Persian Gulf at its narrowest, in the Strait of Hormuz. The waters are overall very shallow, with a maximum depth of and an average depth of . Countries with a coastline on the Persian Gulf are (clockwise, from the north): Iran; Oman's Musandam exclave; the United Arab Emirates; Saudi Arabia Qatar, on a peninsula off the Saudi coast; Bahrain, on an island; Kuwait; and Iraq in the northwest. Various small islands also lie within the Persian Gulf, some of which are the subject of territorial disputes between the states of the region. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the Persian Gulf's southern limit
Piracy in the Persian Gulf coast of Fars during the reign of Yazdegerd II. Ibn Hawqal, a 10th-century history chronicler, alludes to piracy in the Persian Gulf in his book "The Renaissance Of Islam". He describes it as such: In Richard Hodges' commentary on the increase of trade in the Persian Gulf around 825, he makes references to Bahraini pirate attacks on ships on ships from China, India and Iran. He believes the pirates were attacking ships travelling from Siraf to Basra. Marco Polo made observations of piracy in the Persian Gulf. He states that in the seventh century, the islands of Bahrain were held