The 1856 Succession That Split Zanzibar and Oman

In 1856, the death of Said bin Busaid, the Omani sultan who had built Zanzibar into a clove-and-slave empire, triggered a succession crisis between his sons Majid and Thuwaini. This episode unpacks the bitter rivalry, the British-mediated Canning Award, and the permanent partition of the Busaid Sultanate into two separate realms: the Sultanate of Zanzibar and the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman. We explore how the split reshaped Indian Ocean trade, weakened Omani naval power, and set the stage for European colonialism. Along the way, we meet the key players — from the sultan's sons to Lord Canning in Calcutta — and examine the tangled legacy of a divided family that still echoes in modern-day Oman and Tanzania. #Zanzibar #Oman #BusaidSultanate #SaidBinBusaid #MajidBinSaid #ThuwainiBinSaid #CanningAward #SuccessionCrisis #1856 #IndianOceanHistory #BritishEmpire #CloveTrade #SlaveTrade #StoneTown #OmaniEmpire #ColonialHistory #History #FexingoHistory Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo