A gift for Sultan Muhammad Ibn Tughluq of India

[Jens Nordlunde]

Hi Jim,
You may be right about what people regarded as Egypt can have been in a very broad sense, but Battuta came from Tangier, so I doubt that he would use the word in such a broad sense – but you never know.

There are however a few things, which bothers me, a lot of the Egyptian swords, must have been made of Indian steel, as the import from India was big. If so, why were the Egyptian swords known as being at the lower end of the ‘top ten’ list, and the Indian swords at the top, if the same steel was used?

Maybe the answer is to be found in Robert Elgood’s book mentioned above, on page 104. Here he quotes an old author: ‘Adab al-Harb (1211-1236) lists the swords of all the places he has heard of: Chini, Rusi, Khazari, Rumi, Firangi, Yamani, Bilamani, Shahi, Ala I, Hindi and Kashmiri, and comments that all the examples are famous swords but amongst them the Hindi sword is best and most lustrous.’ So, maybe the Egyptian sword was good, but not as good as the Indian.

Hi Aqtai,
Thank you for showing the pictures of the swords, made only about one hundred years after Battuta’s stay in India, the Egyptian swords they gave to the Sultan could very well have been of this type.

[M.carter]

Yes Aqtai, these are the swords I was talking about. Thanks for posting the Scans. As noted in the Furussiya manual and Al-Kindi's letters, only three swords were considered of excellent grade, while the rest not that good. The 'ateeqa' (ancient, by that he means excellent) swords were those made in Yemen, India and the Qil'i. The swords in between were first the Damascene, then the Egyptian, then the Persian. The swords that were considered bad in Dar-Al-Islam were the Baghdadian and those made in Basra. All the swords are listed from best to worst Yemeni-Qal'i-Indian-Damascene-Egyptian-Persian-Baghdadi-Basri. Dr.Uncal Yuncel writes that swords made in the maghreb were also of excellent quality, something not listed in either furussiya manual or by AL-Kindi.

As you can see, according to primary sources Egyptian swords were in between, not excellent, but not bad either, just good.

[Jens Nordlunde]

Mike(?), Aqtai,

This is most interesting, but also a bit confusing. Depending on which books you read the blades from the different places were valued differently (only Indian blades were great valued all the time) - or could it be that the valuation was made within several hundred years?

[Aqtai]

Originally Posted by Jens Nordlunde

Mike(?), Aqtai,

This is most interesting, but also a bit confusing. Depending on which books you read the blades from the different places were valued differently (only Indian blades were great valued all the time) - or could it be that the valuation was made within several hundred years?

I suppose because different places were famous at different times. As Mike pointed out, Egypt was never famous as a centre of swordmaking, but Egyptian swordmakers obviously could make functional and practical swords. According to the above mentioned book, After the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517 a lot of Egyptian swordmakers moved (or were forcibly taken) to Istanbul and continued to produce swords for Ottoman Sultans among others. In the Middle-East Damascus was famously the great centre of sword-making, however I believe that Damascus virtually ceased to be a centre of sword production after it was sacked by Timur-Lenk in the early 15th century.

[M.carter]

Originally Posted by Aqtai

I suppose because different places were famous at different times. As Mike pointed out, Egypt was never famous as a centre of swordmaking, but Egyptian swordmakers obviously could make functional and practical swords. According to the above mentioned book, After the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517 a lot of Egyptian swordmakers moved (or were forcibly taken) to Istanbul and continued to produce swords for Ottoman Sultans among others. In the Middle-East Damascus was famously the great centre of sword-making, however I believe that Damascus virtually ceased to be a centre of sword production after it was sacked by Timur-Lenk in the early 15th century.

I agree with Aqtai here. Damascus was the centre of sword making in the Islamic world, the matter that led swordmaking to decease was when Timur-Lenk sacked it in the 15th century and took all swordsmiths and craftsmen to Bukhara and Samarkand by force.