"Also to be noted, is that modern scholars who have access to muslim sources in several languajes, rarely traslate them, so they remain as a de facto monopoly of the scarce reesearchers interested on this subjects. We need more occidental arabian-iranian-indian speakers interested in the traslation, publication and study of this texts."
I agree, but there is such an appalling scarcity of academic endeavours there! Perhaps, there are some local texts for the "internal market", but even Pant's mammoth 3-volume set relies heavily on ... Rawson! At least in the weapon volume~50% of all illustrations are from the Rawson's book. Iran is even worse: the first attempt to properly catalogue swords in Teheran was made by the Russian Romanovski; he died soon thereafter and no attempt was made by the local museum keepers, university staff or anyone else to continue the work. They had to wait until Manouchehr Khorasani came from Germany to teach them and to publish a book. Arab countries.... The Saudi exhibition ( the "Islamic Weapons" catalogue) is acoffee table book and is the only one before the Furussiyya Foundation book.
What would we do without Elgood, Gorelik, Astvatsaturyan, Nicolle etc?
The only true research in the area is going in Europe ( including Russia).
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