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Originally Posted by Oliver Pinchot
Regretably, the term Indo-Persian began to be applied much more generally back in the 1950s, to any weapon which might be Persian or Indian, Afghan, Ottoman or even Caucasian, and so it remains to the present. I mention this because I think most forum members will agree that specificity and clarity in terminology are central to the scientific discourse.
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Oliver, from what I have observed it was the internet which caused "Indo-Persian" to cast such a wide net. Auctions, Ebay, dealers and buyers realized that search engines could scan and find specific terms. Using "Indo-Persian" as a catch all term made it easy to find and sell armor and weapons etc which would have previously been described in a dozen different terms.
Items from Germany, Italy, France etc could be lumped together under "European" but what about the items listed as "Oriental, Muslim, Eastern, Ottoman, Persian, Arab etc. "Indo-Persian" started to take the place of the many different terms. I use "IndoPersian" as an umbrella term as no other term currently in use brings items from so so diverse but closely related cultures together.
As often happens, terms change over the years and it seems that "Indo-Persian" has taken on an entirely new meaning. On a positive note, when you search online for "Indo-Persian weapons" or "Indo-Persian armor" you will find a vast amount of images and information that was not available even a few years ago without using many different search terms.