[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

This is a remarkable Omani Khanjar of quite some age which if it is what I think it is may be one of the oldest I have seen to date perhaps from the al Busayyidi dynasty of Saiid bin Sultan who ruled 1804 to 1856 and who died on board a warship off Zanzibar .. a country he absorbed as part of Oman ..in fact he made it the capital through Stonetown Zanzibar and vastly important as a herb growing, slavery and centre and hub of the trade in Ivory and Rhino and other commodities...

One of his wives designed a Khanjar known as The Busaidi Dagger but before that there was a dagger quite similar ...I think this style with its seven rings and straight T shaped hilt (this one is broken unequally on both ears so it looked different in its younger days.) Post 1 looks at these Royal Busaidi weapons . The Richardson and Dorr has a similar weapon to this which I will dig out later.

Thus actually the Muscat Dagger had a T shaped hilt normal across much of Oman and carried 7 rings which Sheherezad copied onto the Royal item and with a very Indian design lavish and highly decorated hilt. It was the Hilt which she brought to the design for the Royal Khanjar the 7 rings were already here...on the Muscat item... Interestingly this weapon carries 5 inner rings of silver and two outer rings of what looks like copper or brass... I have no idea why but there is on this weapon a really important play with the geometric figure 5...which I will cover here..

5 is very lucky as a Talismanic figure in many cultures... In Oman it is related to the hand of Fatimah (the five fingers of) and here unlike in say Morrocco where an actual hand is fashioned in their jewellery it is represented by a geometric form like a figure 5 in dominos . This is often the décor on lucky charm boxes (Hirz) worn as a neck pendant.
See your last picture ...above the rings the section with figure 5s starting with a big silver dot in the centre there are many exploding figure 5 geometries working outwards ...They are hand of Fatimah 5s. Along the base of the shabak or triangular net construction are 5 silver additions . I note also that the Rings are also 5 in number on the inner belt...and other 5 geometries in the lower section .

The blade is very old going by the wear and like other parts of any khanjar could be from an even earlier weapon...To the back of the hilt is a strengthener of a style I have never seen; probably fashioned to save the hilt from disintegrating... It may have cracked I cannot tell...but a fixing like this probably means the hilt was an heirloom and the owner wanted it kept together as such. The material looks like Rhino.

See 165 for similar outer rings on a Royal Khanjar but one extra point Your Khanjar has very peculiar fixings reflected in the Quba at the end of these 7 dot flowers . The fixings between the rings follow this pattern. Please see 168 for similar fixings between the rings. 168 is the dagger from the Richardson and Dorr I was talking about earlier... This to my eye pinpoints the weapon much more clearly as described.

There is discussion here as to whether it is from the Sharqiyyah or has Yemeni style in its silver work and so on but to me it follows the structure and description of The Muscat Khanjar.