Arabic STAMP on tulwar blade

Stan S. · 21st November 2011, 04:53 PM

I could be wrong but here is an idea... With supposed decline of Indian steel quality in the 19th century, many bladesmiths tried to add value to their product by adding Arabic inscriptions to their merchandise to replicate Persian and Ottoman blades, which were thought to be superior at that time. Unfortunately vast majority of these people were illiterate, and resorted to crudely copying inscriptions from existing blades. In my opinion, inscription of "Allah - Mohammed" may simply represent the only 2 words besides his own name that the blade maker actually knew how to spell and recognized them from an inscription seen on another blade. This would also explain the squiggly lines - they may be just a filler that to an untrained eye would also look like text. So, I agree with the original poster's assessment.

By the way, the blade seems to be of good quality, and the sword overall is quite nice. Too bad it's missing a pommel but this sure gives it a certain character.

21st November 2011, 04:53 PM	#6
Stan S. Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Brooklyn, NY USA Posts: 227	I could be wrong but here is an idea... With supposed decline of Indian steel quality in the 19th century, many bladesmiths tried to add value to their product by adding Arabic inscriptions to their merchandise to replicate Persian and Ottoman blades, which were thought to be superior at that time. Unfortunately vast majority of these people were illiterate, and resorted to crudely copying inscriptions from existing blades. In my opinion, inscription of "Allah - Mohammed" may simply represent the only 2 words besides his own name that the blade maker actually knew how to spell and recognized them from an inscription seen on another blade. This would also explain the squiggly lines - they may be just a filler that to an untrained eye would also look like text. So, I agree with the original poster's assessment. By the way, the blade seems to be of good quality, and the sword overall is quite nice. Too bad it's missing a pommel but this sure gives it a certain character.