A nice rencong. You may have already seens this from Barbara Leigh's book on Aceh crafts "Hands of Time"
Acehnese say that the rencong takes the shape of the invocation, "Bismillaah In the name of God, the merciful and compassionate."
According to Drs. Syamsuddin and Drs. Nur Abbas of the Department of Education and Culture in Aceh, the component parts of the rencong can be likened to individual letters of the formal Arabic script huruf gundul, literally bare lettering, of the phrase Bismillaah
The hilt of the rencong is in the shape of "ba"
The decoration at the base of the hilt is "sin"
The blade's shape is "mim"
The shape of the metal parts at the top of the blade is "lam"
The base of the scabbard has the shape of the letter "ha"
Together, "ba, sin, mim, lam and ha" make up the world, "Bismillaah"
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