Abu Musa

About

Abu Musa is a 12.8-square-kilometre (4.9 sq mi) island in the eastern Persian Gulf, near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz. The island is currently administered by Iran. Due to the depth of the sea, oil tankers and other large ships have to pass between Abu Musa and Greater and Lesser Tunbs, which makes these islands one of the most strategic points in the Persian Gulf. The island is under the administration of Iran, as part of Abumusa County, Hormozgan province. It is, however, claimed by the United Arab Emirates as part of its Sharjah emirate. It is a possible US military objective in the 2026 Iran war.

Iranian inhabitants of Abu Musa call it "Gap-sabzu" (Persian: گپ‌سبزو), which in Persian means "the great green place". On old Persian maps, the island is called:

"Boum-Ouw" (Persian: بوم‌اوو) or "Boum-Ouf" (Persian: بوم‌اوف) which in Persian means "Waterland". "Boum-Souz" (Persian: بوم‌سوز) or "Boum-Sou"/"Boum-Souw" (Persian: بوم‌سو) or "Gap-Sabzou" (Persian: گپ‌سبزو) which in Persian means "green land". In recent centuries it, has also been called Bum Musa, Persian for "the land of Musa/Moses", instead of "Boum-Sou". In Arabic sources, "Abu Musa" (Arabic: أبو موسى) comes from Abu Musa al-Ash'ari, a companion of Muhammad, who stayed on the island in 643 CE before battling the Persians.

Abu Musa island is located 70 kilometres (43 mi) south of Bandar-e Shenas and 59 kilometres (37 mi) north-northwest of Sharjah. Of the 14 islands of Hormozgan, it is the farthest from the Iranian coast. Its highest point is the 110-metre (360 ft) Mount Halva. Abu Musa city is the center of the island. The weather in Abu Musa is warm and humid, a better climate compared to other islands in the Persian Gulf. It has the most diverse ecosystem, but lacks suitable soil and water for farming. Fishing is the main industry for the locals. It is served by the regional Abu Musa Airport.

The Persian Gulf region, including Abu Musa, was ruled by Iran during the pre-Islamic era. Remnants of early Iranian inhabitants in the region persist in areas such as northern Musandam, Bahrain, and al-Hasa. Evidence regarding Arab inhabitants on the southern coastline of the Persian Gulf before the Christian era remains sparse. During the early Islamic period, Abu Musa and its surroundings were ruled by the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates, until its conquest by the Iranian Buyid dynasty in 935. Thereafter, local rulers in southern Iran managed these islands and ports with varying degrees of independence under dynasties such as the Seljuqs and Timurids. According to Davoud Bavand, a 13th century account by Yaqut al-Hamawi offers the first implied mention of Abu Musa, then under the authority of the Iranian ruler of the Kish Island. In the 16th century, the Portuguese Empire captured Abu Musa, which was later reconquered by Iran in 1622.

The sovereignty of Abu Musa is disputed between Iran, which administers the island, and the UAE, which has claimed the island since the formation of the federation in 1971 as the successor to Sharjah's prior administration. By common consent, the island had been under the control of the Al-Qasimi ruler of Sharjah. The island was covered by a protection treaty signed between the rulers of the Gulf and Britain as far back as 1819. The dispute over the ownership of the island predates the establishment of the UAE, and the first historical record of the dispute was in 1904, when the Iranians lowered a local flag of the Trucial States and replaced it with an Iranian one. This was swiftly opposed by the British Empire's authorities, and it led to the Iranian forces withdrawing shortly after occupying the islands. They attempted to occupy them again in 1923. In 1906, Salim bin Sultan, the uncle of Sharjah's ruler Saqr bin Khalid, awarded a concession for iron oxide deposit discovery on the island to three Arabs, whose workers extracted the mineral and agreed to sell it to Wonckhaus, a German enterprise. However, Saqr bin Khalid discovered and disagreed with the act, so he cancelled the grant. The workers were then removed from the island with assistance from the British, resulting in an international incident. After 1908, the UK controlled the island along with the other British-held islands in the Persian Gulf, including what is today the UAE. In the late 1960s, the UK transferred administration of the island to the British-appointed Sharjah, one of the seven sheikhdoms that would later form the UAE. For 20 consecutive days in 1964, Iranian forces occupied the territory, claiming that the landing was a military maneuver, before leaving. After the UK announced in 1968 that it would end its administrative and military positions in the Persian Gulf, Iran moved again to attach the island politically to the mainland. On 30 November 1971, two days before the official establishment of UAE, Iran and Sharjah signed a Memorandum of Understanding. They agreed to allow Sharjah to have a local police station and to Iran stationing troops on the island according to the map attached to the Memorandum of Understanding. The agreement divided the island's energy resources between the two signatories. "By agreeing to the pact, the tiny emirate prevented an invasion by Iran, which two days earlier had taken two other disputed islands, the Greater and Lesser Tunbs, which were even smaller and uninhabited."

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.