Saifs

[dakary]

Hi everybody.

I'm new to the forum. I have, on occasion, posted on the my armoury forums. I have lurked here for a little while and I thought I should sign up since my interests are migrating a bit away from Medieval European arms to Islamic arms. I attribute this to having spent a bit of time living in the Gulf Region. While I was there, I did have a look around at various saif swords but my expertise was lacking (indeed, to the point where there was none to be had!). I also noticed that many of the saifs, while beautiful, were not functional but were extremely ornate decorative pieces, sometimes for use in sword dances at weddings and such.

I have looked on the forums and found some posts somewhat related to my inquiry but not directly answering either. I'm sorry if this has already been addressed.

I've come onto the forum, to reach out and see if there is somebody, or somebodies, who could give me a bit more information about acquiring a functional saif, and in particular, those typical to the gulf region. I'm not sure about a specific time period. My understanding is that the shamshir style saifs are basically ottoman and/or Persian shamshir blades that have been made Arabic through differences in decoration (for example, wire-wrap seems to be common near the top of the handle), as well as handle (and in particular, pommel) shape. I have no idea when that influence occurred and when Arabs, and in particular those around the gulf, started to incorporate this style of blade but it seems to be that it is later than medieval. I'm not necessarily looking for something over the top decorative. I have been made aware of Peserey Handicrafts out of Turkey which is sort of the type of thing I am looking for, but those are obviously Turkish (and/or Persian?) rather than Gulf Arabic.

Thank you very much.