By Thessa Lageman
Khasab, Oman: The gorge just outside Khasab on Oman's northern Musandam Peninsula is deserted except for two shepherds. Nevertheless, the twentysomethings in their long white robes cast a furtive look around when asked about their next monarch.
"It's top secret," says one of them, playing with his phone. "We don't talk about that." Everyone knows the stories about loose-lipped Omanis who are never heard from again.
A portrait of Oman's Sultan Qaboos at the entrance to a tourism festival in the southern city of Salalah, near the border with Yemen.Credit: Thessa Lageman
Yet the question of who will succeed the sultan has become more pressing than ever. Qaboos bin Said al-Said, 74, has ruled Oman for 45 years and has no children and no siblings.
The "Arab Spring" of 2011 did not leave Oman untouched. Unlike protesters in Tunis and Cairo, Omanis demanded the "reform" - and not the fall - of the regime. Most wanted a constitutional monarchy to replace the absolute monarchy they live under.
Omanis climb the wall of the Nizwa Fort, west of the capital Muscat. The fort was once Oman's seat of government.Credit: Thessa Lageman
Sultan Qaboos responded with 50,000 new government jobs, benefits for unemployed people and a raising of salaries and pensions. He made promises - most of which remain unfulfilled - to give parliament more power. He also fired a few ministers and had several protesters, activists and bloggers arrested. According to the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, Omanis are still being arrested because they criticise the government and are often mistreated and even tortured in prison.
In mid-2014 the sultan left Oman for Germany, spending more than eight months there for medical treatment. Details on his condition have not been disclosed, but diplomatic sources speculate that he may have colon cancer.
The sultanate is strategically located on the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow passage at the mouth of the Persian Gulf between Iran to the north and Oman to the south that is used to transport nearly a fifth of the world's crude oil.
Last month, Sultan Qaboos suddenly returned to the Omani capital Muscat. The government broadcast images of a serious yet frail-looking old man striding down an airplane ramp. The treatment was apparently "a great success". Newspapers wrote of a "spontaneous outburst of joy" around the country as the streets filled with honking cars and people waving Omani flags.
Fishermen bring in their catch at Khasab, on Oman's northern Musandam Peninsula.Credit: Thessa Lageman
Risky topics
Near a mosque named after the sultan in Khasab, a younger Qaboos looks out to sea with an inscrutable expression. The photograph hangs on the wall in the humble home of an old fisherman. He and his youngest daughter remember when the sultan visited their city in 2012.
Oman is strategically placed in the Middle East.Credit: Google Maps
"We put on our finest clothes," she says, beaming. "The streets were lined with flowerpots and gold-coloured lampposts."
Neither will discuss the sultan's health or his potential successor; topics like these are left to Omanis living abroad.
A street in Muscat, the capital of the Sultanate of Oman. Credit: Thessa Lageman
According to dissident blogger Nabhan Salim al-Hanshi of the Monitor of Human Rights in Oman, many doubt the sultan's return to health. "But they don't talk about it," he says.
Mr Hanshi fled to Britain after being arrested in 2012. Asked about the succession, he says: "I suspect that the royal family is making the necessary preparations."
His hopes for his country could come from a civics textbook. "I'm looking for freedom of expression . . . I'm looking for a new constitution written by the people, not the sultan.
"I don't want Qaboos to control everything as he does now, [so that if he] puts his hand in our country's wealth, no one can ask him why or how much.
"I'm looking for separation of powers and a real parliament, not just window dressing for the regime as it is now. If Qaboos or whoever comes after him continues with the same powers, our country will simply be the property of the al-Said family."
Another Omani activist who fled to Britain after being arrested in 2012 and again in 2013, Khalfan al-Badwawi, makes stronger demands.
"I prefer a democratic republic . . . the system can't be [one] with a dictator on the throne for more than 44 years where he survives with his network of tyranny and unfortunately supported by western countries."
Oman expert Marc Valeri, from Britain's Exeter University, says that many Omanis worry that the royal family will start feuding, old tribal rivalries will resurface and the chaos and violence from neighbouring Yemen will spill over into their country.
Uneasy calm
By law, the royal family must appoint a successor within three days of the sultan's death. Sultan Qaboos' cousins - Assad, Haitham and Shihab bin Tariq al-Said - are the most likely successors.
Dr Valeri doubts whether young Omanis will be happy to give their next ruler as much power as their parents gave Sultan Qaboos. Not only is the sultan head of state, he is also prime minister, commander-in-chief of the armed forces and minister of foreign affairs, defence and finance.
More than 80 per cent of the population was born after British intelligence helped oust Sultan Qaboos' father and put him on the throne in 1970.
"Many young people are unemployed and hold the sultan responsible for the difficulties they experience every day," Dr Valeri says.
The setting sun casts a golden hue over the cliffs of Khasab. The tourists return to their cruise ships, the Iranian smugglers load their boats with cigarettes, clothes and household goods from Dubai, and the fishermen unload their sardines and swordfish.
Is this the calm before the storm? Or will the peace and stability of Oman's past few decades remain intact?
"I hope the people of Oman realise that . . . no situation lasts forever," Mr Hanshi says. "They must ask for real reforms and start to run the country by themselves."