The Rise of Islam and Damascus Steel (Vanity)

The original Damascus steel is not the same as what is sold as Damascus steel today. Todays Damascus steel is a number of layers of light and dark metal that are repeatedly folded over and hammer forged together (called pattern welding). Usually, it is a dark and a light colored steel; a ductile and a hard steel; or, a high carbon and a stainless steel.

The original Damascus steel was a single material. After repeatedly hammer forging the ingot, the resulting steel showed curious marking known as “Mohammed’s ladder”, “ladder and rose” or “water” patterns. The markings of today’s Damascus steel are crude in comparison and are not formed by the same process. No further mention will be made of today’s “Damascus” steel.

Why was the original Damascus steel valued so highly? Because of its strength and ductility, not its beauty. Simply put, Damascus steel was stronger and more ductile than steel produced in Europe at the time. Steel used in weapons, most notably swords, must be strong enough to cut through bone and light armor, but ductile enough so that it does not shatter. The two properties, strength and ductility, are inversely related to each other. The stronger a steel, the more brittle it is. It was up to the swordsmith to balance the two properties as well as possible given the raw material he had to work with. Literature, both non-fiction and fiction, has numerous examples of swords failing (shattering) at critical moments. It usually meant death for the person holding it.

The formula for the original Damascus steel has been lost for several hundred years. It was recently rediscovered. This also tells us a lot about the history of Damascus steel. See http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9809/Verhoeven-9809.html for more details. Researchers have discovered that the unique properties of the original Damascus steel are due to the impurities naturally occurring in the raw material used to make the steel. This raw material was from mines in south-west India. In addition to iron, these mines also contain small amounts of Manganese, Molybdenum, Nickel, Vanadium, and Chromium. These are the same alloying agents added to iron today to make it into high strength steel. Like now, the carbon required to make the steel was added by the steelmaker during forging.

The secret of Damascus steel was a secret even to those who made it. When they ran out of raw material from the mines in India, substituting iron from other places was unsatisfactory. True Damascus steel slipped away. How does this relate to Islam?

The Iron Age began in about 1500BC (small amounts of iron, mainly from meteors, were used for small items before that). Artisans and/or swordsmiths learned to upgrade small quantities of iron into what we call steel as early as 100BC. The earliest recorded examples of Damascus steel date from about 400AD to 500AD. It was rare initially. Damascus steel became more common and widespread from 600AD to 700AD as the artisans learned to use the raw material from India to its best advantage. The peak of true Damascus steelmaking was between 1000AD and 1200AD and it was completely gone by 1400AD to 1500AD.

Those dates coincide nicely with the rise of Islam in the same area. The death of Mohammed in 632 led to conquest in both directions from Mecca. Damascus fell in 635. Then the Holy Lands, Egypt, North Africa, the islands in the Mediterranean, and Spain fell one after the other. Islam reached southern France by 725AD. This was the high point of Islam’s spread in Europe. The battles in France see-sawed back and forth through 792AD until the Muslims were pushed back into Spain. They stayed there until being pushed back to northern Africa in 1212AD.

Inbetween, the first Crusade began in 1095. Europeans soon learned that the Muslim’s had superior weapons. After the capture of Jerusalem in 1099AD, Europeans brought Damascus swords back home for their own swordsmiths to copy. They were unsuccessful. A few were able to superficially copy the markings, but they were unable to duplicate the strength and toughness that Damascus steel was known for. We now know that was because they were not using the same raw material. However, their skill became better with practice and they were slowly began to make better steel for weapons from the raw material they had available. The last Crusade ended in 1291AD.

The rise of Islam follows the rise of Damascus steelmaking. When European steel improved to become the equal of Damascus steel the spread of Islam by conquest ended. I wonder how much of Islam’s success in conquering converts was due to the Damascus steel sword?

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Superior weapons may indeed have been a part of the rise of Islam. I dunno, but I have always wanted to own a damascus or wootz steel sword. The few examples I have seen for sale are really expensive antiquities, and as you said, modern damascus steel is just not the same. I may have to settle for the modern "folded steel". I own one blade that is not damascus, but rather about 20 layers of steel forge welded together with one really hard layer in the center for the edge. It's called San Mai steel by the maker.

I would think that with all the modern metallurgy and science, some new "miracle metals" would be forthcoming. You know, something that can slice through concrete blocks and bend 180 degrees and never rust, just the usual stuff.

Islam owes its rise to the Arabian horse people that swept out of the Arabian peninsula. Basically, the same occurred with the Huns in the 5th century A.D. when they overthrew the Western Roman Empire and in the 13th Century when the Mongols did to the Muslims what the Muslims had previously done in the 7th and 8th centuries.

Until the invention of the pistol and rifle, countries that relied on foot soldiers had a pretty difficult time dealing with cavalry, particularly when the cavalry was armed with standoff weaponry like the bow and arrow.

Here is a link to a brief summary of the battle of Tours in 732 A.D. that discusses the Muslims cavalry advantage and how the French victory at Tours was one of the few times where infantry was able to beat the horse-mounted Muslims.

I have several of these myself. You can cut a Coke can, then slice tomatoes. You can slice the beef so thin that the relatives will never come back.

Available on TV, not sold in any stores...at least that what it said on the ones I bought at the dollar store.

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