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Lot Essay
The removal of the extra mounts on the hilt of this dagger, which were either of silver or gold, could be an indication of the date of this dagger being prior to the rise of Wahhabism in the 1740s. The personal use of gold was believed to be contrary to the sunna of the Prophet.
While blades of this type are rare in the Islamic world and are also difficult to make, they were briefly popular in India in the later years of the Emperor Aurangzeb. His inscribed dagger with similar blade can still be seen in the National Museum, New Delhi. A similar uninscribed dagger is in the Moser Collection, Berne (Zeller, R. and Roher, E.: Orientalische Sammlung Henri Moser-Charlottenfels, Berne, 1955, p.151, fig.86a-b).
While blades of this type are rare in the Islamic world and are also difficult to make, they were briefly popular in India in the later years of the Emperor Aurangzeb. His inscribed dagger with similar blade can still be seen in the National Museum, New Delhi. A similar uninscribed dagger is in the Moser Collection, Berne (Zeller, R. and Roher, E.: Orientalische Sammlung Henri Moser-Charlottenfels, Berne, 1955, p.151, fig.86a-b).