Jambiya or Khanjar?
 

Hi All

Just picked this up my question is do you consider it a jambiya or a khanjar?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=330060810085

Lew

In this area I would call this a jambiya, although other countries would call this a khanjar and still others would use both terms interchangebly.

Saudi Arabia is the only place they are called jambiya. The word comes from the arabic word hip. Khanjar means dagger in arabic

The Turks call these d.e. curved daggers "hancer". It's a phonetic rendition of the Arabic "khanjar" (= dagger), if you keep in mind that the Turkish "h" is a bit more gutteral than in English, and the "c" is pronounced like "j", the similarity is clear. In Morocco, this dagger configuration is called a "koumiya", but it's interesting to note that in the region, the weapon is slung from a shoulder-baldric of heavy cords, rather than inserted through a sash or directly attached to a belt as is done elsewhere.

Actually in present day Morocco it is called a khanjar. At least by every Berber or Taurag that I have met over there.

I'm not surprised that it is called a khanjar in the modern vernacular, after all it's a standard Arabic term. The term "koummiya" (sorry, I left out an "m" in my last post) is typically encountered in arms literature of the last century, Charles Buttin used it in his catalogs, an anternate spelling "koummya" is used by Alain Jacob in his LES ARMES BLANCHES DU MONDE ISLAMIQUE, and it is found in numerous books by 19th cent. travellers and explorers in the Maghreb.