Mīnāb

Minab stands in the fertile coastal country near the site of Old Hormuz, the mainland port that once served Kerman and Sistan. The old harbour lay on a creek connected with the Minab River, amid a region of date palms. Merchants brought goods through it from the interior to ships bound across the Indian Ocean. Its rulers also held ports on the Arabian shore, including Qalhat and Julfar.

Marco Polo visited Hormuz twice in the late thirteenth century and remarked on its flourishing trade and oppressive climate. Repeated incursions into southeastern Persia led its ruler Ayaz to transfer his people and possessions to the island of Jarun, where a new Hormuz rose. The neighbouring fortress of Minab remained important: the king of Hormuz took refuge there in 1318, and Timur's son Sultan Muhammad captured it in 1397.

The fortunes of the mainland settlement remained closely tied to the island kingdom and the struggle for its maritime revenues. After the Portuguese took island Hormuz, Minab was listed among its mainland dependencies. It sheltered Portuguese and Iranian families during the Ottoman attack on Hormuz in 1552 and came under Safavid control in 1602. In 1621 English East India Company representatives negotiated there with Imam Quli Khan, agreeing to assist Shah Abbas in the campaign against the Portuguese on Hormuz and Qeshm.