It is a very interesting discussion since it reflects what happens when a fact is placed in a publication in this case "Book of the Sword" by Burton where the S'boula appears as a ZANZIBARI WEAPON spuriously as it turned out along with two other weapons equally wrongly placed on the same page...What Burton probably would have preferred to write was that weapons from other trading regions often appeared on the Zanzibar streets like this S'boula from North African shores...with traders from Morocco etc.
In fact it took decades before this myth was disproven and largely, I understand, owing to work from this Forum where the right attribution was noted.
Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.
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