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Old 20th July 2017, 08:40 PM   #95
S.Al-Anizi
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Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Arabia
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Dear Ibrahim,

Many thanks for the interesting topic I just happened to read through it for the first time.

Now as a researcher, with Arab weaponry being the field that I endeavor to increase my knowledge in, I have been focusing on pre-modern era Arab weapons as best as I could.

All the literature handed down to us by the likes of Al-Kindi, that has been gathered and analyzed by the likes of Prof. Abdulrahman Zaky, the poetry, the drawings in the manuscripts of the Abbasid period, the paintings within the Ummayad desert castles, indeed do portray swords.

We also have sword blades from the period that are intact, mainly in Istanbul and a certain blade in Cairo.

Unfortunately however, we have no definitive examples of hilts and scabbards from that era. The swords with original surviving hilts in Topkapi are all from the Mamluk era (I have also seen some in German Auctions), and one sword attributed to Najm Al Din Ayyub (Saladin's father) still retains its original crossguard, but the Arab swords of the earlier period have all been refitted with newer hilts and scabbards.

To note that Arab blades from that era were much longer than this Omani style; being mostly between 82-90cm long whereas I doubt that these swords exceed 80cm most of the time.

As much as I applaud your research within this field, we have yet to see a solid connection of this style of sword to the Abbasid period. Indeed it looks almost identical to the medieval Mamluk hilts, however Abbasid is and 751AD is 3 centuries earlier Ibrahim.

Even Robert Elgood with all the research he conducted, could not pinpoint the exact origin of these Omani swords, where they were made to be exact.

I do hope you strive to find more information about these swords and their origins, as with Arab weapons info is very hard to come by.

Apart from what was gathered by Abdulrahman Zaky, I have come to a dead stop in my research of the weapons of pre-modern Arabia, as nothing has survived.
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