Arms and military techniques

In Islam

It is generally believed that prior to the Crusades, Islamic countries shared the same knowledge about military techniques and weapons as that developed in the West. While this was true of al-Andalus, the Near East cultivated its own military arts through its contact with Byzantine and Persian techniques.

Hence their arms of predilection, the sabre (a slightly curved blade with a single cutting edge) and the sword (a straight blade with double cutting edge), were of equal importance from the early days of Islam, even if the sword tended to dominate, at least up to the twelfth century, figuring often in medieval miniatures and in bas-reliefs on Fatimid doors in Cairo (late 11th century). The sabre, which originated in Central Asia, was first used by mounted cavalry before it was steadily adopted, beginning in the thirteenth century, by foot soldiers. The sword, meanwhile, kept only its ceremonial function. In time, the sabre, too, became an object of prestige, displaying decorative motifs, inscriptions and Koranic scripture. The dagger with its small blade was used as a personal weapon and like the sabre it often had a curved blade. Other customary weapons with blades were the axe, an iron axe for foot soldiers and a “saddle axe” for cavalry, which could be wielded at the same time as the sabre or sword. The axe appeared for the first time in the early seven hundreds, becoming more widespread during the Mamluk epoch in a longer form with a crescent-shaped head engraved with the sovereign’s name or an inscription of a sura. And lastly there was the lance, with bamboo haft and an average length of four meters, which was frequently employed by troops of Muslim foot soldiers or cavalry.

One of the particularities of these medieval weapons with blades was the use of a very sturdy steel, obtained from a procedure developed in India based on the prolonged fusion of fragments of iron with coal, followed by steeping it and then by forging the resulting amalgam. The shimmering effect obtained by hammering this steel gave this steel its name of “damask”.

A blunt arm, the sledgehammer with its iron head forged out of a single block with its shaft or head mounted on a wooden haft was developed principally between the tenth and thirteenth centuries and took on a more ceremonial use during the period of the Ottoman empire.

When it came to fling weapons, the short composite bow of Parthian origin was used by Muslim cavalry beginning in the 8th century. It was made of horn, wood and sinew glued together and its strings were often made of silk. The crossbow that mechanically projected a cannon ball mounted from a barrel had more firing power but a slower shooting rate. Historical records suggest that the earliest use of such crossbows was in Persia from where it gradually spread throughout the Islamic territories. However, we need to make a distinction between the crossbow held by hand, the foot-strapped version and the tower bow, and the light version reserved for cavalry. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a collective version existed composed of one or several large crossbows superimposed and equipped to shoot large metal projectiles.

A collective weapon par excellence, this firing machine base on a leverage system, which originated in China, began to appear in Arabia in the early Umayyad period. The most evolved models used by Muslim armies in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were the large trebuchets fitted with a pendulum and a mobile counterweight: they could shoot a canon ball of a hundred kilograms up to a distance of 200 meters with a low shooting rate of two shots per hour.

An indispensable complement to these various arms was Greek fire, a liquid mixture of a paste that originated in Byzantium, composed of pitch, sulphur, tallow, saltpetre and naphtha in variable proportions and which had the double advantage of being extremely flammable; it was inextinguishable even in contact with water. From the early days of Islam, it was frequently employed at the surface of water or from the ground to defend ports, coastal areas and routes. It was held in metal tubes that were fixed in place or mobile, or placed in terra cotta recipients that were sometimes thrown at the enemy in battles or sieges.

The ultimate evolution in medieval arms came about with the first mobile firearms, the ancestors of the crossbow. It appears they did not come into use in the Orient until the middle of the fourteenth century, at the same time as canons, despite the fact that the Muslims had knowledge of canon powder, which originated in China, before the first half of the thirteenth century.

In terms of corporal defensive armour, the coat of mail was worn most often, sometimes under plate metal armour or armour with plates made of bone or leather connected with straps and attached to a cloth lining. In the fourteenth century, a cross between a coat of mail and plate armour produced the breastplate to which could be added metal protections for the legs and arms.  In terms of protective armour for the head, judging from the models in preservation from Islamic lands, helmets were did not come into use before the nineteenth century. Such helmets were composed of a hemispherical leaf of metal, or layers of multiple leaves of leather, which were sometimes reinforced inside with plates of wood or metal. Nasal, neck and ear protective armour, which further improved the armour’s defensive qualities, began to appear around the twelfth century. These developed into the turban helmet under the Mamluks, a prestigious object, decorated with motifs and inscriptions.

Improving the efficacy of armour, shields was generally circular in shape and made out of wood or boiled leather with a leather or metal outer layer. Convex in cross section, it could be reinforced with a metal umbo and was generally used by the cavalry. A longer variation with at its lower section in a point of Byzantine and Latin origin was used by footsoldiers. The the rise of the firearms of artillery in the fifteenth century, the shield became an object of prestige, often made out of damask steel and encrusted with gold or, in the case of Upper Egypt in giraffe or rhinoceros skin.

Treated as case studies of large-scale Muslim offensive and defensive weapons in the Mediterranean, battles and sieges were abundantly described and illustrated in Arabic and Latin manuscripts.

Our knowledge of the tactics employed by medieval armies during battles comes to us from Arabic treaties on the military arts written in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, such as that by the Saladin army with the installation of troops placed with their backs to the sun with banners and accompanied by kettledrums and trumpets; the disposition of two central wings of foot soldiers, archers, crossbowmen, javelin and lance throwers preceded the cavalry; the lateral deployment of the two wings, packed with cavalry in order to better encircle the enemy. The mounted archers played an essential role with their technique of rapidly alternating between assault and retreat, a technique developed as early as the thirteenth century with the more widespread use of the bow, as in the capture and sacking observed in Transoxiana in the presence of nomadic Turkish tribes in Umayyad and Abbasid armies.

Such siege techniques were the jewel in the Muslim arts of war, inspired in great part by Byzantine poliorcetica. The sieges of towns and citadels, in particular those carried out by armies in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, unfolded in several stages: the installation of the assailants in a zone dominating the site; a blockade and the cutting off of food supplies and water; an intensive bombardment with firing weapons; the digging of galleries or tunnels under the foundations of the fortification by mining sappers. When the fortifications began to collapse under the effect of the undermining, the assault could begin, with the foot soldiers covered by the archers and equipped with ladders, grapples, battering rams, movable towers, and would continue until the surrender of the besieged or the retreat of the assailants.

B. M.