This design on the sword may be even more simple and obvious if you are a practicing Muslim or rather one familiar with the Islamic artistic cosmology. I am most certainly not. However one could see the design in two parts. The swirly part nearest the tip is a cloud which symbolises the sky, the portal to heaven. Heaven being one of several layers of gates in the celestial world. After heaven there is another portal the sun gate the divine light and leading to the throne of god.
The part nearest the hilt that I suggested was a dragon may still be so. But I now think it is most likely a representation of Eden. What I saw as scales though upside down, is the land/earth and from that the strange pattern is the garden of exotic flowers. These elements of Islamic iconography are not hard to find or I could have just lost my marbles
.
post script.
The centre or field of a this Kashmir carpet/prayer rug illustrates this quite well but there is a lot more room for the designer to explain themselves. The clouds are cearly seen outside the dome {mirhab} the garden in this case a tree and known in the carpet world as the tree of life.
