Not many people are visiting the pyramids along the Nile these days. Or, for that matter, hitting the shores of Tripoli for a little R&R. The Arab Spring may have opened up a long overdue political process, but it sure has put a dent in the tourist business, an economic pillar of the Middle East. In Lebanon, where tourism accounts for one fifth of the economy, tourism has dropped by some 32 percent since 2012. Street protests, suicide bombings, sectarian strife, assassinations—this sort of thing makes it hard to fill up the tour buses. Those black Al Qaeda flags do not play well on Trip Advisor either.

But there is one country that remains a wonderful exception to all the mayhem—Oman. Tucked away on the southeastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, Oman has been virtually immune to the turmoil sweeping the region. Forget the very serious problems of more distant Syria, Egypt, and Libya. Oman seems unaffected even by the negatives of its closest neighbors—it lacks the extreme architecture and huge “guest worker” and expatriate populations of Dubai and Abu Dhabi; has no patience for the “women can’t drive” intolerance of Saudi Arabia; and has kept at bay the insurgencies and violence of Yemen (home to Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula). Oman remains an extremism-free zone.

A view of the oldest section of Muscat.

I was recently in Dubai on business and needed a few days respite. A friend recommended Oman. I hopped on a plane and an hour later strolled into the modest airport arrival hall in Oman’s capital city, Muscat. Immediately I felt like I had arrived in a fairy-tale set piece. Muscat is set among hills, and right on the water. The city reminded me of Santa Barbara, with its landscaped highways, beautiful beaches, dramatic mountain backdrop, and unified architectural look. Just replace Santa Barbara’s Spanish colonial style with a carefully detailed Arabian dreamscape. Every building is freshly painted in some shade of white or cream, the lines and curves simple and elegant. When I spotted men in turbans, with daggers in their belts, it was hard not to think Thousand and One Nights. I soon learned that this was all very deliberate. In recent decades, foreign architects have imagined and constructed the “authentic” Arabian style of the grand buildings of Muscat. Architectural details in what is officially called the Sultanate of Oman are very carefully mandated, right down to the look of the air conditioner coverings and the design of the (often inadvertently humorous) store signs. I saw a fish restaurant advertising “Sale of Fish and Girl.” Nearby was the “Bird and Meet Market.”

Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said is Oman’s absolute ruler, and the rare potentate who gives absolute rule a good name. Educated in India and Britain, he is enlightened, tolerant, clever, and understated, and possesses exceptional taste—a Renaissance man in a region that sorely needs a Renaissance. Over the past 44 years he has singlehandedly and very cautiously guided his country (population approximately 3.8 million, but geographically the size of Italy) on a path to modernity. His reign is a little-known story of remarkable accomplishment.