The Persian Gulf naming dispute concerns the gulf known historically and internationally as the Persian Gulf, after Iran (historically known as Persia or Persis and the homeland of the Persian people) became involved in an ongoing naming dispute.
The name "Persian Gulf" has been in use since at least the 10th century by Arab historians and geographers. In connection with the emergence of pan-Arabism and Arab nationalism in the 1960s, the usage of "Arabian Gulf" (Arabic: الخليج العربي) as well as just "The Gulf" increased.
The body of water is internationally recognized as the Persian Gulf. Arab governments refer to it as the "Arabian Gulf" or "The Gulf". The name "Gulf of Iran (Persian Gulf)" is used by the International Hydrographic Organization, which seeks to standardise the names of the world's bodies of water.
This body of water was referred to as the Persian Gulf by Arab historians and geographers, including the Melkite Arabic-speaking historian Agapius, writing in the 10th century.
According to authors Philip L. Kohl, Mara Kozelsky, and Nachman Ben-Yehuda in their work Selective Remembrances, Sir Charles Belgrave (British adviser to the ruler of Bahrain) was "the first westerner to use and advocate the name 'Arabian gulf', first in the journal Soat al-Bahrain (Voice of Bahrain) in 1955." Mahan Abedin of The Jamestown Foundation agrees with this, noting that Arab countries used the term "Persian Gulf" until the 1960s. However, with the rise of Arab nationalism during that decade, some Arab countries, including the ones bordering the Gulf, adopted widespread use of the term الخليج العربي (al-Khalīj al-ʻArabī; Arab Gulf or Arabian Gulf) to refer to this waterway. Teymoor Nabili (a senior presenter for Al Jazeera English) said "ironically, among the major drivers of the movement for change were Arab perceptions that Iran, driven by Washington, had supported Israel during the Arab-Israeli war of 1973".
The capture of Baghdad by the Ottoman Empire in 1534 gave Turkey access to the Indian Ocean via the port of Basra at the head of the Persian Gulf. This coincided with the early mapmaking efforts of Gerard Mercator, whose 1541 terrestrial globe attempts to give the most up-to-date information, naming the gulf Sinus Persicus, nunc Mare de Balsera ("Persian Gulf, now Sea of Basra"). However, on his world map of 1569, the name is changed to Mare di Mesendin (after the peninsula Ra's Musandam, in modern-day Oman), while his rival Abraham Ortelius, for the world atlas of 1570, opted for Mare El Catif, olim Sinus Persicus (after the Arabian port of Al Qatif), but labelled the entrance to the gulf – the present-day Strait of Hormuz – as Basora Fretum (Strait of Basra). Among all this confusion, the old name gradually reasserted itself in the 17th century, but Turkey still uses the name "Gulf of Basra" (Basra Körfezi) in Turkish today.
Following British attempts to establish control over the seaway in the late 1830s, the Times Journal, published in London in 1840, referred to the Persian Gulf as the "Britain Sea", but this name was never used in any other context.
An official letter from Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser to a Bahraini government official dated 30 August 1951; (that is, before the initiation of Nasser's pan-Arabist policies) uses the name "Persian Gulf" (الخليج الفارسي).
The discovery of the Achaemenid inscription on Kharg Island in 2007, which was written in the Old Persian language with the Old Persian cuneiform semi-syllabic alphabet, and estimated to be around 2400 years old, became a contentious issue in the naming dispute.
The matter remains very contentious as the competing naming conventions are supported by certain governments in internal literature, but also in dealings with other states and international organizations. Some parties use terms like "The Gulf" or the "Arabo-Persian Gulf". Following the Iranian Revolution of 1979 some people in Islamic groups suggested the use of "Islamic Gulf" or "Muslim Gulf". The originator of the term Islamic Gulf is not known, while some people suggest that prominent figures of the early years of the Islamic republic including Ruhollah Khomeini, Mehdi Bazargan, and Sadegh Khalkhali may have supported the idea. During his May 1979 visit to the UAE, Khalkhali suggested the term "Muslim Gulf". The idea was quickly abandoned after Iran was invaded by its predominantly Muslim neighbor, Iraq, in the Iran–Iraq War.
In Arab countries the terms "Gulf" and "Arabian Gulf" are preferred: The "Gulf" refers to the body of water known as the Arabian Gulf in GCC countries, or the Persian Gulf as referred to in many other places.
Iran only uses the term "Persian Gulf" and does not usually recognize the naming when it is referred to as "Arabian Gulf" or just the "Gulf" or by any other alternative.
In a 1974 interview by Mike Wallace in 60 Minutes, the last Shah of Iran himself preferred the term "Persian Gulf" while talking to Wallace. In February 2010, Iran threatened to ban from its airspace foreign airlines, especially those from the Gulf region, who did not use the term "Persian Gulf". In 2011, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a speech at the United Nations General Assembly where he said that the only correct name of the sea between Iran and the Arabian peninsula was the Persian Gulf, and he dismissed the use of any other names as "illegitimate and void".
In 2012, the Iranian government threatened to sue Google over its decision not to label the gulf with any name, warning it would face "serious damages" if it does not denote the area as the Persian Gulf.
Iran officially designated 30 April as National Persian Gulf Day. The date coincides with the anniversary of Abbas the Great's successful military campaign when the Portuguese navy was driven out of the Strait of Hormuz in the Capture of Ormuz (1622). The decision was taken by the High Council of Cultural Revolution, presided over by former President Mohammad Khatami, noting that the campaign launched in 2009 by certain Arab states to rename the Persian Gulf was the driver behind the decision. The Iranian postal authority issued a series of stamps commemorating the day.
Gulf Cooperation Council states prefer the use of the term "Arabian Gulf".
Abdel Khaleq al-Janabi, a Saudi Arabian historian, said "It's this name [Persian Gulf] that has been retained by history books and Arab historians, like Ibn Khaldoun and Ibn al Athir. It's also in treaties signed between the governors of the gulf and the British who dominated the region from the beginning of the 20th century ... From a scientific and historical point of view, it has been called the Persian Gulf since Alexander the Great". He said that it was "without foundation" to claim the Romans named it "Arabian Gulf". "Things didn't change until Nasser came to power and the rise of Arab nationalism. The Arabs then began to use the name 'Arabian Gulf'", he added.
In an interview with Al Wasat, Bahraini writer Hussain al-Baharna said one of the reasons for the dispute over naming the "Arabian Gulf as the Persian Gulf" is that the Red Sea was referred to as at the time of negotiations over the ownership of Bahrain "that Arabian Gulf", and it was not then possible to call what had since become the Arab Gulf region by the name "Arabian Gulf", it was called the "Persian Gulf" at that time. In recent decades, prominent scholars and political and religious leaders, including Professor Abdelhadi Tazi, Ahmad al-Saraf, Abdelilah Benkirane (Prime Minister of Morocco from 2011 to 2017), Abdul Monem Saeed, Abdul Khaliq al-Janabi, Qaradawi, and Gen. Majdi Omar, Former First Deputy of the Egyptian National Defense Council have supported the use of "Persian Gulf" and believe there is a lack of justification for changing the name.