Khuriya Muriya Islands

The Khuriya Muriya Islands or Al-Hallaniyat Islands (also Kuria Muria, Kooria Mooria, Curia Muria, Al-Hallaniyat) (Arabic: جزر الحلانيات, romanized: Juzur al-Ḥallāniyāt) are a group of five islands in the Arabian Sea, 40 km (25 mi) off the southeastern coast of Oman. The islands form part of the province of Shalim and the Hallaniyat Islands in the governorate of Dhofar.

History

In antiquity the islands were called the Zenobii or Zenobiou Islands (Greek: Ζηνοβίου νησία; Latin: Zenobii Insulae) or Doliche (Greek: Δολίχη). The islands were mentioned by several early writers including Ptolemy (vi. 7. § 47) who numbered them as seven small islands lying in Khuriya Muriya Bay (Greek: Σαχαλίτης κόλπος; Latin: Sinus Sachalites), towards the entrance of the "Persian Gulf" (most likely the modern Gulf of Aden). The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a periplus dated to between AD 40 and 70, thus mentioned the Khuriya Muriya Islands, then called Isles of Zenobios:

After sailing along it over open water for about 2000 stades from the Isles of Zenobios, you come to the Isle of Sarapis, as it is called, about 120 stades offshore.

Modern history

In 1854 the sultan of Muscat (later Muscat and Oman, now Oman) presented the islands to Queen Victoria as a gift and responsibility for the islands was granted to the Bombay government in British India. There was some concern at the time that the deed of cession was null since the sultan had no rights over the archipelago. The Red Sea and India Telegraph Company, formed in 1858, intended to use one of the islands as a base for a telegraph connection between Aden and Karachi but the project was abandoned in 1861 after sections of the cable failed.