My Haladie

[Rick]

Did you have trouble uploading pictures ?

Please read the welcome email you received when you were registered .

[Jim McDougall]

Hi Sailorjohn,
I saw this interesting haladie posted elsewhere, and Im really glad you posted it here!! Welcome to our forum.
While awaiting posting the pictures, I will say that while the haladie is indeed found in Syria and in the Sudan, it is actually a weapon that appears to have come out of India and known to have been used by Rajputs.

In Stone, he does refer to this as 'the Syrian knife' but the weapon seems to have come from the madu madu of India, once made of a pair of buffalo horns and eventually using steel blades made following that shape.

The boldly etched 'thuluth' calligraphy on the blades of your example suggest that it is from the Sudan, where these and many edged weapons were decorated in this way from the Mahdist period and somewhat in the years to follow.

Let me know if I can help with pictures, send me a PM.

All the best,
Jim

[Lee]

...adding photographs

[Devadatta]

Seems for me Sudanese

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Devadatta

Seems for me Sudanese

Thanks for agreeing with me Davadetta, thats exactly what it is.

[Lew]

Yes I also say Sudanese but I have never seen one with a brass hilt? Funny I have never seen a photo of any Sudanese warrior carrying one?

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Lew

Yes I also say Sudanese but I have never seen one with a brass hilt? Funny I have never seen a photo of any Sudanese warrior carrying one?

It is interesting that there were Mahdist kaskaras which sometimes had brass rather than iron crossguards. I was once told that this quite possibly could have had something to do with the superstitions that existed in Saharan regions and probably extended into Sudan concerning iron. While iron had connections with death, the converse was true of brass. It would be interesting to look further into that perspective....as to the use of the haladie, I am under the impression they were status type weapons to ranking tribal figures and the hilts were as noted, often horn or even ivory.
They may have been a symbol of rank, and used in the manner of the alem during battle, more research required