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Originally Posted by ariel
I kept quiet for quite some time and just read the discussion.
Metal composition, engineering features and mechanical properties are not sufficient to establish true identity and ownership. Among thousands upon thousands of early Islamic blades produced over several centuries there must have been many that shared similar features: length, width, fullers etc. I have an old Tulwar with a beautiful old crystalline wootz blade: can I clam that it belonged to Aurangzeb simply because there are miniatures showing him with a similar sword? Inscriptions could have been applied later and fake inscriptions on Islamic swords are dime a dozen: witness the case of Assadullah.
Also, if Ahmed indeed proved his case to multiple Turkish researchers in 2001, why there no mention of this truly momentous discovery ( I am not being ironic!) in the book by Hilmi Aydin published as recently as 2007? What possible benefit could be derived by the modern Turkish governmental authorities and by the staff of Topkapi museum from suppressing the true identity of Dhu'l Fakar in their possession or, at the very least, mentioning it as a serious possibility? How does Ahmed accomodate his belief that the true Dhu'l Fakar is stored at Topkapi with the Shia's insistence that it will be brought back to this world only as part of Al-Jafr by the Twelfth Imam? What evidence ( not supposition) do we have that this blade was made at the latest before Muhammed's death in 632 CE? ( sorry for the typo in the first draft and thanks for pointing it out)
What can be cautiously claimed from the voluminous circumstantial materials assembled by Ahmed is that, based on texts and recollections of ancient authors, Dhu'l Fakar COULD have been similar in its appearance to the Topkapi example, as opposed to the forked pattern uniformly agreed upon by generations of Islamic scholars. But in the absense of an iron-clad provenance tracing this sword backward from owner to owner, one cannot prove that this is THE TRUE Dhu'l Fakar.
The former is an interesting and potentially useful hypothesis, the latter is an unverified claim.
And BTW, can we see actual photographs of the inscription discovered by Ahmed and missed by multiple previous and subsequent researchers, including Unsal Yucel himself?
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Hello Ariel!
It's quite ironic that I composed my article "Dhu'l-Faqar" while I was sitting on Hilmi Aydin's chair and writing on his desk in Topkapi in November-December 2001! Of course, I made some additions to the article when I returned to Cairo, Egypt.
The reason why Hilmi couldn't say it was Dhu'l-Faqar was because he promised me not to declare any of my discoveries before I did. Emine Bilirgen and the others in Topkapi did the same. It's a matter of ethics.
Also, Topkapi asked for a translation of my article to Turkish. I had to go to a translation center called Furqan in Fatih District in Istanbul, and pay two hundred US Dollars to get my article translated to Turkish; only to find the curators at Topkapi say to me that the Turkish translation was poor; as it lacked the ability in translating many sword terminologies.
Also, a Turkish newspaper called "Yeni Safak" (New Dawn) said they would like to publish what I've written, but then they said that the Turkish translation wasn't good at all.
BTW, Hilmi Aydin doesn't speak English...but Emine Bilirgen does.
Noteworthy is that when Hilmi Aydin called Tahsin Taha-Oglu to come and read the inscription that I found on the sword, Tahsin said that the identification of the Prophet's sword was a great event. After reading the inscriptions and informing Hilmi and Emine that this sword was Dhu'l-Faqar indeed, he told me: "Hey! You told me that you've identified the Prophet's sword, but this is Dhu'l-Faqar; Imam Ali's sword!" Then I told him that Dhu'l-Faqar was the Prophet's sword and then it passed to Ali...so he said: "Oh! OK!" and did not comment any further.
The curators at Topkapi -although they acknowledged that I had identified Dhu'l-Faqar- really accepted the event rather coolly. In fact, Hilmi once told me: "Big deal! We have 11,000 historical objects here in Topkapi!" When I told them that announcing that Dhu'l-Faqar was in Topkapi would add to the tourists visiting Turkey; especially Topakapi...the curators smiled and winked to each other.
However, it should be noted that Hilmi Aydin did have positive comments to give me like:
"You're very clever! Very clever indeed!"
"It's a scandal that a non-Turkish scholar would identify Dhu'l-Faqar; that sword that has been many hundreds of years in Istanbul, and that has been exhibited for almost 80 years!"
He also brought an article titled "Dhu'l-Faqar"; composed in Turkish by a scholar called Tapozoglu in the Encylcopaedia of Islam (In Turkish). The article was short, but it talked about Dhu;l-Faqar's features in older sources. He then opened Professor Yucel's book at the page of Othman ibn Affan's sword (which I identified as the true Dhu'l-Faqar), and at the same time opened the Islamic Encyclopaedia at Tapozoglu's article "Dhu'l-Faqar". Then he would take each description mentioned in Tapozoglu's article and correspond it with what's in the sword's photos (in Yucel's book), and then he would laugh in agreement with what I've told him and he'd say it out loud: "You're very clever! Very clever indeed!"