Bayt al Grindlays, Madinat al Ilam - home 1985-1990

An Englishman called John Ovington, who was Chaplain to King James II, visited Muscat in 1663 AD and wrote, 'These Arabians are very courteous in their deportment, and extreme civil to all strangers; they offer neither violence or affront in any way; and tho' they are very tenacious of their own principles, and admirers of their own religion, yet do they never impose it upon any; not are their morals evened with such furious zeal, as to divest them of humanity and a tender respect...in fine these are a People naturally temperate and just, and endued with those excellent qualities which Grecian philosophers and Roman moralists endeavoured to inspire into their subjects, tho' they missed their aim." (Man, Twenty-five Centuries of Travel Writing, Xavier Beguin Billecocq)