Translation assistance on an Arab jambiya
 

I was hoping someone would be able to offer translation assistance on an Arab jambiya of mine. Many thanks in advance.

amal Abdallah Rafane
made by Abdallah Rafane

nothing more :D

à +

Dom

Thank you for the translation assistance! It is not common in my experience to find a makers name on an Arab jambiya. Another uncommon trait to this piece is that it has a woostz blade. Most Arab jambiya in my experience do not. Here are a few more pictures for feedback.

What a wonderful piece!

I am assuming that the maker's name applies only to the hilt and scabbard, and he is not the bladesmith as well, which brings me to the following question: were wootz blades produced from imported ingots locally in Arabia, or was the blade a specially produced one for the Arab market?

Regards,
Teodor

Good question!
Al Kindi asserted that the best wootz ( jouhar) was manufactured in Yemen.
However, where are these famous Yemeni blades?

Possibly we are looking at one ??

Where are any blades from Kindi's time 801–873 CE? A few at the Topkapi, not much to work with.

All the Best
Jeff

I think Jeff is right. This blade looks like Persian wootz to me, whether it was forged there or in Yemen is the question. Persian smiths worked everywhere in the Mddle East too, dont forget

Hi Rick,
I can not comment on the blade, but the hilt style is Meccan.Very nice piece by the way!
Regards Stuart

Thanks for that information Stuart . :)

It is a lovely piece of work; doubtless this is going into your personal collection Rick .

Congrats !!

Rick

Can you post a pic of the entire blade? The center rib seems quite heavy and thick would like to see how the tip is done on this piece.

Thanks for all the feedback. I am sure there was a woostz making tradition in Yemen but apparently that became lost over time otherwise we would have more woostz-bladed Arabian jambiya, no? As Ward suggests, the watering of the blade is most often associated with Persia and those smiths traveled around.

Rick, yes, this is definitely going into the private collection. It will be part of my table display at the Timonium show where I will be exhibiting "some edge weapons with seldom encountered woostz blades". It would be great if you could make it down!

Lew, per your request, here is a picture of the overall blade. The midrib is quick thick but so is the point. The edge has lost a bit on one side near the tip from repeated sharpenings but the tip of this blade is no joke.

!Great piece, RSWORD! Sumptuos, but sober in it´s way. Very elegant. The blade is beautiful and interesting. I agree with you. It seems the Yemen decadence was substantial when the califate under Abbasids traslated their center from Damascus to Baghdad on the 8th Century, affecting trade routes from which yemeni obtained their living. Also, the arab conquest seems to have altered their direct trade with Byzantium, on which much of their economy was based. There are also references to the begininng of their decadence as early as the 6th Century, as a result of the end of the Himyarite control over this area, and the lost of stability since then. This a subject needed of more research. There are also some evidence that Yemen was an important trade route linking East Africa and the indian and indonesian states, with the mediterranean area. This opens an interesting possibility of linking technologies from the indian area and Ceylan, with those in the Yemen. But the end of wootz production could be ending in the time of Al-Kindi, and only archeological discoveries could bring some more data about it, and so some of this renowned blades, which now are lost.
Regards

Beautiful, My guess would be a Persian blade reworked in the Hijaz. I take it that it is gilt or is that the lighting?

Hard to tell from the pictures, but is the rest of the piece silver?

I don't think this is a persian blade reworked in Hijaj. Persian hilted weapons do not have this form of blade with high mid-rib so I suspect it was made for an Arab customer by a Persian smith but in the Arab jambiya style.

Yes, the entire piece is gilt and probably silver is the base metal.

I took the liberty of adjusting the picture to give us a better idea of the color.

One thing I’ve noticed on Arabian blades (the ones that appear to my eye “pre-tourist” (pre-gun?) anyway), they are not finished to show a pattern, in fact they are pretty good at hiding pattern. Recently I did some work on a sabiki, the blade of which looked as if it were differentially hardened (hard edge soft middle/back), which would be somewhat unusual on a blade with such slender geometry. As soon as I started refining the surface finish of the blade to see what was up, those wootzy carbides stood out and it became clear that what I had assumed was a change in heat treatment was really the decarburized layer from forging the wootz ingot; it had not been completely removed in the finishing of the sword.
Interestingly, the wootz had been forged out almost unmodified by attempts to pattern it, so that large areas retain recognizable dendrite trees from the solidification of the steel. The original ingot had a very large grain size and good, well-defined banding, which indicates to me that the metal could have been forged into an appearance more in line with the more flowing waters of India or Persia. This in turn inclines me to think this is a blade that was forged locally from an imported ingot, I’ve seen Indian swords with very similar metal.
Perhaps those famous Yemeni blades are not lost- they are sitting on the shelf right behind you, hidden in your collection by the local finishing style!
:D ...or maybe not, blades from the Arabian Peninsula that look like they were made for use rather than appearance are rather uncommon in my experience.