South-East Asian sword with a Persian trade blade for discussion

[Tatyana Dianova]

Norman, you have a great Persian sword that deserves a careful restoration!
The blade is in much better condition than mine was, and it will polish very well. All these trade blades have great Wootz pattern!

[Norman McCormick]

Originally Posted by Tatyana Dianova

Norman, you have a great Persian sword that deserves a careful restoration!
The blade is in much better condition than mine was, and it will polish very well. All these trade blades have great Wootz pattern!

Thank you Tatyana. A Forum Member translated the script on my blade which if you look at yours and mine side by side look very similar. The transition was as follows: The long inscription panel roughly translates, "There is no might, nor will, save with God, the exalted, the Almighty". On the opposite side, the smaller cartouche reads "Oh fulfiller of needs".
My Regards
Norman.

[Tatyana Dianova]

You are absolutely right Norman - the beginning of the inscription is identical, but mine is a couple of words shorter. Thank you for the translation!

[Drabant1701]

These blades are very interesting. I have one of my own so I have read about these kind of blades when given the chance. It is facinating beacause these blades really seem to have ended up almost everywhere. In Robert Hales "Islamic and oriental arms and armor" page 192, there is a sumatra sword with a blade that has the lion and "fulfiller" text, and on page 201 there is a indonesian parang that has a blade with the long quranic inscription. According to Hales these blades ended up in that region when turkish fighters answered a Jihad call, when the dutch occupied Indonesia.

It would seem a lot of these blades ended up in India. There are two examples in "Rajput arms and armour by Robert Elgood. He dates the blades to mid 19th century and being made in Caucasus for export
The quranic verse on one of those blades is translated to "Praise be to Allah, there is no strength nor power exept Allah" (page 529)

There is yet another such blade with indian fittings on page 219 in "A passion for indian arms" by Jens Nordlunde. That blade has the inscription "If it is the will of God, no power, no authority without God, the biggest the most powerful".

There is also lots more information in: the Arms Collecting Journal, Vol. 40 #1, 2002, The Persian Shamshir and the Signature of Assad Allah by Oliver Pinchot

Below picture of my trade blade. Its a heavy Kilij style sword, with the quranic inscription one one side and the lion and "fullfiller" on the other. As Tatyana wrote there is a good chance that these blades are wootz, mine is wootz but it has faded a could use an etch. But....etching swords is hard. I does however "ring" like a tuning fork if you strike it agains something (not hard of course )

[Jens Nordlunde]

Hello Tatyana,
Yes the blade really is interesting, and the text seem to be on a number of blades. The text translates a bit differently, but that must be how the translater sees it.
See A Passion for Indian Arms, pp. 219-221. Here a detail is shown.

[Tatyana Dianova]

Great info on these blades (and great swords too)!
The Sumatra story seems true for my sword, since Kai means the lacquer work is Sumatran.
The Caucasian origin is a new theory for me, but I still wait for my copy of Rajput arms.
I have a feeling that these blades are always of good quality and made of good Wootz. They have similar decoration and inscriptions, but the general geometry and the fullers vary greatly, which makes me wonder.

[Rick]

Is that a scarf weld I see there?
Not uncommon with wootz blades.