Qaboos bin Said Al Said (Arabic: قابوس بن سعيد آل سعيد, romanized: Qābūs ibn Saʿīd Āl Saʿīd, 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 Al Bu Said dynasty,[4] he was the longest-serving leader in the Middle East and Arab world at the time of his death,[5] having ruled for almost half a century.