with robust curved blade of finely watered wootz steel double-edged towards the point, the forte along one side chiselled with a trefoil, a circular cartouche inscribed in cursive ‘Help from Allah and a speedy victory’, a recessed panel chased with decorative motifs, and with a rectangular panel along the back reading ‘There is no hero but ‘Ali, no sword but Dhu’l-Fiqar’, steel hilt comprising quillon-block retaining traces of gold damascening and with slender langets (upper ones incomplete) and tapering quillons each with button terminal, pommel-cap, and replacement staghorn grip-scales retained by two transverse copper alloy pins, in its later leather-covered wooden scabbard with thin steel mounts, 76.5 cm blade

Provenance

Philippe Missillier Collection, no. 175C

This shamshir is inscribed with a standard Shi’a saying found on other Persian blades. The chiselled decoration has been well executed and marks this shamshir as superior to those with undecorated blades. The quality of the blade is better than the relatively plain hilt, and it is likely the blade has been remounted. Richardson and Turner give an extensive discussion of the shamshir form, noting that the blades were widely exported and were often remounted (Richardson and Turner 2026, p. 230).

This shamshir is described in the catalogue as Persian, late 18th/19th century. The attribution is based on form of the grip and quillons, and on the relatively unsophisticated Kufic used in the longer Shi’a inscription and the cursive script of the roundel. The inscriptions have been read, and the blade is neither signed nor dated. The catalogue notes that the blade is superior to the hilt, and that it has probably been remounted.

The chiselling of the steel on the blade is distinctive, with a double stem which terminates in opposed loops, together with an inscription placed near the spine, and a roundel, together with palmettes. However, at the time of cataloguing no useful comparables had been located.

Very recently a possible comparable has been identified. A sword in the Topkapi Saray Museum (no. 1/320; Yücel 1988, p. 69, pl. 47) has chiselled decoration comprising a related double stem terminating in loops, combined with a chiselled inscription in a rectangular cartouche towards the back of the blade, as here. The blade is signed by Ibrahim al-Maliki, a famous swordsmith who worked for the Mamluk sultan and then for the Ottoman sultan after the conquest of the Mamluks by the Ottomans in 1517. The patron, according to the inscription, was Prince Mamai al-Khasaki (died 1496). He is known to have visited Istanbul in 1491 as a Mamluk ambassador.

The work on the Topkapi sword is finer than that on the Missillier blade, and it is unlikely that they are of the same date or by the same hand. However, the swordsmith of the Missillier blade must have been familiar with the style of the Topkapi blade and probably the work of its swordsmith, Ibrahim al-Maliki.

It is possible therefore that the blade of the Missillier sword is Ottoman and while it could be 16th-18th century, it is more probably a deliberately archaistic version of the earlier Ottoman blade, made in the late 18th or early 19th century. The hilt and quillon remain datable to the late 18th-19th century from Persia.

Yücel 1988

Ünsal Yücel, Al-Suyuf al-Islamiyah wa -sunna’uha [Islamic swords and swordsmiths], Istanbul: Irica,1988 (in Arabic).