The Original Dhu'l-Faqar

[AhmedH]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Hi Ahmed,
It has been days now, and I apologize for not responding sooner, but I wanted to adequately read through your paper as thoroughly as I could. I also did retrieve Dr. Alexander's work on Dhu'l -faqar as you implored.
I have been virtually immersed in rereading various parts of your paper and reviewing the content of Dr. Alexander's concurrently.
As I have indicated earlier I do not purport to have any particular expertise on Islamic arms and armor, however I have what may be considered a reasonable working knowledge. I also will note I have no advanced formal education or degrees so I may be considered 'non-academic' as well. Therefore I very much appreciate your confidence and favor toward specialists in arms and armor technically outside academic circles.

I must point out however that while the highly respected authorities you cite here, specifically Mr. Reinhardt; Mr. Clements and Mr. Oakeshott, are superbly informed and highly experienced, their expertise is primarily on medieval and renaissance arms and armor, which of course is fully many centuries later than that in which Dhu'l faqar is from.

As I have been consulting every reference and resource I have at hand, I wish to emphasize that my objectives are to find support and if possible any kind of corroboration which might strengthen what I consider a remarkable paper. I reiterate that I very much like the deductive reasoning you have displayed in what is a profoundly innovative and provocative approach to the mysteries of this magnificent sword.

It is important that I note here several things concerning Dr. Alexander's paper. I would point out that his work concerns Dhu'l faqar as it is perceived in history, literature and religious symbolism, rather than it's being located and substantiation of it's identity. In these respects, these papers are both resoundingly important in their quite different thesis' .

I also want to note that I have discovered through well informed sources that Dr. Alexander does indeed speak Arabic, and would note that he did in degree use al-Kindi as a cited source for certain references in his work. I think it is important that we recognize him for the scholarship he has achieved and concentrate on the work you are pursuing with your paper here.

At this point I hope to continue the discussion of your article here by finding more support or as required, alterations to the assertions made. I emphasize again, this is to be exercised constructively, and I hope that others here will join in analysis of this fascinating approach to this most important study.

For example, I was having difficulty with absorbing the idea of this, or any sword for that matter, being an iron cleaving sword. I had overlooked that you had specified 'mail, not necessarily plate armor, so that indeed made much more sense. I then checked into "Oriental Armour" H.Russell Robinson, 1967 (p.24) where the armour used by the Arab caliphate of the 7th century closely followed Sassanian and Persian equipment remained essentially the same for some time. This consisted of mail shirt and lamellar breast plate.
I looked into "By the Sword" (Richard Cohen, 2002, pp. 13,18,20) and found discussion regarding the increasing in thickness of armor, especially that of plate armor later with advent of gunpowder and firearms, but nothing more pertaining to warfare early enough to be of help.

Of much more help was "An Introduction to Arms and Warfare in Classical Islam" Dr. David Nicolle ("Islamic Arms and Armour", R. Elgood, ed. 1979, p.163)..."...lamella and mail were not unknown but the most valued armor of that era was a long hauberk known as the 'dir'. So valuable was a dir that in the pre Islamic period, tribes would carry out raids specifically to capture them".

This discussion refers to the period in which Dhu'l faqar would have been actively in use and illustrates that indeed, a heavy bladed sword such as this would have been conducive to the kind of crushing blows which would have tended to such armor of mail or lamellar. It would appear as well that armor which had been weakened either through damage or rusted as often could happen on campaign , might be defeated by blows by such a heavy weapon.

I will say here though that I am not sure the nature of the grooves or fullering in this case would impact the success of blows toward this armor as the blade would not be expected to pass through the armor in the way a cut to flesh and bone would react.

Again, this is what I mean as far as finding support or rebuttal toward the material, and meant to be entered respectfully with the goal of strengthening this work.

With all very best regards,
Jim

Dear Jim,

I'm very thankful for the efforts you've undertaken for the sake of my paper; along with reading Dr. Alexander's article. I really don't know from where I should begin, but let's start with the topic regarding non-academic experts on arms and armor:

Now then, most -if not all of us- know that our field of interest and expertise (arms and armor) has no place in universities; except when it comes to the study of art (like Asian art, Near Eastern art, Islamic art, etc). The professors there usually focus in the decorations of these objects (weapons). In short, none of them usually has our interest, our love, and our knowledge with arms and armor. This is why when I submitted my article here, I believed I've come to the right place. Granted that you, Jim, may not be specialized in Islamic arms and armor, but I believe well that you know a lot of things about arms and armor that would qualify you to judge my work, and the works of others in Islamic arms and armor as well. I mean you know how a sword cuts, thrusts, how an armor cleaving blade looks like, whether the hilt was appropriate for the blade or not, if its temper and other heat treatments were superb or not, etc. Academics usually do not know that.

Regarding Dr. Alexander's ability to speak Arabic, I telephoned him from Cairo, Egypt to where he resides in Puycesi, France on March 3rd 2008, and I asked him whether he liked me sending him a copy of my article, and he said that he'd love to read it. I then asked him: "Do you speak Arabic?" He replied: "No", but then he said that I could send him the article and he'll try to capture what he could understand from it. I then asked him whether I should translate my article to English for him, and he replied that that would be better. He then laughed and commented: "Your English is very good!" So, I translated my article to English using my own skills in English. I also remember that when he asked me to connect him with the curator of the arms and armor department in the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo, that the Egyptian curator had to speak English with him in order for the two to understand each other. They spoke by phone, and I remember that the curator was that fluent in English; yet the conversation wasn't in Arabic.