Dispute
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 Lengeh and Kung, 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 "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 "lthough the King exercises no positive authority over any of islands of the Gulf, those on the northern shore are all considered as part of the Empire".
An 1804 map of German origin showed the southern coast of Iran as the habitat of the "Bani Hule" tribe and the islands, colored 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. This occurred in the 18th century.
Read more about this topic: Greater And Lesser Tunbs
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