swords of Mohammed, but what about...

[Rivkin]

I've heard numerous stories about swords of Mohammed, mostly about Zulfakar, but when reading hadith it seemed quite clear to me that Mohammed died from a sword or bow (for it says "he died because his armor was fixed by a jew") ? The death of Mohammed unfortunately was the subject islamic teachers avoided to teach me, so I'm quite ignorant on this, but is this weapon appear in any way referenced in islamic literature ?

[Radu Transylvanicus]

* Caveat Emptor : I have a feeling this could easily turn the wrong direction if we dont stick strictly to the armorial science !

[erlikhan]

Rivkin, Muhammed was not killed at all. He got old and died at age 62. And Zulfikar was not Muhammed's sword. It was Ali's sword, who was Muhammed's relative, and became Caliph(leader of Muslems) sometime after Muhammed's death. He was assasinated by an Arab from an opponent group called "Harici". By a poisonous sword as far as I remember. I dont know anything about the armor-Jew point.
regards

[Jens Nordlunde]

I agree very much with Radu, I think it is best left where we are now.

Jens

[Andrew]

I'm happy to leave this thread open provided the topic can be discussed appropriately.

To do that, Rivkin, you might consider providing a source for your premise.

[Rivkin]

Ok, I'm sorry if I insulted anyone - probably I just misunderstood something:
"Hadith 4:165 'Aisha:
Allah's Apostle died while his (iron) armor was mortgaged to a Jew for thirty Sas of barley."

Sorry if I misunderstood the meaning. Concerning Zulfakar - I always thought Ali got it from Mohammed.

[Rivkin]

Now I remembered where I've got this idea. The lesson I remember was starting with how different people tried to kill Mohammed, and ended with this one (even trhough I don't remember what was in the middle), so it somehow all connected in my head.

[Battara]

Every so often one will find a bifurcated sword design in inlay or cloth on a banner that represents the sword of Ali. If I can find my picture of one in the MET I will post it.

[Yannis]

This is an old thread on the subject

http://www.vikingsword.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/001968.html

[ariel]

To the best of my knowledge, Mohammed died of some kind of fever at age 63. Not an unusual occurence at a pre-antibiotic era. At that stage of the game, surviving till 63 was not a mean achievement....

[M.carter]

Originally Posted by Rivkin

I've heard numerous stories about swords of Mohammed, mostly about Zulfakar, but when reading hadith it seemed quite clear to me that Mohammed died from a sword or bow (for it says "he died because his armor was fixed by a jew") ? The death of Mohammed unfortunately was the subject islamic teachers avoided to teach me, so I'm quite ignorant on this, but is this weapon appear in any way referenced in islamic literature ?

Hello All, This is my first post over here, so be kind ,

Anyway, this sword was not Ali's, it belonged to Muhammad, it was given to Ali later, at the battle of the ditch when Muhammad strapped it on Ali before he went out to duel with Amro ibnu Abd-Widd.

Concerning the sword itself, it was not called Zulfikar, it is properly called 'Thulfiqar', which is the proper arab pronounciation. The shape of the blade is not known for certain. We are sure that this sword had a straight blade and probably was double-edged (as were all the arabian swords of the period), unlike the new Arabian style swords (the sabers). Some historians say that the tip of the blade was bifurcated, thus called 'Thulfiqar'. Other historians put it like this, as the pre-islamic term 'Mufaqar' (which is absolutely the same as 'Thulfiqar') means a blade with fullers, they say that the blade of 'Thulfiqar' must have had some special and/or strange kind of fullers. A minority of historians say that this sword had wavy edges (something like a keris...?) thus called 'Thulfiqar' (Note: 'Fiqar' means parts, segments, portions etc.)

One thing is known for certain, this sword was lost along with many other famous swords during the Mamluk rule period, as many famous Mamluke generals and warriors weilded swords that had belonged to Muhammad or his companions and passed them down to their families ( Sultan Rukn-El-Deen Baibars Al Bundaqari weilded Umar ibn-Khattab's (the 2nd caliph in Islam) sword, 'Thul-wishah' at the battle of Ayn-Jalut).

Phew! Hope this helps

[Andrew]

Hi Mike! Nice to see you here.

Excellent first post, thanks for the insight. It is invaluable to have another member who speaks and reads Arabic on the forum.

Have you had the opportunity to get to the Topkapi and see the collection up close and personal?

[Jim McDougall]

Mike,
Outstanding!! Thank you for this excellent explanation on the extremely important details concerning the early history of Islam.
It is really great to see you posting here! Looking forward to your valuable input on the weaponry of Arabia and for your perspective on the often delicate discussion of matters pertaining to the Islamic Faith.
Best regards and welcome!!
Jim

[M.carter]

Thanks Andrew, Jim for the warm welcome.

Unfortunately no Andrew, I havent had the opportunity to go see those swords in Topkapi, but I shall look to it that I make a trip there, I always wonder what these swords are doing in Turkey anyway?! They should be in somewhere like Mecca or Madina in S.Arabia.

[Rivkin]

Well, Ottoman empire did more or less control Mecca till late XVIII century..

[M.carter]

Yes but Mecca was independant in rule from the Ottomans, the Bani Hashim (Sharifs) ruled it since the fall of the Abbasid Empire until Ibn Saud banished Sharif Hussein from Mecca, but that still doesnt explain why these swords shouldnt be found in Mecca, which is the holiest site for Muslims, not Istanbul.

[Andrew]

Spoils of war, I'd guess.

[Rivkin]

Well, still the title "Caliph of Mecca" was not an arabic one, and while independent on domestic issues, it did not mean the full independance.

Concerning the place - well, the spear of destiny is not in jerusalem either, so it's more of a privilage of powerful to control the religious artifacts.

[nechesh]

Where is that ol' "Spear of Destiny" anyway? I thought i had it laying around here somewhere.

[Lee]

Well, many of the contents (such as the Arabic inscribed group of European swords) of the Mamluke's Alexandria (Egypt) Arsenal went to Constantinople (now Istanbul), probably in, if I remember correctly, the 16th century when the Ottomans prevailed over the Mamlukes in Egypt. So, if the Mamluke elite had these precious heirlooms in their possession at the time, it stands to reason that they may have found their way into Ottoman hands as trophies and holy relics.

[Rivkin]

Spear of Destiny I think is in Nuremberg.

I don't know the history of Mohammed's swords but every single religious artefact I've ever seen has one of the following sotries:

"Spear of Destiny"

The artefact was "discovered", usually by a saint or important warlord through having it's location revealed to him/her in a dream.

"Staff of Moses"

Once, the discoverer of the artefact was visited by a stranger (usually an old man), who claimed to be the last of the bloodline of the guardians of the ..., which was given to his great-grand-grand-father by ... himself. Now he transfers the ownership of the item to the "discoverer".

The latter ones sometimes mixes with the first one, by asserting that great-grand-grand was the saint from the story number one.

Now Mohammed lived relatively close to us (in time), so _one_ of these swords can be the real one. The rest mostly likely appeared all around the Ottoman Empire.

P.S. Did they do Y-chromosome genetics on Saeds ?

[ariel]

Mike,
Welcome to the Forum! We absolutely need a member with your fund of knowledge and expertise.
And.... please feel free to be irreverent: everybogy here has an unbruisable ego and a good sense of humor.
Join the club!

[nechesh]

Rivkin, i'm glad you picked up on my sarcasm. Even 1400 yrs. ago is quite a long time. What actual proof do we have that any of the swords of Mohammed were ever really his swords at all? Hard to believe the gold and jeweled encrusted one saw any battles. I would think that a few generations past the death of Mohammed it might be very advantagious for a powerful Islamic leader to be able to produce one the "swords of the prophet" to strenghten his hold on power. Forgive me if i am speaking blasphamy here, but can we really be certain of anything, or are the swords of Mohammed purely a matter of faith?
As for the "Spear of Destiny", i was keeping it right next to that grail thingy....now where DID it get to?

[Rivkin]

I think the spear was taken by crusaders back to Germany, where it stayed in Nuremberg - I guess it's still there. The True Cross was lost.

Converning authenticity - in my experience it's really rare when the fraud is so transparent. Usually it's either a result of enthusiastic searches - they do find a more or less correct age artefact, declare it the real thing, and then comes the story of a divine vision etc.

Or as in a story with the Staff of Moses it's a part of heirloom, and with every generation the nature of heirloom gets excagerated until it becomes hell knows what.

In the end the true responsibility lies on the shoulders of religious authority for accepting the items rumored to be the real thing as the real thing - not on kings or caliphs.

And the main motivation is like of those collectors who desparately try to prove that their Rembrandt, which happened to be painted with XX century paints, is not a fake - they just want it to be true.

[Andrew]

Originally Posted by nechesh

Rivkin, i'm glad you picked up on my sarcasm. Even 1400 yrs. ago is quite a long time. What actual proof do we have that any of the swords of Mohammed were ever really his swords at all? Hard to believe the gold and jeweled encrusted one saw any battles. I would think that a few generations past the death of Mohammed it might be very advantagious for a powerful Islamic leader to be able to produce one the "swords of the prophet" to strenghten his hold on power. Forgive me if i am speaking blasphamy here, but can we really be certain of anything, or are the swords of Mohammed purely a matter of faith?
As for the "Spear of Destiny", i was keeping it right next to that grail thingy....now where DID it get to?

Nechesh,

I don't think anyone is seriously positing that any of the swords in the Topkapi were actually Mohammed's. However, they appear to be extremely fine and, presumeably, valuable and important artifacts in their own right.

But I do agree that confirmation of such extraordinary provenance would require a miracle.

[M.carter]

Actually, of those nine swords, I have these beliefs,

The alleged "thulfiqar' is a fake. The 'Al-Battar' belongs to King David, not Mohammed. The 'Al-Ma'Thur' I believe is the real one that Mohammed used. The 'Al-Rasub' belongs to King David. The 'Al-Mukhatham' is clearly a fake, exactly identical to the style of swords produced in 14th Damascus. The 'Hatf' sword belongs to King David. I believe the 'Qali'i' sword is original, I mean it was used by Muhammad. The 'Al-Qadheeb' is a mystery. The 'Al-Adhb' is original.

Remember, all these swords were re-hilted during the 16th century, thats why the hilts look wrong on those straight blades. Nechesh, even the gold encrusted one was re-hilted so we must presume that the hilts were very different before.

The swords which I believe were actually the property of Muhammad are the 'Al-Ma'thur' , 'Qal'i' , and 'Al-Adhb'.

[ariel]

With all due respect, the attribution of any of those swords to King David (i.e 7th-8th century BCE!) is the most ridiculous of all. I would challenge anyone to produce another iron implement from that era that managed to be preserved in such an intact shape and to be executed in a style of 10th-13th century CE!
I have deep respect for people's religious beliefs, but the tendency to bolster their claims for authenticity by producing clear fakes has nothing to do with ethics, philosophy and law(that in fact comprise the definition of religion). This is pure snake oil and brings only dishonor and ridicule.
As a matter of fact, we already had this discussion and Yannis brought a beautiful link to the pictures of the Swords of the Profet.
See for yourself.
http://www.vikingsword.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/001968.html
I fully appreciate the danger of converting this debate into something very ugly. I trust that all of us (I can vouch for myself) are motivated by purely academic and factual motives. Anybody's religious beliefs are his/her (you see, I am politically correct) private business and should be fully respected; validity of historical and material artefacts is a part of public domain and can be vigorously discussed.

[Mark]

I am drifting from the thread here, but I can't resist on commenting on something I actually know a little about.

One of the "Spear(s) of Destiny" (naturally there is more than one around) was found during the first Crusade (1098 AD) during the siege of Antioch. They Crusaders were bogged down, exhausted, hungry and diseased and everyone just wanted to go home. A monk, whose name I forget, had a dream wherein the location of the Spear of Destiny was revealed to him. They dug at the site, and found a rusted hunk of metal. This inspired the Crusaders, who proceeded to do their worst to the city. Other candidated were bought in the booming relic trade in the Levant, and brought back to Europe (they say that if all the finger bones of the Virgin Mary were genuine she would have had like 20 fingers). As for more recent history, I hadn't heard that it had been taken to Nurenburg, though I know that Hitler was keen on finding it, as he was of many esoteric items of purported spiritual power.

The True Cross, at least the biggest hunk of it, was in Jerusalem until its conquest by Saladin. Queen Helena (Constantine's Christian mother) has found it during a trip to the Holy Land to find holy sites and relics. Saladin had it taken to ... um ... I forget. Damascus or Bagdad. I think he had been the Emir of Aleppo so maybe it was there. Anyway, it was made into the stoop of a mosque so that pious Muslims would be able to step over it every time they went to pray, to show the supremacy of Islam over Christianity. It was later destroyed apparently. There are lots of supposed slivers of it all over Europe.

[Rivkin]

Well, the Spear of Destiny was a treasure of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation. It was recently analyzed, and under many layers of silver and gold happened to be a typical II century AD roman spear point. There are a lot of objections out there to such attributing of this spear, so I'm sure one can find something using google. Btw, the first objection against this relic, as well as many others was made by Martin Luther.

Concerning the swords of David - it's hard to believe that the man who is not survived by a single stone (his tomb is as controvercial as the borders of Israel during his reign) can be survived by 2 swords, in such a great condition. Well, there are actually two stones people attribute to his reign, but that's it.

The reason for multitudes of davidian items appearing in islamic countries is more related to the desire to have a connection to David and other "islamic" prophets of old, and the desire to be seen as "true" continuation of old beliefs.

Rehilting is a catastrophe, for the hilt is the only thing made from organics (wood) - proper dating now is impossible.

[Rivkin]

In general relics tend to survive quite well in isolated monasteries and island nations - that brings an interesting question - how old do you think is a japanese emperial sword ?