When did Oman become an “Empire” from a “Sultanate” or an “Imamate”? What are the central attributes of an “Omani Empire”? Can we speak of an “Omani Imperialism”? Through unpacking the notion of an often called a ‘maritime’ or a ‘commercial’ ‘Omani Empire’—stretched from the Persian Gulf to Coastal Balochistan, Southern Arabia, and along East Africa—this paper investigates: When and how did the imperial framing of the al-Busaidi polity develop? How do we assess this discursive construction of temporality? What are its historiographical foundations, patterns, and expressions? Moreover, what are the political, social, and cultural consequences of the imperial frame and how does it define transoceanic mobilites and legacies in the Western Indian Ocean? Ultimately, what is the symbolic power of the Empire as terminology and idea? What does it signify for the sociocultural diversity and historical experiences of mobility across ‘Oman as an Empire’? By historicizing the notion of an ‘Omani Empire’ in European colonial and Arab writings from the 19th to the 20th centuries, this paper demonstrates the implications of the imperial conceptualization of transoceanic mobility in historical narratives and the legacy of this imperial frame to assess what does it render visible and invisible in the present Omani nation-building narrative.