The Original Dhu'l-Faqar

[AhmedH]

Originally Posted by ariel

Never knew Turks to be so teary-eyed and gullible.... Must have been hell of a love story to force them to circumvent every known museum protocol:-)

Ariel,

(Grin) No, the conclusions you've fancied are in no way like the true story. OK, here we go:

From a very young age, I developed a special love and interest for military history. This grew with time. It kept on growing until I became interested in many parts of military history; like the campaigns of Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Scipio Africanus the Elder, Julius Caesar, and Surenas in ancient times, and Belisarius, Khalid ibn al-Walid, Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, Musa ibn Nusayr, Saladin, Richard the Lion-Heart, Qutuz, Baybars, Edward III, and Henry V in the mediaeval times, and Mehmet II, Selim I, Gustavus II Adolphus, Eugene of Savoy, Duke of Marlborough, Frederick II, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Marshal Davou(s)t in modern history. My love for this turned into what you can call an addiction. Even when I took the IGCSE exam in history (which deals with the 20th century) in 1994, I was able to score an A+; although no one in Egypt ever scored more than a B! Along my love for military history rose my love for historical weaponry and the history of its evolution, its typology, etc. After I left the Faculty of Science (which my father pressed me into entering it) after only 5 months, and shifting to the Faculty of Archaeology (because the Faculty of Arts; which had the History Department did not accept me for not taking French in my IGCSE), I found myself greatly involved in the study of Islamic arms and armor; not because of any academic syllabus, but because of the immense presence of books that deal with this topic in the Faculty's library...along with other great libraries; including the Library of the Cairo University.