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Old 16th March 2018, 11:58 AM   #9
Drabant1701
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Location: Sweden
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These blades are very interesting. I have one of my own so I have read about these kind of blades when given the chance. It is facinating beacause these blades really seem to have ended up almost everywhere. In Robert Hales "Islamic and oriental arms and armor" page 192, there is a sumatra sword with a blade that has the lion and "fulfiller" text, and on page 201 there is a indonesian parang that has a blade with the long quranic inscription. According to Hales these blades ended up in that region when turkish fighters answered a Jihad call, when the dutch occupied Indonesia.

It would seem a lot of these blades ended up in India. There are two examples in "Rajput arms and armour by Robert Elgood. He dates the blades to mid 19th century and being made in Caucasus for export
The quranic verse on one of those blades is translated to "Praise be to Allah, there is no strength nor power exept Allah" (page 529)

There is yet another such blade with indian fittings on page 219 in "A passion for indian arms" by Jens Nordlunde. That blade has the inscription "If it is the will of God, no power, no authority without God, the biggest the most powerful".

There is also lots more information in: the Arms Collecting Journal, Vol. 40 #1, 2002, The Persian Shamshir and the Signature of Assad Allah by Oliver Pinchot

Below picture of my trade blade. Its a heavy Kilij style sword, with the quranic inscription one one side and the lion and "fullfiller" on the other. As Tatyana wrote there is a good chance that these blades are wootz, mine is wootz but it has faded a could use an etch. But....etching swords is hard. I does however "ring" like a tuning fork if you strike it agains something (not hard of course )
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