I agree Tim, good idea to keep the focus on the thuluth form and look into various places it is known to have been used. In looking into Yucel's book, he notes thuluth in use in Ottoman parlance about 16th century and apparantly in Mamluk context, most likely Syria, but some of these early swords were of Egyptian make,
It would be interesting to see Indonesian examples of thuluth, and it seems that I might have seen something like this in an article by Cato. I can only hope that the guys collecting those areas might see this thread and maybe offer some help.
Well made point on the crocodile skin too. There certainly were crocodiles in the Niger and the use of crocodile hide was used in certain cases in West Africa in some of the secret societies. The use of the crocodile hide on weapons to me seems situated mostly in Sudan, but in singular cases it would be possible to the west I suppose. Most of what Ive seen is armor type regalia, along with pangolin hide, rather than on weapons.
Fearn , actually I'm right with you, and glad that Tim suggested this thread as I must admit I've never really understood the differences or application of this type script. While I have known what it was since my first kaskara, back about 30 or so years ago, I only knew of it as huge script that I thought was simply decorative motif. Now it seems that in many cases it is quite legible and derived from other, earlier forms like naskh and Kufic. I'll be doing some more studying of course, and hope others who know this stuff already will come in to share some knowledge
All best regards,
Jim