The article linked to below has one line referring to Oman being on UTC +6.5 that doesn't appear to be correct.
I sent the below to the author, but did not hear back. Does anyone know if there is some history of Oman being on UTC +6.5?
"Hi Ashleigh. I just read your article at https://thenational.ae/arts-culture/why-gulf-standard-time-is-far-from-standard-the-fascinating-story-behind-the-time-zone-s-invention-1.1052589. It's very interesting. But I noticed one apparent inconsistency that I'm curious about. The article says "At the time [referring to 1944], other time zones in the Arabian Gulf included Basra (Iraq) GMT +3 and Jiwani (Oman) at GMT +6.5", yet later in the article it says that Oman has used GMT +4 since 1920. Is this +6.5 correct for Oman? If so, what is the history of it?
"Also, for whatever it's worth, googling for Jiwani, I find that it is in Pakistan, not Oman. And neither Pakistan nor Oman are along the Arabian Gulf (other than the Musandam Peninsula). From what I could find, it doesn't appear that this part of Pakistan or Oman ever used GMT +6.5. But if there is some history about either place having used this time zone, I'm very curious about it."
Aaron
* backzone (Asia/Bahrain): Adjust transitions before 1944 to
match Ashleigh Stewart’s article in today’s The National (Abu Dhabi).
---
backzone | 17 ++++++++++++++++-
1 file changed, 16 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/backzone b/backzone
index 91fa21d..7cf026d 100644
--- a/backzone
+++ b/backzone
@@ -459,7 +459,22 @@ Zone Asia/Aden 2:59:54 - LMT 1950
3:00 - +03
# Bahrain
-Zone Asia/Bahrain 3:22:20 - LMT 1920 # Manamah
+#
+# From Paul Eggert (2020-07-22):
+# Most of this data comes from:
+# Stewart A. Why Gulf Standard Time is far from standard: the fascinating story
+# behind the time zone's invention. The National (Abu Dhabi). 2020-07-22.
+# https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/why-gulf-standard-time-is-far-from-standard-the-fascinating-story-behind-the-time-zone-s-invention-1.1052589
+# Stewart writes that before 1940 some companies in Bahrain were at +0330 and
+# others at +0323. Reginald George Alban, a British political agent based in
+# Manama, worked to standardize this, and from 1941-07-20 Bahrain was at
+# +0330. However, BOAC asked that clocks be moved to gain more light at day's
+# end, so Bahrain switched to +04 on 1944-01-01.
+#
+# We don't know when companies chose +0330 or +0323 before 1940; for now
+# assume that there was no real standard in Bahrain before 1941-07-20.
+Zone Asia/Bahrain 3:22:20 - LMT 1941 Jul 20 # Manamah
+ 3:30 - +0330 1944 Jan 1
4:00 - +04 1972 Jun
3:00 - +03
--
2.17.1