The name "Failaka" is thought to be derived from the ancient Greek φυλάκιο(ν) – fylakio(n) "outpost".

[2] Failaka Island is located 50 km southeast of the spot where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers empty into the Persian Gulf.

[3] For thousands of years, the island has been a strategic prize to control the lucrative trade that passed up and down the Persian Gulf.

3000 BC), Failaka was known as "Agarum", the land of Enzak, a great god in the Dilmun civilization according to Sumerian cuneiform texts found on the island.

[8] During the Neo-Babylonian Period, Enzak was identified with Nabu, the ancient Mesopotamian patron god of literacy, the rational arts, scribes and wisdom.

The short text readsː [La]'ù-la Panipa, daughter of Sumu-lěl, the servant of Inzak of Akarum.

[10] Despite the scholarly consensus that ancient Dilmun encompasses three modern locations - the eastern littoral of Arabia from the vicinity of modern Kuwait to Bahrain; the island of Bahrain; the island of Failaka of Kuwait - few researchers have taken into account the radically different geography of the basin represented by the Persian Gulf before its reflooding as sea levels rose about 6000 BCE.

[12] Studies indicate traces of human settlement can be found on Failaka dating back to as early as the end of the 3rd millennium BC, and extending until the 20th century AD.

[16][17] Failaka also contained temples dedicated to the worship of Shamash, the Mesopotamian sun god in the Babylonian pantheon.

[25] This was likely a Hellenization of the local name Akar (Aramaic 'KR), derived from the ancient bronze-age toponym Agarum.

[26] Another suggestion is that the name Ikaros was influenced by the local É-kara temple, dedicated to the Babylonian sun-god Shamash.

[25] Strabo wrote that on the island there was a temple of Apollo and an oracle of Artemis (Tauropolus) (μαντεῖον Ταυροπόλου).

[37] The island was further visited and inspected by Archias, Androsthenes of Thasos, and Hiero during three exploration expeditions ordered by Alexander the Great during 324 BC.

[47] Archaeologists are currently excavating nearby sites to understand the extent of the settlements that flourished in the eighth and ninth centuries A.D.[47] An old island tradition is that a community grew up around a Christian mystic and hermit.

In 1682, Sheikh Musaeed Al-Azmi, who was born on the island, published a copy of Muwatta Imam Malik, which is considered to be the oldest document in Kuwait’s modern history.

Nevertheless, Failaka Island is becoming a popular holiday destination from Kuwait City since the establishment of the "Wanasa Beach" resort including live music, horse-riding, canoeing, and kayaking activities.

Although the island's infrastructure remains poor, Failaka is beginning to develop a local tourist industry based upon fishing, boating, swimming, sailing and other water sports.

The few remaining local residents are mostly those Failakawans who lived with their families on the island prior to the Iraqi Invasion of 1990.

On the mainland, in Kuwait City, various schemes have been discussed to build a bridge to the island and develop Failaka into a vacation paradise.

A small (1.8 meter high) Tell G3 was opened on the north end of the site finding two c.2000 BC occupation levels (both stone robbed with a destruction layer between) before hitting virgin soil.

[64][65][66] Several hundred meters north the small site of Tell Khazneh, largely stone-robbed by villagers, was excavated finding a block with an Aramaic inscription.

[67] A team from Georgia excavated at Failaka between 2011 and 2017 focusing on the Al-Awazim area on the northeast coast of the island.

[68] After a survey in 2012 Polish excavators worked at the Islamic period site Kharaib el-Desht in the northwest part of the island in 2013, 2015, and 2016.

[71] There are indications the site was occupied in the Neo-Babylonian period based on a grave and a foundation stone inscription (found reused in a modern home near Tell F6) "This palace belongs to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon".