A FINE MAMLUK STEEL SWORD, EGYPT OR SYRIA, 14th century

the straight double-edged watered steel blade, the hexagonal hilt with rounded pommel, diamond-shaped reserve in the centre fixed with a wrist strap ring and straight quillons chased tamgha mark of the Kayi ("St Irene Arsenal" mark) and stamped maker's marks



 

The early swords of the Islamic period were straight and double-sided and very few of these swords still survive. Some swords, two belonging to the Prophet, and others said to belong to the early Caliphs and Companions, taken as booty from the Mamluks by the Ottomans after the battle of 1517, survive in the Has Oda of the Topkapi Saray and are known as the 'Blessed Swords' or Suyuf al Mubarake.

In the Askeri Museum (See Ünsal Yücel, Islamic Swords and Swordsmiths, Istanbul, 2001, pl.80-83), we find similar examples to our sword with resembling mounts and blades and although they are identified as Mamluk and dated to the fourteenth century, they must have derived from the Ayyubid style of the Saif Badawi or the 'Bedouin Sword'.

Other swords belonging to the Mamluks, and early Ottoman Emirs and Sultans are dispersed between the Topkapi Saray and the Askeri Museum in Istanbul, including one belonging to Najm al Din Ayyub, the father of Saladin, the conqueror of Jerusalem from the Crusaders. This sword of the twelfth century made by Salim bin Ali for Najm al Din (inv. no. 2355, Yucel 1988, cat. no. 34), has a quillon, whose socket and guard is akin to that of our sword (ibid, p.77, pl.34).  A related quillon can be found on a blade with Abbasid or Umayyad provenance (ibid, p.76, pl.33). For two other examples of resembling pommels and quillons found on fourteenth-century blades and identified as Mamluk, see Mohamed 2007, p.112, nos.11-12. The handful of blades related to ours in the Askeri Museum, Istanbul are on display (four in the galleries, with a similar number in the reserve collection but not in good condition) betray identical size, temper, weight and quality of steel. Our blade bears the tamgha (badge) of the Kayi, mark of the tribal descendants of the Ghuzz parent family, from whom the Ottomans are descended. This mark, usually wrongly referred to as the 'St Irene' arsenal mark, was used on most (but not all) blades entered into the Ottoman arsenal, housed in the Church of St Irene. Our blade also bears other marks, stamps original to the blade, and therefore of the Mamluk period.

The early Mamluk sultans were Turks from the Kipchak territories, and  preferred the use of of the sabre, a slightly curved slashing weapon, more suitable for mounted warfare than the Saif Badawi. There is evidence that Mamluks carried and used both types; however the Saif Badawi was reserved to be used for investiture and enthronment ceremonies of the Emir, in honour of The Prophet, who had several straight, named blades (See Elgood 1979, p.203).
This Arab tradition of the Saif Badawi was continued in Saudi Arabia, Zanzibar and Oman until the ninteenth century (see preceeding lot, lot 247).