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Greater and Lesser Tunbs
Greater Tunb and Lesser Tunb (Persian: تنب بزرگ, Tonb-e Bozorg, Arabic: طنب الكبرى, Tunb el-Kubra) are two small islands in the eastern Persian Gulf, close to the Strait of Hormuz. They lie at 26°15′N 55°16′E / 26.250°N 55.267°E and 26°14′N 55°08′E / 26.233°N 55.133°E, respectively, some 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) from each other and 20 kilometres (12 mi) south of the Iranian island of Qeshm. The islands are administered by Iran as part of its Hormozgan province.
Greater Tunb has a surface area of 10.3 km2 (4.0 sq mi). It is known for its red soil. There are conflicting descriptions about its population: While some sources state there are between a few dozen and a few hundred inhabitants, others describe the island as having no native civilian population. There is reported to be an Iranian garrison and naval station, an aircraft runway, a fish storage facility and a red-soil mine. Lesser Tunb has a surface of 2 km2 (0.77 sq mi) and is uninhabited with the exception of a small airfield, harbour, and entrenched Iranian military unit.
The toponymy of Tonb is in all likelihood of Persian origin. In the local Persian dialect(s) of southern Persia, the noun Tomb and Tonb, with its diminutive Tonbu or Tombu, as it applied to Lesser Tonb (Nāmiuh or Nābiuh Tonb), means "hill" or "low elevation" (cfr. Medieval Latin tumba and Ancient Greek tymbos, with the same meaning, roots for "tomb"). The terms have the same meaning in the larger Dari Persian language system; this explains in part the traces of tonb and tonbu in the toponyms found in the Bushehr and Lengeh regions, some 300 miles (480 km) apart. There are other toponyms such as Tonb-e Seh in Tangestān and Tonbānu on Qeshm island.
Etymologically, the word TNB is also a proper Arabic word, which means to anchor, according to the Medieval Arab linguist Ibn Fares.
Reference to Great Tonb as an Iranian island is found in Ibn Balkhi's 12th-century Farsnameh and Hamdallah Mustawfi Kazvini's 14th-century Nuzhat al-Qulub. The Tonbs were dominions of the Kings of Hormuz from 1330 or so until Hormuz's capitulation to the Portuguese in 1507. The Tonbs remained a part of the Hormuzi-Portuguese administration until 1622, when the Portuguese were expelled from the Persian littoral by the Persian central government. During this period, the human geography, commerce, and territorial administration of the Tonbs, along with Abu Musa and Sirri islands, became intimately connected with the province of Fars, notably the Persian ports of Bandar Lengeh and Bandar Kang, and the nearby Qeshm and Hengam islands.
It has been remarked, in the context of the limits of the Persian empire in the Persian Gulf in the middle of the 18th century, that "[a]ll the islands off the Persian coast, from Kharqu and Kharaq in the north to Hormoz and Larak in the south, were rightly Persian, though many were in the hands of Arab tribes". Consistent with this, the British in 1800 were also of the belief that "[a]lthough the King exercises no positive authority over any of the islands of the Persian Gulf, those on the northern shore are all considered as part of the Empire".
An 1804 map of German origin[citation needed] showed the southern coast of Iran as the habitat of the "Bani Hule" tribe and the islands, coloured in the same orange, were designated as "Thunb unbenohul". The "Bani Hule" or Howalla were a loosely defined grouping of peoples of distant Arab origin but with longstanding residence on the Iranian coast. Regardless of the spelling of the toponym as "Tonb", be it from the Arabic tÂonb (abode) or from the Persian tonb (hill), the attribution to the larger island of this epithet highlighted the islands' intimate association with the Persian coast and its inhabitants. One of the clans belonging to the Howalla or "Bani Hule" of the Persian coast was that of the Qasimi. Their Arab tribal origins are not as clearly established as is, however, their Persian geographical origin immediately prior to their rise to notoriety in the lower Persian Gulf.[clarification needed] This occurred in the 18th century.
During the 1720s, the Qasami had emigrated from the Persian coast and established themselves as a force in Sharjah and Julfar (Ras al-Khaimah, now part of UAE). In the period 1747–59, a branch of the Qasemi from Sharjah established itself on the Persian littoral, but it was expelled in 1767. By 1780, the Qasemi branch was re-established on the Persian coast and began to feud with other coastal tribes over pasturage in the islands off Langeh. The Iranian argument for the ownership of the disputed islands is that the Qasami controlled the islands while they were located on the Persian coast, not when they later emigrated to the UAE coast. In April 1873, the islands were reported as a dependency of the Persian Fars province to the British Resident, which the Resident acknowledged. In the period 1786–1835 the official British opinion, surveys, and maps identified the Tonbs as part of Langeh, subject to the government of the province of Fars. Chief among them were the works of Lt. John McCluer (1786), political counselor John Macdonald Kinneir (1813), and Lt. George Barns Brucks (1829).
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Greater and Lesser Tunbs
Greater Tunb and Lesser Tunb (Persian: تنب بزرگ, Tonb-e Bozorg, Arabic: طنب الكبرى, Tunb el-Kubra) are two small islands in the eastern Persian Gulf, close to the Strait of Hormuz. They lie at 26°15′N 55°16′E / 26.250°N 55.267°E and 26°14′N 55°08′E / 26.233°N 55.133°E, respectively, some 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) from each other and 20 kilometres (12 mi) south of the Iranian island of Qeshm. The islands are administered by Iran as part of its Hormozgan province.
Greater Tunb has a surface area of 10.3 km2 (4.0 sq mi). It is known for its red soil. There are conflicting descriptions about its population: While some sources state there are between a few dozen and a few hundred inhabitants, others describe the island as having no native civilian population. There is reported to be an Iranian garrison and naval station, an aircraft runway, a fish storage facility and a red-soil mine. Lesser Tunb has a surface of 2 km2 (0.77 sq mi) and is uninhabited with the exception of a small airfield, harbour, and entrenched Iranian military unit.
The toponymy of Tonb is in all likelihood of Persian origin. In the local Persian dialect(s) of southern Persia, the noun Tomb and Tonb, with its diminutive Tonbu or Tombu, as it applied to Lesser Tonb (Nāmiuh or Nābiuh Tonb), means "hill" or "low elevation" (cfr. Medieval Latin tumba and Ancient Greek tymbos, with the same meaning, roots for "tomb"). The terms have the same meaning in the larger Dari Persian language system; this explains in part the traces of tonb and tonbu in the toponyms found in the Bushehr and Lengeh regions, some 300 miles (480 km) apart. There are other toponyms such as Tonb-e Seh in Tangestān and Tonbānu on Qeshm island.
Etymologically, the word TNB is also a proper Arabic word, which means to anchor, according to the Medieval Arab linguist Ibn Fares.
Reference to Great Tonb as an Iranian island is found in Ibn Balkhi's 12th-century Farsnameh and Hamdallah Mustawfi Kazvini's 14th-century Nuzhat al-Qulub. The Tonbs were dominions of the Kings of Hormuz from 1330 or so until Hormuz's capitulation to the Portuguese in 1507. The Tonbs remained a part of the Hormuzi-Portuguese administration until 1622, when the Portuguese were expelled from the Persian littoral by the Persian central government. During this period, the human geography, commerce, and territorial administration of the Tonbs, along with Abu Musa and Sirri islands, became intimately connected with the province of Fars, notably the Persian ports of Bandar Lengeh and Bandar Kang, and the nearby Qeshm and Hengam islands.
It has been remarked, in the context of the limits of the Persian empire in the Persian Gulf in the middle of the 18th century, that "[a]ll the islands off the Persian coast, from Kharqu and Kharaq in the north to Hormoz and Larak in the south, were rightly Persian, though many were in the hands of Arab tribes". Consistent with this, the British in 1800 were also of the belief that "[a]lthough the King exercises no positive authority over any of the islands of the Persian Gulf, those on the northern shore are all considered as part of the Empire".
An 1804 map of German origin[citation needed] showed the southern coast of Iran as the habitat of the "Bani Hule" tribe and the islands, coloured in the same orange, were designated as "Thunb unbenohul". The "Bani Hule" or Howalla were a loosely defined grouping of peoples of distant Arab origin but with longstanding residence on the Iranian coast. Regardless of the spelling of the toponym as "Tonb", be it from the Arabic tÂonb (abode) or from the Persian tonb (hill), the attribution to the larger island of this epithet highlighted the islands' intimate association with the Persian coast and its inhabitants. One of the clans belonging to the Howalla or "Bani Hule" of the Persian coast was that of the Qasimi. Their Arab tribal origins are not as clearly established as is, however, their Persian geographical origin immediately prior to their rise to notoriety in the lower Persian Gulf.[clarification needed] This occurred in the 18th century.
During the 1720s, the Qasami had emigrated from the Persian coast and established themselves as a force in Sharjah and Julfar (Ras al-Khaimah, now part of UAE). In the period 1747–59, a branch of the Qasemi from Sharjah established itself on the Persian littoral, but it was expelled in 1767. By 1780, the Qasemi branch was re-established on the Persian coast and began to feud with other coastal tribes over pasturage in the islands off Langeh. The Iranian argument for the ownership of the disputed islands is that the Qasami controlled the islands while they were located on the Persian coast, not when they later emigrated to the UAE coast. In April 1873, the islands were reported as a dependency of the Persian Fars province to the British Resident, which the Resident acknowledged. In the period 1786–1835 the official British opinion, surveys, and maps identified the Tonbs as part of Langeh, subject to the government of the province of Fars. Chief among them were the works of Lt. John McCluer (1786), political counselor John Macdonald Kinneir (1813), and Lt. George Barns Brucks (1829).