial revolution and European hegemony and colonialism , pioneering Arabic presses, such as the Amiri Press established by Muhammad Ali (1819), dramatically changed the diffusion and consumption of Arabic literature and publications. Rifa'a al-Tahtawi proposed the establishment of Madrasat al-Alsun in 1836 and led a translation campaign that highlighted
4228-590: Is a minimum level of comprehension between all Arabic dialects, this level can increase or decrease based on geographic proximity: for example, Levantine and Gulf speakers understand each other much better than they do speakers from the Maghreb. The issue of diglossia between spoken and written language is a complicating factor: A single written form, differing sharply from any of the spoken varieties learned natively, unites several sometimes divergent spoken forms. For political reasons, Arabs mostly assert that they all speak
4379-559: Is a sister language rather than their direct ancestor. Arabia had a wide variety of Semitic languages in antiquity. The term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula , as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece . In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside the Ancient South Arabian family (e.g. Southern Thamudic) were spoken. It
4530-478: Is believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages (non-Central Semitic languages) were spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hejaz , Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages. In Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested. In eastern Arabia, inscriptions in
4681-605: Is celebrated as Oman's national holiday. The first day of his reign, 23 July, is celebrated as Renaissance Day. Oman has no system of checks and balances, and thus no separation of powers . All power was concentrated in the Sultan during his reign, and he served as chief of staff of the armed forces, minister of defence, minister of foreign affairs and chairman of the board of the Central Bank of Oman . All legislation since 1970 has been promulgated through royal decrees, including
Qaboos bin Said - Misplaced Pages Continue
4832-408: Is credited with establishing the rules of Arabic prosody . Al-Jahiz (776–868) proposed to Al-Akhfash al-Akbar an overhaul of the grammar of Arabic, but it would not come to pass for two centuries. The standardization of Arabic reached completion around the end of the 8th century. The first comprehensive description of the ʿarabiyya "Arabic", Sībawayhi's al - Kitāb , is based first of all upon
4983-472: Is credited with standardizing Arabic grammar , or an-naḥw ( النَّحو "the way" ), and pioneering a system of diacritics to differentiate consonants ( نقط الإعجام nuqaṭu‿l-i'jām "pointing for non-Arabs") and indicate vocalization ( التشكيل at-tashkīl ). Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (718–786) compiled the first Arabic dictionary, Kitāb al-'Ayn ( كتاب العين "The Book of the Letter ع "), and
5134-574: Is not present in the spoken varieties, but deletes Classical words that sound obsolete in MSA. In addition, MSA has borrowed or coined many terms for concepts that did not exist in Quranic times, and MSA continues to evolve. Some words have been borrowed from other languages—notice that transliteration mainly indicates spelling and not real pronunciation (e.g., فِلْم film 'film' or ديمقراطية dīmuqrāṭiyyah 'democracy'). The current preference
5285-855: Is official in Mali and recognized as a minority language in Morocco, while the Senegalese government adopted the Latin script to write it. Maltese is official in (predominantly Catholic ) Malta and written with the Latin script . Linguists agree that it is a variety of spoken Arabic, descended from Siculo-Arabic , though it has experienced extensive changes as a result of sustained and intensive contact with Italo-Romance varieties, and more recently also with English. Due to "a mix of social, cultural, historical, political, and indeed linguistic factors", many Maltese people today consider their language Semitic but not
5436-501: Is still disputed in historiography. Some scholars praise his unprecedented electoral success for a Labour prime minister and holistic approach to governance, while others criticise his political style and handling of economic issues. Several key issues which he faced while prime minister included the role of public ownership, whether Britain should seek the membership of the European Communities, and British involvement in
5587-572: Is the third most widespread official language after English and French, one of six official languages of the United Nations , and the liturgical language of Islam . Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities around the world and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, governments and the media. During the Middle Ages , Arabic was a major vehicle of culture and learning, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As
5738-590: Is the variety used in most current, printed Arabic publications, spoken by some of the Arabic media across North Africa and the Middle East, and understood by most educated Arabic speakers. "Literary Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" ( فُصْحَى fuṣḥá ) are less strictly defined terms that may refer to Modern Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic. Some of the differences between Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are as follows: MSA uses much Classical vocabulary (e.g., dhahaba 'to go') that
5889-413: Is to avoid direct borrowings, preferring to either use loan translations (e.g., فرع farʻ 'branch', also used for the branch of a company or organization; جناح janāḥ 'wing', is also used for the wing of an airplane, building, air force, etc.), or to coin new words using forms within existing roots ( استماتة istimātah ' apoptosis ', using the root موت m/w/t 'death' put into
6040-524: Is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the industrial and post-industrial era , especially in modern times. Due to its grounding in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is removed over a millennium from everyday speech, which is construed as a multitude of dialects of this language. These dialects and Modern Standard Arabic are described by some scholars as not mutually comprehensible. The former are usually acquired in families, while
6191-445: The Lisān al-ʻArab ). Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) largely follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic and uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties and has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties. Much of the new vocabulary
Qaboos bin Said - Misplaced Pages Continue
6342-638: The 1945 general election , Wilson won his seat in the Labour landslide. To his surprise, he was immediately appointed to the government by Prime Minister Clement Attlee as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works . Two years later, he became Secretary for Overseas Trade , in which capacity he made several official trips to the Soviet Union to negotiate supply contracts. The boundaries of his Ormskirk constituency were significantly altered before
6493-589: The Arab world . The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic , including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic , which is derived from Classical Arabic . This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā ( اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ "the eloquent Arabic") or simply al-fuṣḥā ( اَلْفُصْحَىٰ ). Arabic
6644-478: The Royal Air Force . There were few rudiments of a modern state when Qaboos took power. Oman was a poorly developed country, severely lacking in infrastructure, healthcare, and education, with only 10 km (6 mi) of paved roads and a population dependent on subsistence farming and fishing. Qaboos modernized the country using oil revenues. Schools and hospitals were built, and a modern infrastructure
6795-705: The Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen against the Houthis in 2015, and did not take sides in a Persian Gulf dispute that saw Saudi Arabia and its allies impose an embargo on Qatar in 2017. In October 2018, Qaboos invited Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu to visit Oman, despite his country not having official diplomatic ties with Israel. Netanyahu was the first Israeli prime minister to visit Oman since Shimon Peres in 1996. Qaboos financed
6946-563: The Vietnam War . His stated ambitions of substantially improving Britain's long-term economic performance, applying technology more democratically, and reducing inequality were to some extent unfulfilled. Wilson was born at Warneford Road, Cowlersley , in the western suburbs of the mill town of Huddersfield , in the West Riding of Yorkshire , England, on 11 March 1916. He came from a political family: his father James Herbert Wilson
7097-568: The Xth form , or جامعة jāmiʻah 'university', based on جمع jamaʻa 'to gather, unite'; جمهورية jumhūriyyah 'republic', based on جمهور jumhūr 'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to redefine an older word although this has fallen into disuse (e.g., هاتف hātif 'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)'; جريدة jarīdah 'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk'). Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to
7248-486: The constitution says the Royal Family Council has three days to choose a new sultan from the date the position falls vacant. If the Royal Family Council fails to agree, a letter containing a name penned by Sultan Qaboos should be opened in the presence of the Defence Council of military and security officials, supreme court chiefs, and heads of the upper and lower houses of the consultative assemblies. Analysts saw
7399-516: The divorce laws , limiting immigration, outlawing racial discrimination , and liberalising birth control and abortion law . In the midst of this programme, Wilson called a snap election in 1966 , which Labour won with a much increased majority. His government armed Nigeria during the Biafran War . In 1969, he sent British troops to Northern Ireland . After losing the 1970 election to Edward Heath 's Conservatives , Wilson chose to remain in
7550-716: The general election of 1950 . He stood instead for the new seat of Huyton near Liverpool, and was narrowly elected; he served there for 33 years until 1983. Wilson was appointed President of the Board of Trade on 29 September 1947, becoming, at the age of 31, the youngest member of a British Cabinet in the 20th century. Initially Wilson favoured a more interventionist policy, seeking requirements for government officials to be seated on private boards of directors , further price controls , and nationalisations of private industries which opposed government policy. However, he abandoned these plans after his colleagues disagreed. He made it
7701-494: The northern Hejaz . These features are evidence of common descent from a hypothetical ancestor , Proto-Arabic . The following features of Proto-Arabic can be reconstructed with confidence: On the other hand, several Arabic varieties are closer to other Semitic languages and maintain features not found in Classical Arabic, indicating that these varieties cannot have developed from Classical Arabic. Thus, Arabic vernaculars do not descend from Classical Arabic: Classical Arabic
SECTION 50
#17327830306177852-602: The revolutionary wave popularly known as the " Arab Spring ". The protesters demanded salary increases, lower living costs, the creation of more jobs and a reduction in corruption. Protests in Sohar , Oman's fifth-largest city, centered on the Globe Roundabout . The Sultan's responses included the dismissal of a third of the governing cabinet. According to CBS News , 19 June 2011, Several protest leaders have been detained and released in rolling waves of arrests during
8003-419: The "learned" tradition (Classical Arabic). This variety and both its classicizing and "lay" iterations have been termed Middle Arabic in the past, but they are thought to continue an Old Higazi register. It is clear that the orthography of the Quran was not developed for the standardized form of Classical Arabic; rather, it shows the attempt on the part of writers to record an archaic form of Old Higazi. In
8154-802: The "purest," most eloquent form of Arabic—initiating a process of jamʿu‿l-luɣah ( جمع اللغة 'compiling the language') which took place over the 8th and early 9th centuries. Kitāb al-'Ayn ( c. 8th century ), attributed to Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi , is considered the first lexicon to include all Arabic roots ; it sought to exhaust all possible root permutations —later called taqālīb ( تقاليب ) — calling those that are actually used mustaʿmal ( مستعمَل ) and those that are not used muhmal ( مُهمَل ). Lisān al-ʿArab (1290) by Ibn Manzur gives 9,273 roots, while Tāj al-ʿArūs (1774) by Murtada az-Zabidi gives 11,978 roots. Harold Wilson [REDACTED] James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995)
8305-454: The 11th and 12th centuries in al-Andalus , the zajal and muwashah poetry forms developed in the dialectical Arabic of Cordoba and the Maghreb. The Nahda was a cultural and especially literary renaissance of the 19th century in which writers sought "to fuse Arabic and European forms of expression." According to James L. Gelvin , " Nahda writers attempted to simplify the Arabic language and script so that it might be accessible to
8456-587: The 1996 Basic Law. The sultan appoints judges, and can grant pardons and commute sentences. The sultan's authority is inviolable. Qaboos' closest advisors were reportedly security and intelligence professionals within the Palace Office , headed by General Sultan bin Mohammed al Numani. The 2011 Omani protests were a series of protests in the Persian Gulf country of Oman that occurred as part of
8607-571: The 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era. There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria ( Zabad , Jebel Usays , Harran , Umm el-Jimal ). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of
8758-847: The 8th century, knowledge of Classical Arabic had become an essential prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, both for Muslims and non-Muslims. For example, Maimonides , the Andalusi Jewish philosopher, authored works in Judeo-Arabic —Arabic written in Hebrew script . Ibn Jinni of Mosul , a pioneer in phonology , wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif , Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab , and Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ [ ar ] {{main other|. Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized
8909-475: The Arab Spring, and dissatisfaction with the state of affairs in the country is high. While disgruntlement amongst the populace is obvious, the extreme dearth of foreign press coverage and lack of general press freedom there leaves it unclear as to whether the protesters want the sultan to leave, or simply want their government to function better. Beyond the recent protests, there is concern about succession in
9060-599: The Exchequer Stafford Cripps having gone to Switzerland in an attempt to recover his health, Wilson was one of a group of three young ministers, all of them former economics dons and wartime civil servants, convened to advise Prime Minister Attlee on financial matters. The others were Douglas Jay ( Economic Secretary to the Treasury ) and Hugh Gaitskell ( Minister of Fuel and Power ), both of whom soon grew to distrust him. Jay wrote of Wilson's role in
9211-564: The Exchequer in 1955, and he proved to be very effective. One of his procedural moves caused a substantial delay to the progress of the Government's Finance Bill in 1955, and his speeches as Shadow Chancellor from 1956 were widely praised for their clarity and wit. He coined the term " Gnomes of Zurich " to ridicule Swiss bankers for selling Britain short and pushing the pound sterling down by speculation. He conducted an inquiry into
SECTION 60
#17327830306179362-476: The Labour Party's organisation following its defeat in the 1955 general election ; its report compared Labour's organisation to an antiquated " penny farthing " bicycle, and made various recommendations for improvements. Unusually, Wilson combined the job of Chairman of the House of Commons' Public Accounts Committee with that of Shadow Chancellor from 1959, holding that position until 1963. Gaitskell's leadership
9513-581: The Labour leadership, and resumed the role of Leader of the Opposition for four years before leading Labour through the February 1974 election , which resulted in a hung parliament . Wilson was appointed prime minister for a second time ; he called a snap election in October 1974, which gave Labour a small majority. During his second term as prime minister, Wilson oversaw the referendum that confirmed
9664-412: The Middle East and North Africa have become a badge of sophistication and modernity and ... feigning, or asserting, weakness or lack of facility in Arabic is sometimes paraded as a sign of status, class, and perversely, even education through a mélange of code-switching practises." Arabic has been taught worldwide in many elementary and secondary schools, especially Muslim schools. Universities around
9815-526: The National Economic Development Office greatly strengthened and the number of "little Neddies" was increased, from eight in 1964 to twenty-one in 1970. The government's policy of selective economic intervention was later characterised by the establishment of a new super-ministry of technology, a connexion not always publicly grasped, under Tony Benn . The continued relevance of industrial nationalisation (a centrepiece of
9966-455: The Open University. Money was also channelled into local-authority run colleges of education. Wilson's record on secondary education was motivated by growing pressure for the abolition of the selective principle underlying the " eleven-plus ", and replacement with Comprehensive schools which would serve the full range of children (see the article ' grammar schools debate '). Comprehensive education became Labour Party policy. From 1966 to 1970,
10117-423: The Opposition . At the party's 1963 annual conference, Wilson made his best-remembered speech, on the implications of scientific and technological change. He argued that "the Britain that is going to be forged in the white heat of this revolution will be no place for restrictive practices or for outdated measures on either side of industry". This speech did much to set Wilson's reputation as a technocrat not tied to
10268-465: The Opposition. Wilson led Labour to a narrow victory at the 1964 election . His first period as prime minister saw a period of low unemployment and economic prosperity; this was however hindered by significant problems with Britain's external balance of payments . His government oversaw significant societal changes, abolishing both capital punishment and theatre censorship , partially decriminalising male homosexuality in England and Wales, relaxing
10419-417: The Order of St John was ceremonially consecrated in London. Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized : al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] ) is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in
10570-490: The Persian Gulf , and was careful to appear neutral and maintain a balance between the West and Iran. As a result, Oman often acted as an intermediary between the United States and Iran. Qaboos helped mediate secret US-Iran talks in 2013 that led two years later to the international nuclear pact , from which the United States withdrew in 2018. In 2011, Qaboos facilitated the release of American hikers who were held by Iran , paying $ 1 million for their freedom. Oman did not join
10721-474: The Qur'an is referred to by linguists as "Quranic Arabic", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into " Classical Arabic ". In late pre-Islamic times, a transdialectal and transcommunal variety of Arabic emerged in the Hejaz , which continued living its parallel life after literary Arabic had been institutionally standardized in the 2nd and 3rd century of the Hijra , most strongly in Judeo-Christian texts, keeping alive ancient features eliminated from
10872-576: The Romance languages. Also, while it is comprehensible to people from the Maghreb , a linguistically innovative variety such as Moroccan Arabic is essentially incomprehensible to Arabs from the Mashriq , much as French is incomprehensible to Spanish or Italian speakers but relatively easily learned by them. This suggests that the spoken varieties may linguistically be considered separate languages. With
11023-542: The UK's membership of the European Communities . In March 1976, Wilson suddenly announced his resignation as prime minister. He remained in the House of Commons until retiring in 1983 when he was elevated to the House of Lords as Lord Wilson of Rievaulx. While seen by admirers as leading the Labour Party through difficult political issues with considerable skill, Wilson's reputation was low when he left office and
11174-488: The abolition of theatre censorship and capital punishment (except for a small number of offences — notably high treason ) and various pieces of legislation addressing race relations and racial discrimination . His government also undertook the easing of means testing for non-contributory welfare benefits, the linking of pensions to earnings, and the provision of industrial-injury benefits. Wilson's government also made significant reforms to education , most notably
11325-574: The age of 79 at his personal residence, Al Baraka Palace , just outside Muscat. The following day, the government declared three days of national mourning and said the country's flag would be flown at half-staff for a period of 40 days and declared the halt of official work in the public and private sectors for three days. Kuwait , Saudi Arabia , Qatar , United Arab Emirates , Bahrain , Jordan , Lebanon , and Egypt all declared three days of mourning; India and Bangladesh declared one day of mourning. The United Kingdom lowered flags to half-mast as
11476-514: The category of Peel , Gladstone , Asquith , and no one else. But...he lacked originality. What he was superb at was the quick assimilation of knowledge, combined with an ability to keep it ordered in his mind and to present it lucidly in a form welcome to his examiners. He continued in academia, becoming one of the youngest Oxford dons of the century at the age of 21. He was a lecturer in Economic History at New College from 1937, and
11627-647: The coal industry. He was Director of Economics and Statistics at the Ministry of Fuel and Power in 1943–44 and was made an OBE for his services. He was to remain passionately interested in statistics, becoming a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society in 1943. As President of the Board of Trade , he was the driving force behind the Statistics of Trade Act 1947, which is still the authority governing most economic statistics in Britain . He
11778-582: The construction or maintenance of a number of mosques, notably the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque , as well as the holy places of other religions. Through a donation to UNESCO in the early 1990s, Qaboos funded the Sultan Qaboos Prize for Environmental Preservation , to afford recognition to outstanding contributions in the management or preservation of the environment. The prize has been awarded biannually since 1991. Qaboos
11929-574: The conversion of Semitic mimation to nunation in the singular. It is best reassessed as a separate language on the Central Semitic dialect continuum. It was also thought that Old Arabic coexisted alongside—and then gradually displaced— epigraphic Ancient North Arabian (ANA), which was theorized to have been the regional tongue for many centuries. ANA, despite its name, was considered a very distinct language, and mutually unintelligible, from "Arabic". Scholars named its variant dialects after
12080-502: The country developed economically. The Omani riyal was established as the national currency, replacing the Indian rupee and Maria Theresa thaler . Later, additional ports were built, and universities were opened. In his first year in power, Qaboos also abolished slavery in Oman . The political system which Qaboos established was an absolute monarchy . The Sultan's birthday, 18 November,
12231-587: The country, as there is no heir apparent or any clear legislation on who may be the next Sultan. The Sultan did give token concession to protesters yet detained social media activists. In August 2014, The Omani writer and human rights defender Mohammed Alfazari, the founder and editor-in-chief of the e-magazine Mowatin "Citizen", disappeared after going to the police station in the Al-Qurum district of Muscat, only to be pardoned some time later. Under Qaboos, Oman fostered closer ties with Iran than other Arab states of
12382-420: The day when a new Act would make it the right of a student, on leaving school, to have a place in an institution of further education. In 1966, Wilson was created the first Chancellor of the newly created University of Bradford , a position he held until 1985. Housing was a major policy area under the first Wilson government. During Wilson's time in office from 1964 to 1970, more new houses were built than in
12533-408: The debates over whether or not to devalue sterling that "he changed sides three times within eight days and finished up facing both ways". Wilson was given the task during his Swiss holiday of taking a letter to Cripps informing him of the decision to devalue, to which Cripps had been opposed. Wilson had tarnished his reputation in both political and official circles. Although a successful minister, he
12684-412: The devaluation, as economists had predicted. The devaluation, with accompanying austerity measures which ensured resources went into exports rather than domestic consumption, successfully restored the trade balance to surplus by 1969. In retrospect Wilson has been widely criticised for not devaluing earlier, however, he believed there were strong arguments against it, including the fear that it would set off
12835-591: The effect of reducing housing costs for buyers on low incomes and enabling more people to become owner-occupiers. In addition, house owners were exempted from capital gains tax. Together with the Option Mortgage Scheme, this measure stimulated the private housing market. Wilson in a 1967 speech said: ''..the grime and muddle and decay of our Victorian heritage is being replaced. The new city centres with their university precincts, their light, clean and well-spaced civic buildings, will not merely brighten
12986-562: The election was called, and was therefore compelled to resign from his position in the Civil Service. He served as Praelector in Economics at University College between his resignation and his election to the House of Commons. He also used this time to write A New Deal for Coal , which used his wartime experience to argue for the nationalisation of the coal mines on the grounds of the improved efficiency he predicted would ensue. In
13137-587: The emergence of Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include: There are several features which Classical Arabic, the modern Arabic varieties, as well as the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions share which are unattested in any other Central Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of
13288-728: The eve of the conquests: Northern and Central (Al-Jallad 2009). The modern dialects emerged from a new contact situation produced following the conquests. Instead of the emergence of a single or multiple koines, the dialects contain several sedimentary layers of borrowed and areal features, which they absorbed at different points in their linguistic histories. According to Veersteegh and Bickerton, colloquial Arabic dialects arose from pidginized Arabic formed from contact between Arabs and conquered peoples. Pidginization and subsequent creolization among Arabs and arabized peoples could explain relative morphological and phonological simplicity of vernacular Arabic compared to Classical and MSA. In around
13439-469: The expansion of comprehensive education and the creation of the Open University . Wilson's government put faith in economic planning as a way to solve Britain's economic problems. The government's strategy involved setting up a Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) which would draw up a National Plan which was intended to promote growth and investment. Wilson believed that scientific progress
13590-607: The fact that they participate in the innovations common to all forms of Arabic. The earliest attestation of continuous Arabic text in an ancestor of the modern Arabic script are three lines of poetry by a man named Garm(')allāhe found in En Avdat, Israel , and dated to around 125 CE. This is followed by the Namara inscription , an epitaph of the Lakhmid king Imru' al-Qays bar 'Amro, dating to 328 CE, found at Namaraa, Syria. From
13741-772: The financial demands imposed by the Korean War . At this time, Wilson was not yet regarded as a heavyweight politician: Hugh Dalton referred to him scornfully as "Nye [Bevan]'s dog". After Labour lost the 1951 election , he became the Chairman of Keep Left, Bevan's political group. At the bitter Morecambe Conference in late 1952, Wilson was one of the Bevanites elected as constituency representatives to Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC), whilst senior right-wingers such as Dalton and Herbert Morrison were voted off. Wilson had never made much secret that his support of
13892-510: The fourth most useful language for business, after English, Mandarin Chinese , and French. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet , an abjad script that is written from right to left . Arabic is usually classified as a Central Semitic language . Linguists still differ as to the best classification of Semitic language sub-groups. The Semitic languages changed between Proto-Semitic and
14043-430: The history of his country. His personal relationships were limited to a handpicked group of palace officials who were sons of his father's advisors and a few expatriate friends such as Tim Landon . Sultan Said said that he would not allow his son to be involved with the developing planning process, and Qaboos began to make known his desire for change—which was quietly supported by his expatriate visitors. Qaboos acceded to
14194-597: The inclusion of new words into their published standard dictionaries. They also publish old and historical Arabic manuscripts. In 1997, a bureau of Arabization standardization was added to the Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization of the Arab League . These academies and organizations have worked toward the Arabization of the sciences, creating terms in Arabic to describe new concepts, toward
14345-599: The initial optimism. Upon coming to power, the government was informed that they had inherited an exceptionally large deficit of £800 million on Britain's balance of trade . This partly reflected the preceding government's expansive fiscal policy in the run-up to the 1964 election. Immediately the pound came under enormous pressure, and many economists advocated devaluation of the pound in response, but Wilson resisted, reportedly in part out of concern that Labour, which had previously devalued sterling in 1949, would become tagged as "the party of devaluation". Wilson also believed that
14496-613: The language. Software and books with tapes are an important part of Arabic learning, as many of Arabic learners may live in places where there are no academic or Arabic language school classes available. Radio series of Arabic language classes are also provided from some radio stations. A number of websites on the Internet provide online classes for all levels as a means of distance education; most teach Modern Standard Arabic, but some teach regional varieties from numerous countries. The tradition of Arabic lexicography extended for about
14647-561: The last six years of the previous Conservative government. The proportion of council housing rose from 42% to 50% of the total, while the number of council homes built increased steadily, from 119,000 in 1964 to 133,000 in 1965 and 142,000 in 1966. Allowing for demolitions, 1.3 million new homes were built between 1965 and 1970, To encourage homeownership, the government introduced the Option Mortgage Scheme (1968), which made low-income housebuyers eligible for subsidies (equivalent to tax relief on mortgage interest payments). This scheme had
14798-604: The late 6th century AD, a relatively uniform intertribal "poetic koine" distinct from the spoken vernaculars developed based on the Bedouin dialects of Najd , probably in connection with the court of al-Ḥīra . During the first Islamic century, the majority of Arabic poets and Arabic-writing persons spoke Arabic as their mother tongue. Their texts, although mainly preserved in far later manuscripts, contain traces of non-standardized Classical Arabic elements in morphology and syntax. Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali ( c. 603 –689)
14949-420: The latter is taught in formal education settings. However, there have been studies reporting some degree of comprehension of stories told in the standard variety among preschool-aged children. The relation between Modern Standard Arabic and these dialects is sometimes compared to that of Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin vernaculars (which became Romance languages ) in medieval and early modern Europe. MSA
15100-626: The left-wing Aneurin Bevan was opportunistic. In early 1954, Bevan resigned from the Shadow Cabinet (elected by Labour MPs when the party was in opposition) over Labour's support for the setting-up of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). Wilson, who had been runner-up in the elections, stepped up to fill the vacant place. He was supported in this by Richard Crossman , but his actions angered Bevan and
15251-883: The many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language. Colloquial Arabic has many regional variants; geographically distant varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible , and some linguists consider them distinct languages. However, research indicates a high degree of mutual intelligibility between closely related Arabic variants for native speakers listening to words, sentences, and texts; and between more distantly related dialects in interactional situations. The varieties are typically unwritten. They are often used in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows , as well as occasionally in certain forms of written media such as poetry and printed advertising. Hassaniya Arabic , Maltese , and Cypriot Arabic are only varieties of modern Arabic to have acquired official recognition. Hassaniya
15402-795: The need for a lexical injection in Arabic, to suit concepts of the industrial and post-industrial age (such as sayyārah سَيَّارَة 'automobile' or bākhirah باخِرة 'steamship'). In response, a number of Arabic academies modeled after the Académie française were established with the aim of developing standardized additions to the Arabic lexicon to suit these transformations, first in Damascus (1919), then in Cairo (1932), Baghdad (1948), Rabat (1960), Amman (1977), Khartum [ ar ] {{main other| (1993), and Tunis (1993). They review language development, monitor new words and approve
15553-399: The need for over 200,000 licences and permits. By March 1949 he promised to remove the need for another 900,000, although meat remained in short supply and was still rationed, as was petrol. Henry Irvine argues that Wilson's success with the bonfire of controls established his reputation as a modernizing specialist, with both the general public and the political elite. Irving also argues that
15704-424: The one whose sound is heard but whose person remains unseen. Now the term al-hatif is used for a telephone. Therefore, the process of tawleed can express the needs of modern civilization in a manner that would appear to be originally Arabic. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their school-taught Standard Arabic as well as their native dialects, which depending on
15855-737: The only son of Sultan Said bin Taimur Al Said and Mazoon bint Ahmad Al Mashani . He received his primary and secondary education at Salalah, and was sent to a private educational establishment at Bury St Edmunds in England at age 16. At 20, he entered the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst . After graduating from Sandhurst in September 1962, he joined the British Army and was posted to the 1st Battalion The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) , serving with them in Germany for one year. He also held
16006-418: The other Bevanites. Wilson's course in intra-party matters in the 1950s and early 1960s left him neither fully accepted nor trusted by the left or the right in the Labour Party. Despite his earlier association with Bevan, in 1955 he backed Hugh Gaitskell , the right-wing candidate in internal Labour Party terms, against Bevan for the party leadership election . Gaitskell appointed him Shadow Chancellor of
16157-549: The overhaul of Arabic grammar first proposed by Al-Jahiz 200 years prior. The Maghrebi lexicographer Ibn Manzur compiled Lisān al-ʿArab ( لسان العرب , "Tongue of Arabs"), a major reference dictionary of Arabic, in 1290. Charles Ferguson 's koine theory claims that the modern Arabic dialects collectively descend from a single military koine that sprang up during the Islamic conquests; this view has been challenged in recent times. Ahmad al-Jallad proposes that there were at least two considerably distinct types of Arabic on
16308-810: The party's left-wing by renationalising the steel industry under the Iron and Steel Act 1967 (which had been denationalised by the Conservatives in the 1950s) creating the British Steel Corporation . One innovation of the Wilson government was the creation in 1968 of the Girobank , a publicly owned bank which operated via the General Post Office network: As most working-class people in the 1960s did not have bank accounts, this
16459-635: The position of Shadow Foreign Secretary in 1961, before he challenged for the deputy leadership in 1962 but was defeated by George Brown . Gaitskell died in January 1963, just as the Labour Party had begun to unite and appeared to have a very good chance of winning the next election, with the Macmillan Government running into trouble. Timothy Heppell has explored how Wilson won the Labour Party leadership election . Wilson had alienated
16610-538: The post-War Labour government's programme) had been a key point of contention in Labour's internal struggles of the 1950s and early 1960s. Wilson's predecessor as leader, Hugh Gaitskell , had tried in 1960 to tackle the controversy head-on, with a proposal to expunge Clause Four (the public ownership clause) from the party's constitution, but had been forced to climb down. Wilson took a characteristically more subtle approach: No significant expansion of public ownership took place under Wilson's government, however, he placated
16761-463: The prevailing class system. Labour's 1964 election campaign was aided by the Profumo affair , a ministerial sex scandal that had mortally wounded Harold Macmillan and hurt the Conservatives. Wilson made capital without getting involved in the less salubrious aspects. (Asked for a statement on the scandal, he reportedly said "No comment ... in glorious Technicolor !"). Sir Alec Douglas-Home
16912-535: The proportion of children in comprehensive schools increased from about 10% to over 30%. Labour pressed local authorities to convert grammar schools into comprehensives. Conversion continued on a large scale during the subsequent Conservative Heath administration, although the Secretary of State, Margaret Thatcher , ended the compulsion of local governments to convert. Wilson's first government reluctantly decided it could not fulfil its long-held promise to raise
17063-558: The recession in activity from going too far in the form of a stimulus to consumer durable spending through an easing of credit, which in turn prevented a rise in unemployment. After a costly battle, market pressures forced the government to devalue the pound by 14% from $ 2.80 to $ 2.40 in November 1967. Wilson was much criticised for a broadcast soon after in which he assured listeners that the "pound in your pocket" had not lost its value. Economic performance did show some improvement after
17214-526: The recommendations of the Robbins Report , a bipartisan policy already in train when Labour took power. Wilson promoted the concept of an Open University , to give adults who had missed out on tertiary education a second chance through part-time study and distance learning . His political commitment included assigning implementation responsibility to Baroness Lee , the widow of Aneurin Bevan . By 1981, 45,000 students had received degrees through
17365-410: The region may be mutually unintelligible. Some of these dialects can be considered to constitute separate languages which may have "sub-dialects" of their own. When educated Arabs of different dialects engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), many speakers code-switch back and forth between the dialectal and standard varieties of the language, sometimes even within
17516-485: The restrained circumstances the actual average rate of growth between 1964 and 1970 was a far more modest 2.2%. The DEA itself was wound up in 1969. The government's other main initiative Mintech did have some success at switching research and development spending from military to civilian purposes, and of achieving increases in industrial productivity, although persuading industry to adopt new technology proved more difficult than had been hoped. Faith in indicative planning as
17667-421: The right wing of the party by his angry attempts to defeat Gaitskell in 1960 for the leadership, and George Brown in 1962 for the deputy leadership. These misadventures gave Wilson a reputation for disloyalty and divisiveness. Heppell identifies three factors whereby Wilson overcame these disadvantages. Firstly, he had united the party's left wing behind him and they showed no willingness to compromise. Secondly,
17818-455: The right wing, although more numerous, was deeply split between Brown and James Callaghan . Wilson took the lead on the first ballot and gained momentum on the second. Finally, Brown proved a poor campaigner, emphasizing divisive factors rather than his own credentials, allowing Wilson to emerge, surprisingly, as the unity candidate, thus becoming the Leader of the Labour Party and the Leader of
17969-557: The royal court to reach consensus on a successor upon his death. As a precaution, he hid a letter which named his successor in case an agreement was not achieved. After his death the royal court decided to view Qaboos's letter and named his intended successor, his cousin Haitham bin Tariq , as sultan. Qaboos bin Said was born in the southern city of Salalah in Dhofar on 18 November 1940 as
18120-504: The rules as an elaborate means of Qaboos securing his choice for successor without causing controversy by making it public during his lifetime, since it was considered unlikely that the royal family would be able to agree on a successor on its own. Qaboos had no children, and only one sister, Sayyida Umaima (who predeceased him in 2002), but no male siblings; there are other male members of the Omani royal family including paternal uncles and their families. Using same-generation primogeniture ,
18271-458: The same sentence. The issue of whether Arabic is one language or many languages is politically charged, in the same way it is for the varieties of Chinese , Hindi and Urdu , Serbian and Croatian , Scots and English, etc. In contrast to speakers of Hindi and Urdu who claim they cannot understand each other even when they can, speakers of the varieties of Arabic will claim they can all understand each other even when they cannot. While there
18422-440: The school leaving age to 16, because of the investment required in infrastructure, such as tens of thousands of new classrooms and teachers. Overall, public expenditure on education rose as a proportion of GNP from 4.8% in 1964 to 5.9% in 1968, and the number of teachers in training increased by more than a third between 1964 and 1967. The percentage of students staying on at school after the age of sixteen increased similarly, and
18573-417: The selection timing and especially the publicity Wilson devoted to the bonfire represented the emerging skills of a brilliant young politician. While each major bonfire was justified in terms of technical economic advantages, it was selected and publicised widely to reach the largest possible audience so that everybody could understand that their bread and jam became free again. In mid-1949, with Chancellor of
18724-527: The social services, health, welfare and housing, unparalleled in our history. Several liberalising social reforms were passed through parliament during Wilson's first period in government. These dealt with the death penalty, homosexual acts, abortion, censorship and the voting age . There were new restrictions on immigration . Wilson personally, coming culturally from a provincial non-conformist background, showed no particular enthusiasm for much of this agenda. Higher education held special significance for
18875-458: The sole example of Medieval linguist Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati – who, while a scholar of the Arabic language, was not ethnically Arab – Medieval scholars of the Arabic language made no efforts at studying comparative linguistics, considering all other languages inferior. In modern times, the educated upper classes in the Arab world have taken a nearly opposite view. Yasir Suleiman wrote in 2011 that "studying and knowing English or French in most of
19026-563: The standardization of these new terms throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and toward the development of Arabic as a world language . This gave rise to what Western scholars call Modern Standard Arabic. From the 1950s, Arabization became a postcolonial nationalist policy in countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Sudan. Arabic usually refers to Standard Arabic, which Western linguists divide into Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. It could also refer to any of
19177-474: The student population increased by over 10% each year. Pupil-teacher ratios were also steadily reduced. As a result of the first Wilson government's educational policies, opportunities for the working-class were improved; overall access to education in 1970 was broader than in 1964. As summarised by Brian Lapping, The years 1964–70 were largely taken up with creating extra places in universities, polytechnics, technical colleges, colleges of education: preparing for
19328-402: The successor to Qaboos would appear to be the children of his late uncle Sayyid Tariq bin Taimur , Oman's first prime minister and the Sultan's former father-in-law. Oman watchers believed the top contenders to succeed Qaboos were three of Tariq's sons: Asa'ad bin Tariq , Deputy Prime Minister for International Relations and Cooperation and the Sultan's special representative; Shihab bin Tariq ,
19479-433: The symphonic ensemble . They play locally and traveled abroad with the Sultan. Argentine composer Lalo Schifrin was commissioned to compose a work entitled Symphonic Impressions of Oman . Qaboos was particularly enthusiastic about the pipe organ . The Royal Opera House Muscat features the second largest mobile pipe organ in the world, which has three specially made organ stops , named the "Royal Solo" in his honour. He
19630-493: The throne on 23 July 1970 following a successful coup against his father , with the aim of ending the country's isolation and using its oil revenue for modernization and development. He declared that the country would no longer be known as Muscat and Oman , but would change its name to "the Sultanate of Oman" in order to better reflect its political unity. The coup was supported by the British, with Ian Cobain writing that it
19781-501: The towns where the inscriptions were discovered (Dadanitic, Taymanitic, Hismaic, Safaitic). However, most arguments for a single ANA language or language family were based on the shape of the definite article, a prefixed h-. It has been argued that the h- is an archaism and not a shared innovation, and thus unsuitable for language classification, rendering the hypothesis of an ANA language family untenable. Safaitic and Hismaic, previously considered ANA, should be considered Old Arabic due to
19932-451: The world have classes that teach Arabic as part of their foreign languages , Middle Eastern studies , and religious studies courses. Arabic language schools exist to assist students to learn Arabic outside the academic world. There are many Arabic language schools in the Arab world and other Muslim countries. Because the Quran is written in Arabic and all Islamic terms are in Arabic, millions of Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) study
20083-499: The youngest person to hold that office since Lord Rosebery 70 years earlier. During 1965, by-election losses reduced the government's majority to a single seat; but in March 1966 Wilson took the gamble of calling another general election. The gamble paid off, because this time Labour achieved a 96-seat majority over the Conservatives, who the previous year had made Edward Heath their leader. The 1964–1970 Labour government carried out
20234-787: Was "planned in London by MI6 and by civil servants at the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office " and sanctioned by the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson . The first pressing problem that Qaboos bin Said faced as sultan was an armed communist insurgency from South Yemen , the Dhofar Rebellion (1962–1976). The sultanate eventually defeated the incursion with help from the Shah of Iran , Jordanian troops sent by his friend King Hussein of Jordan , British Special Forces and
20385-539: Was a British statesman and politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom , from 1964 to 1970 and again from 1974 to 1976. He was Leader of the Labour Party from 1963 to 1976, Leader of the Opposition twice from 1963 to 1964 and again from 1970 to 1974, and a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1945 to 1983 . Wilson is the only Labour leader to have formed administrations following four general elections. Born in Huddersfield , Yorkshire, to
20536-528: Was a Muslim of the Ibadi denomination, which has traditionally ruled Oman. Although Oman is predominantly Muslim, the Sultan granted freedom of religion in the country and financed the construction of four Catholic and Protestant churches in the country as well as several Hindu temples. The Sultan was an avid fan and promoter of classical music . His 120-member orchestra consists entirely of young Omanis who, since 1986, audition as children and grow up as members of
20687-409: Was a government which faced disappointment after disappointment and none greater than the economic restraints in our ability to carry through the social revolution to which we were committed at the speed we would have wished. Yet, despite those restraints and the need to transfer resources from domestic expenditure, private and public, to the needs of our export markets, we carried through an expansion in
20838-529: Was a works chemist who had been active in the Liberal Party , serving as Winston Churchill 's deputy election agent in a 1908 by-election, but later joined the Labour Party . His mother Ethel ( née Seddon) was a schoolteacher before her marriage; in 1901 her brother Harold Seddon settled in Western Australia and became a local political leader. When Wilson was eight, he visited London and
20989-571: Was also a patron of local folk musician Salim Rashid Suri , whom he made a cultural consultant. On 22 March 1976, Qaboos married his first cousin Sayyida Nawwal bint Tariq Al Said (born 1951), the daughter of his uncle Sayyid Tariq bin Taimur and Sayyida Shawana bint Nasir Al Busaidiyah. Nawwal was renamed Kamila at the time of her marriage and is the half-sister of Qaboos' successor, Haitham bin Tariq . The marriage ended in divorce in 1979 and produced no children. In September 1995, Qaboos
21140-433: Was an aristocrat who had given up his peerage to sit in the House of Commons and become prime minister upon Macmillan's resignation. To Wilson's comment that he was out of touch with ordinary people since he was the 14th Earl of Home , Home retorted, "I suppose Mr. Wilson is the fourteenth Mr. Wilson". Labour won the 1964 general election with a narrow majority of four seats, and Wilson became prime minister , at 48
21291-434: Was designed to serve their needs, as such it was billed as the "people's bank". Girobank was a long-term success, surviving until 2003. Wilson's government presided over a rate of unemployment which was low by historic (and later) standards but did rise during his period in office. Between 1964 and 1966 the average rate of unemployment was 1.6%, while between 1966 and 1970 the average stood at 2.5%. He had entered power at
21442-463: Was elevated to the Cabinet shortly thereafter as President of the Board of Trade . Following Labour's defeat at the 1955 election , Wilson joined the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Chancellor , and was moved to the role of Shadow Foreign Secretary in 1961. When Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell died suddenly in January 1963, Wilson won the subsequent leadership election to replace him, becoming Leader of
21593-527: Was instrumental as prime minister in appointing Claus Moser as head of the Central Statistical Office , and was president of the Royal Statistical Society between 1972 and 1973. As the war drew to an end, he searched for a seat to contest at the impending general election. He was selected for the constituency of Ormskirk , then held by Stephen King-Hall . Wilson agreed to be adopted as the candidate immediately rather than delay until
21744-624: Was involved in a car accident in Salalah just outside his palace, which killed one of his most prominent and influential ministers, the deputy prime minister for finance and economy , Qais Bin Abdul Munim Al Zawawi . Qaboos owned several yachts administered by the Oman Royal Yacht Squadron , including Al Said and Fulk Al Salamah , two of the world's largest yachts . Qaboos was known for maintaining
21895-513: Was laid down, with hundreds of kilometres of new roads paved, a telecommunications network established, projects for a port and airport that had begun prior to his reign were completed and a second port was built, and electrification was achieved. The government also began to search for new water resources and built a desalination plant, and the government encouraged the growth of private enterprise, especially in development projects. Banks, hotels, insurance companies, and print media began to appear as
22046-735: Was made redundant in December 1930, and it took him nearly two years to find work; he moved to Spital , on the Wirral Peninsula , to do so. Wilson continued his education in the Sixth Form at the Wirral Grammar School for Boys , where he became Head Boy . Wilson did well at school and, although he missed getting a scholarship, he obtained an exhibition ; this, when topped up by a county grant, enabled him to study at Jesus College, Oxford , from 1934. At Oxford, Wilson
22197-623: Was moderately active in politics as a member of the Liberal Party but was strongly influenced by G. D. H. Cole . His politics tutor, R. B. McCallum , considered Wilson to be the best student he ever had. He graduated in PPE ( Philosophy, Politics and Economics ) with "an outstanding first class Bachelor of Arts degree, with alphas on every paper" in the final examinations, and a series of major academic awards. Biographer Roy Jenkins wrote: Academically his results put him among prime ministers in
22348-525: Was regarded as self-important. He was not seriously considered for the job of Chancellor when Cripps stepped down in October 1950—it was given to Gaitskell—possibly in part because of his cautious role during devaluation. Wilson was becoming known in the Labour Party as a left-winger, and joined Aneurin Bevan and John Freeman in resigning from the government in April 1951 in protest at the introduction of National Health Service (NHS) medical charges to meet
22499-484: Was subsequently renamed the Sultanate of Oman . As sultan, Qaboos implemented a policy of modernization and ended Oman's international isolation. His reign saw a rise in living standards and development in the country, the abolition of slavery, the end of the Dhofar Rebellion , and the promulgation of Oman's constitution . Suffering from poor health in later life, Qaboos died in 2020. He had no children, so he entailed
22650-469: Was the key to economic and social advancement, as such he famously referred to the "white heat of technology", in reference to the modernisation of British industry. This was to be achieved through a new Ministry of Technology (shortened to "Mintech") which would coordinate research and development and support the swift adoption of new technology by industry, aided by government-funded infrastructure improvements. In practice, however, events derailed much of
22801-532: Was weakened after the Labour Party's 1959 defeat , his controversial attempt to ditch Labour's commitment to nationalisation by scrapping Clause Four , and his defeat at the 1960 Party Conference over a motion supporting unilateral nuclear disarmament . Bevan had died in July 1960, so Wilson established himself as a leader of the Labour left by launching an opportunistic but unsuccessful challenge to Gaitskell's leadership in November 1960 . Wilson would later be moved to
#616383