Hi A.alnakkas,
Thanks for your sympathetic post. Unfortunately, I have no real answers. Shibr or shiber is an old Arab length unit denoting the distance between the tip of the pink and the tip of the thumb when the hand palm is fully spreat. This avarages 20cm (just under 8 inch). It is said that the name shibriya originates from this distance. While this could be true, it does not make practical sense because in most shibriyas the blade is shorter than 20cm, but the whole dagger is longer. Perhaps when the name stuck to the dagger, avarage blade length was 20cm, but even early shibriyas by the same maker vary greatly in size, as you can see above.
Shibriya is a name, not a definition, so like in most daggers, there is no absolute truth. Bedouin daggers with recurve blade are called shibriya by both collectors and local people. There are some mixed dharia/shibriya types from the Hijaz, but I don't know how local called them. There are also some mixed forms in from Syria. I think that all Syrian dagger are caller khanjar-the generic name for dagger in arabic. Other shibriya-like daggers from Palestine and also those from Majdal Shams are also called khanjar by local people (not jambiya, as they are often reffered to by collectors).
In photographs predating WWI, bedouin (bedu) carry daggers similar to the shibriya, but with specific curved blade shape that is popular in other daggers from the same period and area. I don't know how they were called. This rather lengthy post sumarizes what I know. I added some examples and old photos of this latter shibriya precursor type.
Regards, Eytan
|