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Arab sword
The saif (Arabic: سيف), sometimes called a shamshir (from Persian: شمشیر), depending on the era, originated in Arabia before the 7th century. Little is known about this weapon besides what al-Kindi wrote in his treatise On Swords in the 9th century.
In the article Introduction to the Study of Islamic Arms and Armour, A. Rahman Zaky says the saif is "[a]n Arab sword, [with] a rather broad blade and sometimes with a peculiarly hooked pommel. The size varies greatly. It is found in most countries where Arabs have lived, and each has its own variety. Early Arab chroniclers used to mention two kinds of swords: Saif Anith, which was made of iron, and Saif Fulath or Mu akka, which was made of steel."
Saif is an Arab word for swords in general, not a certain type. The term xiphos, Greek for a double-edged straight sword, may be related to saif.
The handle is the miqbad; the pommel, halq; and the quillon, haris. The blade is composed of the false edge and the true edge, which are known as the zafiya or hafat zafiya and the haqiqia, respectively. The sword's point is called the nuqtat. Some Arab swords may have a fuller, called an akmal, but others do not. Therefore, the area where the fuller would be is completely flat.
One particular Islamic innovation is the act of gilding their swords. Many archaeologically discovered Arab swords tend to be decorated in this fashion with verses from the Quran or Hadith, or with a particular emphasis on a virtue that means something to the wielder. The gilding is typically made with gold, silver, or bronze, or a mix thereof.
The production of the Arab sword has four distinct periods: Pre-Islamic (ancient swords before the 7th century), Early Islamic (old swords 7th to 8th centuries), Islamic Golden Age (swords of the 9th to early-13th centuries) and the Abandonment (late swords of the late-13th to 16th centuries). Most information on Arab swords comes from literature.
Before the rise of Islam in the 630s, the settled communities in the Arabian Peninsula developed into distinctive civilizations, and their history is limited to archaeological evidence. Islamic scholars later recorded accounts written outside of Arabia and Arab oral traditions. Among the most prominent civilizations were the Dilmun, which arose around the end of the fourth millennium BC and lasted to about 600 AD, and the Thamud, which arose around 3000 BC[citation needed] and lasted to about 300 AD. Additionally, from the beginning of the first millennium BC, Southern Arabia was the home to some kingdoms such as the Sabaeans, and the coastal areas of Eastern Arabia were controlled by the Iranian Parthians and Sassanians from 300BC. The Arabs of the peninsula, thus, had their own local system of warfare, which was not of big armies, but of small battles and skirmishes among tribes.
Swords in Mu'tah, called Mashrafiya swords, were so highly regarded that the Prophet Muhammad ordered in 629 a raid on the city to capture them. In the case of other captured weapons, we can be less sure about where they were produced. This is true of the weapons taken from the Jewish tribe known as the Banu Qaynuqa. In his sira, the Prophet's biographer Ibn Ishaq, recounts that during the Prophet Muhammad's lifetime, this tribe was noted as arms manufacturers, or as possessing large stocks of arms in Medina; it is possible that some of their arms were produced there.
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Arab sword
The saif (Arabic: سيف), sometimes called a shamshir (from Persian: شمشیر), depending on the era, originated in Arabia before the 7th century. Little is known about this weapon besides what al-Kindi wrote in his treatise On Swords in the 9th century.
In the article Introduction to the Study of Islamic Arms and Armour, A. Rahman Zaky says the saif is "[a]n Arab sword, [with] a rather broad blade and sometimes with a peculiarly hooked pommel. The size varies greatly. It is found in most countries where Arabs have lived, and each has its own variety. Early Arab chroniclers used to mention two kinds of swords: Saif Anith, which was made of iron, and Saif Fulath or Mu akka, which was made of steel."
Saif is an Arab word for swords in general, not a certain type. The term xiphos, Greek for a double-edged straight sword, may be related to saif.
The handle is the miqbad; the pommel, halq; and the quillon, haris. The blade is composed of the false edge and the true edge, which are known as the zafiya or hafat zafiya and the haqiqia, respectively. The sword's point is called the nuqtat. Some Arab swords may have a fuller, called an akmal, but others do not. Therefore, the area where the fuller would be is completely flat.
One particular Islamic innovation is the act of gilding their swords. Many archaeologically discovered Arab swords tend to be decorated in this fashion with verses from the Quran or Hadith, or with a particular emphasis on a virtue that means something to the wielder. The gilding is typically made with gold, silver, or bronze, or a mix thereof.
The production of the Arab sword has four distinct periods: Pre-Islamic (ancient swords before the 7th century), Early Islamic (old swords 7th to 8th centuries), Islamic Golden Age (swords of the 9th to early-13th centuries) and the Abandonment (late swords of the late-13th to 16th centuries). Most information on Arab swords comes from literature.
Before the rise of Islam in the 630s, the settled communities in the Arabian Peninsula developed into distinctive civilizations, and their history is limited to archaeological evidence. Islamic scholars later recorded accounts written outside of Arabia and Arab oral traditions. Among the most prominent civilizations were the Dilmun, which arose around the end of the fourth millennium BC and lasted to about 600 AD, and the Thamud, which arose around 3000 BC[citation needed] and lasted to about 300 AD. Additionally, from the beginning of the first millennium BC, Southern Arabia was the home to some kingdoms such as the Sabaeans, and the coastal areas of Eastern Arabia were controlled by the Iranian Parthians and Sassanians from 300BC. The Arabs of the peninsula, thus, had their own local system of warfare, which was not of big armies, but of small battles and skirmishes among tribes.
Swords in Mu'tah, called Mashrafiya swords, were so highly regarded that the Prophet Muhammad ordered in 629 a raid on the city to capture them. In the case of other captured weapons, we can be less sure about where they were produced. This is true of the weapons taken from the Jewish tribe known as the Banu Qaynuqa. In his sira, the Prophet's biographer Ibn Ishaq, recounts that during the Prophet Muhammad's lifetime, this tribe was noted as arms manufacturers, or as possessing large stocks of arms in Medina; it is possible that some of their arms were produced there.