1 Rial - Qaboos 26th National Day, Sultanah, Silver

Issued to mark the 26th National Day of Oman in 1996, this coin commemorates the anniversary of Sultan Qaboos bin Said's accession to power on July 23, 1970, when he deposed his father Said bin Taimur in a bloodless palace coup backed by British intelligence. The elder sultan had kept Oman deliberately isolated — no schools, no hospitals, no paved roads outside Muscat — and Qaboos's modernization program transformed the country within a single generation. The "Sultanah" designation in the series name reflects the commemorative program the Central Bank maintained through the 1990s for national occasions.