Published by The E.J.W. Gibb Memorial Trust © The E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Trust and individual authors, 2006. Paperback edition 2012 ISBN 978-0-90609-457-0 EPUB ISBN: XXXXXXXXXXXXX A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library Further details of the E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Trust and its publications are available at the Trust’s website www.gibbtrust.org Front cover: Artisans at work on the defences of Iskandar (Alexander) against Gog and Magog; early Bukhara style ca. 915/1510 to 955/1549 (courtesy of the Bodleian Library MS Elliott 340, fol. 80a). Typeset by Oxbow Books, Oxford Printed in Great Britain by Short Run Press, Exeter Contents List of figures Introduction (by James Allan) 1. Kindi and Islamic Swords (Robert Hoyland) 2. Kindi’s “On swords and their kinds”: edition and translation (Robert Hoyland) 3. Kindi’s “On swords and their kinds”: commentary (Brian Gilmour) 4. Swords in Arabic Poetry (Mark Mühlhäusler and Robert Hoyland) Appendix 1: Jābir ibn Ḥayyān’s Book on Iron (Brian Gilmour and Robert Hoyland) Appendix 2: Bīrūnī on Iron (Brian Gilmour and Robert Hoyland) Appendix 3: The manuscripts of Leiden, Istanbul, Turin and Chester Beatty Glossary (Brian Gilmour) Bibliography List of Figures Map of Asia with names of relevant places and regions, between pages 218–219 Figures 1 & 2 Images of swords from pre-Islamic contexts Figure 3 Wall painting at Nīshāpūr Figure 4 Perseus as seen from the sky Figure 5 Ivory casket of Zīyad ibn Aflaḥ Figure 6 Coin of Caliph al-Muqtadir Billah Figure 7 Coin of Caliph cAbd al-Malik Figure 8 Diagrammatic representation of Kindi’s sword typology Figure 9 Horseman with sword, from Nihāyat al-Suɔl Figure 10 (a) Single-edged Turkish watered steel sword (b) Detail of the watered surface pattern Figure 11 Straight, single-edged Sasanian sword Figure 12 Remains of crucible steel ingot from Banbhore Figure 13 (a) Single-edged sword found at Nishapur (b) Relic steel structure of the Nishapur sword Figure 14 Remains of crucible steel ingot found at Merv Figure 15 Surviving crucible steel furnace base found at Merv Figure 16 Reconstructed section through crucible found at Merv Figure 17 Bars of trade iron from Khorsabad and other late Assyrian sites Figure 18 (a) An early illustration of a furnace for producing crucible steel (b) Massalski’s sketches of steelmaking in Bukhara in 1840 Figure 19 Persian miniature showing a team of ironsmiths at work Figure 20 Diagrammatic reconstruction of four 6th/7th c. Anglo-Saxon swords Introduction James Allan One of the problems pervading the study of medieval Islamic technology is the lack of surviving technical treatises. Artisans were essentially practitioners of an inherited skill. They worked in industrial quarters, in the narrow confines of the suq or bazaar inside a city, or in more spacious surroundings outside the city walls, where smoke and debris would be less inconvenient for the local population. Rarely able to read or write, they were men of inherited wisdom and experience. Change, if it was required, came through experiment, through trial and error. It was slow and uncertain. Tradition was handed down by example and by word of mouth, and apprenticeships could last for decades. There was therefore no need for texts or manuals. Fortunately, however, occasional treatises do exist. These are most commonly in the form of lapidaries, like those of Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Bīrūnī (d. 440 AH/1048 AD; see appendix 2 below), Naṣīr al-dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274), and Abū l-Qāsim cAbdallāh Kashānī (fl. 700/1301). Such lapidaries are not confined to precious and semi-precious stones. In the first place they include the magical and medical properties of the stones discussed, reflecting the market for such works. Secondly, and more importantly for our purpose, they often include technical details of metals and their alloys – on the basis that metals, like medicaments, are derived from particular stones or ores (for a general introduction to mineralogies see S.H. Nasr, Islamic Science. An Illustrated Study, Westerham 1976, ch. 4 “Natural History”). Another written source of information is the manual of the muḥtasib, the market inspector. This source has never been fully investigated, though some of the manuals have been published, e.g. the Macālim al-Qurba (published by R. Levy in London 1938) of the Egyptian muḥtasib Ibn al-Ukhuwwa (d. 729/1329). Muḥtasibs were on the look out for fraudulent activities in the market place; thus Ibn al-Ukhuwwa says of blacksmiths: “Blacksmiths must not hammer out knives, scissors, pincers and the like from soft iron, which is of no use for the purpose; some assure the purchaser that it is steel, and this is fraudulent”. So though specific information on metal technology is seldom included, it can sometimes be deduced from the warnings given out. A further source is alchemy. Again, accurate conclusions are comparatively rare, even though it was the motivation behind so much scientific research in early Islamic times. Occasionally, however, nuggets of worthwhile information do crop up, as for example in the piece of Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (fl. late second/eighth century) quoted in the first appendix to this book. Yet other treatises reflect the interests of particular wealthy or powerful patrons. Thus Murḍā ibn cAlī al-Ṭarsūsī (fl. 6th/12th century) wrote a treatise on weapons for the Ayyubid ruler of Egypt and Syria, Ṣalāḥ al-dīn (Saladin), which reflects the defensive and offensive interests of his patron. This work includes some valuable recipes for watering on steel. The Arṭuqid ruler of Diyarbakir (in modern southeast Turkey), Nāṣir al-dīn Maḥmūd (596–619/1200–22), was more interested in mechanical toys, especially clocks, hence the treatise on mechanical devices composed for him by Ibn al-Razzāz al-Jazārī (written in 602/1206). Here again, however, technical information is included so that the clocks could actually be built, and the author also included a fascinating description of how to cast a bronze door. How common were scholar-craftsmen like Jazārī is unfortunately unknown, but his existence raises many interesting questions about the craft industries, and indeed about the view of artisans offered at the start of this Introduction. The treatise of Yacqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī (henceforth Kindi) on swords was also the result of an interested patron, the Abbasid caliph Muctaṣim (218– 27/833–42), one of a line of caliphal patrons of scholarship and translation. What might have motivated him to commission this text is an intriguing question. Like any ruler, Muctaṣim would have had a general interest in his army and its equipment. However, in the aftermath of the fourth Arab civil war he also had a more particular interest in building up a well-trained and well-equipped army. As a result, he imported large numbers of slaves from Central Asia and had them trained as a fighting force. He is in fact generally credited with making slave soldiers into an Islamic institution. This, together with Kindi’s scientific curiosity, may help to explain why the latter’s treatise is so specific. It discusses the difference between iron and steel, it distinguishes different qualities of sword