In 1580 the Venetian jeweller Gasparo Balbi noted 'Chorf' in a list of places on the east coast of the UAE, and this is almost certainly Khor Fakkan. The Portuguese built a fort at Khor Fakkan. By 1666 this was a ruin, for it figures in the log book of the Dutch vessel known as the Meerkat where we read: 'Gorfacan is a place on a small bay which has about 200 small houses all built from date branches, near the beach. It had on the Northern side a triangular Portuguese fortress, of which the desolate ruin can still be seen. On the Southern coast of the bay in a corner there is another fortress on a hill but there is no garrison nor artillery on it, and it is also in ruins. This place has a beautiful valley with a multitude of date palms and some figtrees and there also grow melons, watermelons and myrrh (!). Under the trees there are several wells which are used for irrigation. It is good and fresh water'.

One reason for the ruinous state of the forts at Khor Fakkan may have been that the Persian navy, under the command of Sheikh Muhammad Suhari (an Omani from Sohar), invaded the East Coast of what is now the Emirates in 1623 and, facing a Portuguese counter-attack, withdrew to the Portuguese forts, including that of Khor Fakkan. When the Persians were expelled, the Portuguese commander Ruy Freire urged the people of Khor Fakkan to remain loyal to the Portuguese crown, and established a Portuguese customs office as well. In 1737, however, long after the Portuguese had been expelled from Arabia, the Persians again invaded Khor Fakkan, with the help of the Dutch, during their intervention in the Omani civil war. In 1765 Khor Fakkan belonged to a sheikh of the Qawasim, according to the German traveller Carsten Niebuhr, just as it does to this day.