Omani Sayf/Saif

[Jim McDougall]

Here are images of the 'battle swords' which indeed have combat use in Oman, and held traditionally in place for more centuries than can be accurately described, but certainly into early use by the Abbasids, In the Ibathi Faith in the interior of Oman, was the center of the presence of this type of sword which is of course directly associated with the long cylindrical hilt sword discussed here.
From my understanding, the interior of Oman was far more religiously fundamental than the Omani littoral and Muscat, where trade activity and outside influence deeply influenced styles etc.

As Oman has been effectively closed off to most of the outside world until recent times, aside obviously from trade in Muscat, and its Sultanate in Zanzibar, there was very little known of its history and these weapons. As have often been noted, even the Omani's have little notable knowledge of their history at large, nor that of these weapons. as there does not seem to be formal study of these subjects there. In recent times, this has been advancing and our studies here have I think added to the corpus of knowledge on these arms.
Prior to this, the references to Arabian arms in English has been limited to "the Arms ans Armour of Arabia" by Robert Elgood (1994) which provided the benchmark for these studies, and indeed noted the dearth of information on the Omani examples.