Persian Gulf

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Hendorabi
Island

July 13, 2001
The Iranian

HENDORABI ISLAND. Variations, e.g., Hindarabi, Hindorabi, Handorabi, Andarabi, Inderabi. 26039'N, 53035'E. An island-hamlet of the Lavan Island village, in the Kish township, county of Lengeh, Hormuzgan Province of Iran. Hendorabi is one of the four islands in the Lavan-Kish group of islands that dot Iran's Shibkuh coast from Nakhilu to Charak. Almost equidistant from Lavan/Shatvar and Kish islands, about 25 kilometers from either, Hendorabi is 7 kilometers from Chiru on the mainland. Nearly 7 kilometers long and 5 kilometers wide, the island rises gradually to a flat center that measures a modest maximum height of 30 meters. The shoals, reefs, and banks that surround the island give the impression that much of it is under water, which submergence may explain the island's toponymy in terms of the Persian words andar (in or under) + ab (water). Because of these features access to the island at low tide is obtained only from the east side.

According to the Greek historian Arrian, Alexander the Great's admiral, Nearchus, identified the island as Kaikandros (Cecandrus). J. B. Billecocq, a nineteenth century French historian-geographer posited that Nearchus may have identified the island in relationship to Kaik (Kish). It is perhaps even more plausible that the name Kaikandros arose as the answer to the query, "Whose island is that?," to which the answer could have been that it was the island of "kaikand," which in ancient Persian meant "king of the coast," consisting of the word "kai," as in Kaikavous, Kaikhosroe, and "kand" apparently meaning "coast". The allusion to a "kai" at the time could have signified a relationship to a legendary Persian prince, such as Kaikavous, for example, who is believed to have founded the nearby Siraf (near present-day Taheri) on the mainland. In Ibn Balkhi's Farsnameh (written ca. 1111), the island is referred to as Afzuni, perhaps referring to an "abundance" (from fizun) of some amenity found on the island. Consensus, however, has it that medieval Arab and Persian geographers knew it mostly as Abrun. This could have been an orthographic variant of Afzun, or may have had a meaning altogether separate.

According to Iraj Afshar Sistani, an Iranian historical geographer, the source of abrun was the Arabicized ayizun of the Greek iezun, said to have meant "ever spring-like." Certainly, the island's thin green grass cover in the early spring months would have justified such a name. Regardless, like Andarabi, Abrun, too contained an allusion to water (ab).

Notwithstanding the extensive pearl banks that lie near the island, Hendorabi otherwise does not figure prominently in the history of the Persian Gulf. Its inaccessibility, inadequate water supply, and general inhospitable environment, including the presence of snakes, made it all the more marginal. It was however close enough to Charak, an outlet port for Shiraz, Kish, and other destinations along the Bushehr-Lingeh run that vessels from India, Persia, and Arabia would touch there.

The Portuguese variously noted the island as Andra, Andrany, Anderoya, and Andravia. This last name contained the familiar replacement of the sound "b" for the sound "v" which one often encounters in the Iberian languages, such as the pronunciation (b/Venezuela). The French and English interpreted the island's name by referring to the more familiar sounds of India (Inde) and Arabia (Arabie) and before soon the island came to be depicted as Inderabia; the Persian rendition internalized the allusion to Hind and Arab and so sprang the designation Hindarabi and its many variants, such as Hendorabi.

The Portuguese in the 1500s built a station on Hendorabi and in early twentieth century the British, who were responsible for the navigational lighting and buoyage in the Persian Gulf, set up a beacon on the island. While Kish and Charak each received a customs post in 1902, Chiru in 1904, and Lavan in 1905, Hendorabi did not; this testified to its rather insignificant status.

At the turn of the twentieth century, the aboriginal inhabitants of the island consisted predominantly of some 500 Obaidli, a Persian Arab tribe inhabiting principally the area in and around Chiru on the Persian coast. The date groves and fishing that sustained them and other inhabitants then continue to provide sustenance for the aboriginal Obaidli and other islanders, whose numbers have been fluctuating every so often -- from 200 heads in 1941, to 73 heads in 1966, to 220 in 1973, to 33 heads (7 households) in 1986, to 45 heads (10 households) in 1991.

In 1991, the island was host to some 270 additional non-indigenous residents, who were there mostly on account of the island's development projects. Once the terminal point of the Astara-Hendorabi rallye races, Hendorabi's proximity to Kish, which is an international playground and a free trade zone, makes Hendorabi an attractive offshore tourist stop for the visitors to Kish, as well as for its own attraction, such as the coral reefs stocked with a variegate marine life.

Author

Guive Mirfendereski is a professorial lecturer in international relations and law and practices law in Massachusetts.

Comment for The Iranian letters section Comment to the writer Guive Mirfendereski