The Arabian Bow: An Unsolved Mystery
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- Опубликовано: 9 июл 2022
- Despite all the attention given to the techniques of Arab archery, it seems that a question that is rarely asked is:
What is the Arabian bow?
This video aims to present my view point regarding what the Arabic bow is, using historical texts and illustrations, in addition to economic and logistical deduction.
Sources:
- Arab Archery, An Arabic Manuscript Of About A.D. 1500 : A Book On The Excellence Of The Bow And Arrow And The Description Thereof
- Rome's Enemies 5: The Desert Frontier
- Riyadh as Salihin: The Book of Jihad
- Sunnan Ibn Majah
- Sahih Bukhari
Video Refrences:
Armin Hirmer: / arminhirmer
Clay Hayes: / ibprimitive
HuntPrimitive: / @huntprimitive9918
Turkey Video: / @turkeyvideos6183
Music
• Arabia Theme - Ancient...
• Relaxing Arabian Music...
• Relaxing Roman Music -...
• Desert Caravan 
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Assalamualaikum brother ,you narated a very famous hadith which also shows importance of firepower in modern warfare. I actually was collecting info about archery of prophet and Sahabah for long time,learning many nations about archery in hadith ,for 2015 but I haven't made a video,u did it ,I will share my info about bow woods in saudia if you like for your next video.jazakAllah nice information compilation.actually I deduced the same result you did in this video after discussing on atran and traditional archery Facebook pages long ago. jazakAllah for video ,love from Pakistan
وعلیکم السلام :روایتی تیر اندازی کے حوالےسے آپ کی ریسرچ سے استفادہ حاصل کرنے کے لئے رابطہ کی صورت؟
Alsslaumalikum brother, I would be very interested in your search because I looking into the Arabic bow making for three years now.
What kind of wood did they use?
it was awesome to collab with you, hopefully your channel will blow up
Likewise with you, I appreciate your interest in my culture and I enjoyed the experience!
This is great content! Keep it up. Can't wait for the rest of the series.
Thank you for your kind words 🙏
Excellent video! Most of my archery experience is with Turkish archery, but I've always been curious about Arab archery. I hope your efforts will lead to more people exploring the subject, and I look forward to more content from you!
I hope so too Brandon, thank you for your kind words!
Very interesting. I have always assumed that an “Arabic” bow was the same as other Islamic nations. Your reasoning is quite convincing as to the practicality of self bows as opposed to the composite.
great content, looking forward!
Solid analysis. Good info!
ive been waiting 6 years to find a video on this. thank you
Wait no more!
Excellent video brother, very deep insight into the topic. Looking forward to your future content Inshallah!
Dude this was so cool. Ive hated compound bows my whole life. Just feels unnatural. Finally picked up a traditional bow for the first time and it felt right at home. Ive been enjoying your stuff as it is helping me to be even more confused about which bow i want to buy... or all of them lol
I totally feel you man. Traditional all the way
Great video. Looking forward to more of your content.
Thank you brother!
Mashallah brother, really refreshing video
Great info and well presented. Thanks. :)
Interesting and full of Info >> Thank You !!
I believe you are correct: when people have the right wood to make several bows in one day they do not spend years to make one composite bow, the composite bow was probably created on the asian plains where there is not much (or nothing) wood. I do not feel like I could do anything but subscribing, keep up the good work my good sir(english is not my first language, so I am very sorry for the misspellings)
Dont worry, you described your point very well, your english is superb. The case of bows being made of one piece rather than composites are evident in many civilizations even other than the arabs, such as the Africans, the anglosaxons, the celts, and most of western and Central Europe. The arabs were exposed to and very rarely might have used composites but that is definitely not the majority. Thank you for your kind words 🙏❤️
any yew longbows found in turkey?
@@tonymaurice4157 not that im aware of, yew does grow in turkey however
The vast majority of archeological finds of early medieval and later bows, from Japan to eastern Europe and the Balkans, are some form of composite. Even many native American bows were various composites of wood or horn, and sinew. King Tut's bows were a mix of horn bows and self bows. Apparently his self bows were actually made in Egypt of local trees. My point is that there are and were many forests full of trees and palms like rattan that could and were used to make self bows and yet these peoples still made composite bows en masse. They almost certainly made large amounts of them in batches as modern bowyers that have continued on the original traditions in Japan, China, Korea, etc continue to do.
@@Skenderbeuismyhero Very interesting I just always wondered where the 1st composite came from?
I would speculate that wood and sinew backing was probably 1st.
Interesting video, thanks!
Thank you for the great content.
You are welcome 🙏
Great job mate! I think you gave a very solid ground for discussion with good sources. I agree that it seems likely the self bow would have been a very common sight. Every culture on earth has at some stage in their development used a type of longbow as it is simply one of the most practical and easily made bows. Specialisation may have followed at a later stage but when no one knows I suppose. Looking forward to your next videos!
I think i based my arguments on a decent foundation, always am open to discussion and opinions. The longbow has been the initial bow for almost every civilization, arabs included, due to many reasons. As arabs spread their empire to the west and east, they adopted more shorter composite bow designs as they saw they were more efficient and they had the means of production to do so. Thank you for the kind words!
Simon, Is there any evidence that our Aborigines ever used a bow? I’ve never heard of it. 🤷♂️ Cheers!
@@Afro408 I actually do not have any sources regarding archery in australia, that was an oversight in my previous comment. Thank you for pointing it out, I will look into the subject in the future.
Masha Allah, tabarak Allah! May Allah grant you deep understanding of this art. Thank you for the informative video. Having read the Arab archery book myself, I had reached that conclusion as well that the Arab bows must have been predominantly self-bows or long bows, with few composite ones. Your evidence based arguments make a lot of sense. Allah knows best. Jazak Allah Khairan.
Barak allahu feek, i assume you are Sahel takals brother, both of you have amazing character. I hopefully should have part 2 out in the near future talking about the other aspects of arab archery. Wa iyakum.
@@almubarizunarchery4607 Yes that's right I'm his brother. Jazak Allah Khairan for your kind words. Looking forward to part 2 of the video. Allah bless your efforts my brother.
I'm really interested in this topic and I look forward to hearing more. And you're reasoning is well thought out. In the case of composite bows you're right it's the same reason why the english didn't use composite bows because of climate and price but like in Arabia they also would have used recurve designs (maybe I'm wrong here about the recurve designs correct me if I am). Great vid
Yes for sure they would have used recurve designs, its also possible they used a recurve longbow design, as it is intuitive and they would have learned from looking at their neighbors. Thanks for your kind words. As you will see from my next part coming up soon. The archery of the ancient arabs is very similar to english longbowmen rather than turks or persians.
Great video! Subbed 👍🏽🙏🏽✌🏽
Good work, May Allah be with you and find the right clues for you research. I think you are right about Arab using long bows because they are simple, easy done and more efficient.
Assalaamu Aleikum wa rahmatullah wabarakatu. Baarakallah hu feekum Yaa akhi. May allah bless you brother for this video. This is exciting
Wa aleykum al salam wa rahmat all wabarakatu, allah ybarik feek akhi, thank you for the kind words, may allah bless your family.
Very good mate. Everyone seems to associate horse archery with full composites but simpler self bows would do the job just fine and what was used for thousands of years. They ain't picky bows like composites which definitely are alot more work and would come later to them
Excellent. Referenced in my forthcoming book, 'Guardian of Kings'. Thank you for the serious research.
Stay tuned, another big one coming! Should help with your book some more
good reasoning overall - selfbows sounds like a good conclusion given the environmental, economic and technological advantages and/or limitations. BUT I have my doubts about how reliable medieval paintings depicting other cultures are: while they give incredible detail on contemporary and local tech/art/culture, I dont think them to be reliable when depicting exotic cultures or past ages
Great job
Subscribed. Keep going, this is awesome. There is no info on Arab archery. RUclipsrs are mostly citate The Book and nothing else, as they don't speak Arabic, so are not cultured!
ibn al Qayyim's al furusiyyah al Muhhamadiya has a section in the different types of arab bows. there are pictures of Ummayad era reliefs depicting arab archers. those might be helpful
Great video my friend!
Have you tried looking at Byzantine art for contemporary depictions of Arabic archery.
Because the Byzantines were Christian. They wouldn't be bound by Islamic aniconism and would therefore be able to depict what Arab archers really looked like.
I agree with your position due to this one hadith i heard a while ago.
Narrated by Ali Ibn Abu Talib. Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) had in his hand an Arab bow, and on seeing a man with a Persian bow in his hand, he said, "What is this? Throw it away. Keep to this and similar types, and to spears with shafts, for Allah will help you to support the religion with them and establish you in the land."
Al-Tirmidhi Hadith 1085. Ibn Majah transmitted it.
This indicates that there was a clear difference in appearence between the Persian bows and the arab ones. Due to the fact that that persian bows are distinctly recurved and have rounded limbs, its safe to assume from this hadith that arab bows were straighter and without recurve, or at least with more subtle recurve. All this points to arab bows at the time of Rasulallah SAW being longbows of some sort. This also confirms your point that there were in fact recurved persian "horse bows" (as theyre called on ebay lol) present in arabia back then. But they werent arab bows, therefore definitely not as common.
Amazing video, really love your work.
Loved the video! Its nice to bring attention to Arab archery, which i know little of instead the Steppe peoples. A book suggestion is always appreciated, another I must get.
But I would like to give warning that 10:20, the art brought up depicting a battle from 1200s looks to be applying the equipment of the artist's time. The artist I think was from the late 1400s or early 1500s and is putting wrong stuff in the wrong time, knights and others wearing armor certainly not from 1200s. But he could also be reading from a primary source saying the Arabs performed mounted archery. I don't know exactly, but he could be just depicting his idea of a bow.
Also, that message at the end is grand. I'm not Islamic, but a revival of tradition and knowledge is a worthy goal, thank you for your work
Nice one dude! Assalamualaikum!
Good effort on your video brother. One point that I would hope to draw your attention to was when you mentioned the battle of Al Mansoora, it is important to note that the Ayyubids were Kurdish and they initially fell under the Seljuks who were of Turkic origin so attributing the style used by Ayyubids in egypt to the Arab style as opposed to the Turkic one might be debatable. That said I am actually inclined to agree with your conclusions about the Arabs using more self bows with something resembling the long bow and God knows best. Keep up the good work.
I think that you are definitely on the right track. Certainly, the Japanese used long bows on horseback.
A couple of points. Titebond is an excellent glue, but is no stronger than top quality hide glue. Hide glue is vulnerable to humidity, but Titebond is thermoplastic and epoxies, depending on the formulation, may be vulnerable to heat.
Three self bows in one day is mass production and the bows would not be that good. Composite bows that take months to make are the other extreme-- 'boutique' bows for the rich. Top quality military self bows and top quality military composite bows would be somewhere in between. Sinew backed bows would predate fully composite bows in most cultures and would be more economically viable for the ordinary soldier.
The sophisticated composite bow developed as a military bow in prosperous cultures with the tax base to support an expensive military. The English longbow was an ideal mass produced weapon for a much less wealthy culture. Expensive weaponry and armor was commissioned by individual aristocrats and not funded by the state.
Excellent video: since you are a bow maker, what design was better B-Shape or D-Shape.
"Throw (arrows) sons of Ishmael your father was an archer"
Prophet Muhammad to the Arabs
Very good
Assalamalikum brother I have a question I need help.If I am over practicing or tiring myself beyond my limits during archery does this effect arrow flight that that is fish tailing.May Allah reward you for your help.
Wa aleykum al salam, it’s important to avoid shooting past the point of exhaustion, for multiple reasons. Your accuracy suffers, and your form might break down, exposing yourself to a possibility of injury. Ameen wa iyak. Fish tailing is just one possible consequence of exhaustion.
The Peace Of Our Lord Be Upon You And Your Family! Thank you for a wonderful and educational video. Always eager to learn more about our history and culture. If only there were more peace and understanding in the world, we could all learn from each other. So much is lost because of this. Please, if you have more, I am eager to learn. Many Blessings.
May his peace and blessing be upon you too, I totally agree with your statements wholeheartedly, i live to learn from other cultures, and i aim to teach others about our ancient and amazing culture. Blessings to you as well.
Excellent work! I do have a question about the woods used. You mention that Al Naba, Al Shawhat, Al Shiryan, and Al Zarnab are most likely woods used. Can you tell me what they are as I'm having a hard time finding good translations from Arabic? I've sort of figured out that one of them is yew from your video and I think that Al Shiryan is ash.
Thanks! While it’s difficult to say for certain because the terms might have been changed over time, the shawhat of today is called grewia tenax and the naba of today is called grewia propfolia. However ive read some places that shawhat and naba are species of yew. Yew today is actually Al Zarnab which we so far dont have evidence of this specific wood for bow making but it is possible.
@@almubarizunarchery4607 yew is present in Persia ,besides Europe so it might be imported wood for bows in trade by Arabs ,in exchange of other goods
@@user-ms5nf5ck3t Also in northern arabia
Good video🤠👍🏿
Thank you!
hey good video❤❤❤
Much appreciated ❤️
nice
Spot on sir, I think you have got it about right. This could also be transferred to Europe, as art works show, the re-curve bows also used there.
Laminated bows, performance is way beyond the self bow's, but too hot or too wet, just destroys them. Also given the time to build one and not having the industry at home, they will definitely be in the realm of the wealthy not the soldier.
Subhaanallah. This is amazing information.
Thank you brother, you have a very interesting name if i may ask, are you a convert?
@@almubarizunarchery4607 it's my pleasure my brother. My full name is Mogammad Mus'aad Felton. (Mogammad with a ح) ( محمر مسعر )Alhamdulilah I am muslim from birth. I have an English surname because my Great grandparents got the surname when they lived in England. However apparently my. However apparently my lineage traces back to the east in Iraaq or Iran. But I must do more research. But alhamdulilah I am born Muslim. My name is almost the same as the sahabi Mus'ab ibn umair. But my name is derived from the Arabic word which means happiness. Sa'aada
@@almubarizunarchery4607 I have limited knowledge on archery as here in Cape Town, Southern Africa. There are not many people who does archery or takes it so serious. I fell in love with archery because I knew it is a sunnah. But once I got into archery I learned more and more about it, and I was very in awe and intrigued by the intricate values that archery brings about and how much it ties in with daily life and our dean.
@@musaadfelton3909 ah i see, so you dont have english lineage? Interesting i thought you might have been a convert because felton is an anglosaxon name. In any case barak allahu feek.
@@musaadfelton3909 absolutely archery is very tied to islam. Its often overlooked by i think its one of the highest sunnahs of the prophet. Unfortunately in the muslim world we largely completely forgot it. And in a hadeeth of the prophet it was narrated:
On the authority of `Abd-ur Rahman ibn Shumasa that Qusaym al-Layth said to `Uqba bin `Amr, may Allah Almighty be well-pleased with him, as he was walking back and forth between the two targets (on the archery ground) “How is it that you keep going between these two points, whereas you are already an old man?” To this `Uqba replied, “Were I not for this world that I heard from The Holy Prophet, peace and blessings from Allah Almighty be upon him, I would not take this upon myself.” And he said, “I heard him say,
“Whoever learns archery, only to later abandon it, he is not one of us.’”
I think as a whole as muslims we abandoned archery after being really good at it.
Very interesting ideas. A few thoughts came to me. For infantry a longbow of the English type worked well (I refer to the war bow, not the Victorian fantasy bow which was not authentic) but such a bow needs to be long (170cm or thereabouts) to give a decent draw length and draw weight. For horseback use, such a bow would be awkward to use because the horse would restrict the direction in which the archer could shoot: not helpful in a battle! There are short horseback longbows e.g. amongst the plains people of North America but these seem to have been short range (as in virtually point blank) hunting weapons. For horseback use a short, sinew-backed bow would strike me as the best bet since it would enable a decent draw length with a bow short enough to be moved from side to side without the horse gettying in the way and making getting ready for the shot much more difficult. Also, a sinew-backed self bow can de made like a modern 'deflex-reflex' longbow (i.e. semi-recurved) quite easily to good effect but with the lack of an art-record (and unreliable, non-archer artists) it seems unlikely that whether the Arabs produced such bows could be an answerable question.
You are mostly correct, while i would say in general longbows arent the best for horseback archery, it was still done by some cultures for example the arabs, the manchu, and in some depictions by english longbow archers. And arabs did make composite bows however the nature and shape of these composite bows we know not very much about
Thank you
;-)
The horn bow was taken all over the Asia and Eastern Europe by Mongols ,now what we see I believe are improved in some ways versions, like the Turkish and possibly Arabic bows and others
I always wondered where the 1st composite bow came from.. Lack of good bowwood is one theory.
But I don't think there's any historical records of longbows being used in turkey. Even in ancient times
Im not really sure about turkey, haven’t done a deep dive into their history, this video focuses on Arabian bows in particular
just share my opinion about the Arab composite bow..
in Saracen Archery, there's mentioning about Hijazi bow which is sinew backed and often lined with goat horn on the belly, it have no siyah nor handle.. closest I can imagine is akin to Miwok's bow
but there's also mentioning about Wasitiyyah (made of horn, wood, sinew) which described as intermediate (wasittiyah) between Hijazi bow and Persian bow (this would refer to Sassanid era composite bow)
now if we put Miwok bow on one side, and Sassanid bow on the other.. then we put an Ottoman bow in between, it'll very close to be an intermediate between the two..
I believe the Hijazi was the composite bow during Prophet time, while this Wasitiyyah developed in some time later, and the Ottoman or previously Mamluk bow does indeed derived from it as basic into more sophisticated design..
I see what you mean, interesting hypothesis, very possible.
Humidity and wetness is what makes composite bows delaminate, not heat. The horse-peoples that used composite bows would lay low during the rainy seasons, fight during hotter seasons because wetness was bad fir their bows...
Extreme heat can cause animal glues to dry out, turning them brittle which causes them to crack and delaminate, heat is directly proportional to humidity as well in the case of hotter climates that live near the water.
When you say "Western" archery, you mean modern archery. There was no "one style" before late1800s when target shooting in parks became popular in victorian England. Before then, many styles of archery was practiced in "the west"...
Im aware.
Assalamalikum brother.Brother can you do some research on crossbow use by medieval Arab,Turkic,Persian Muslim kingdoms.
For sure, im interested in that topic and will likely cover it
What was the Poundage of horse archers?
Where was that book written? Mamluk Egypt?
Morocco by a anonymous author
Do you have any Facebook account? You should post this in ATARN group. 👍👍👍
I do, i just visited and i think you are right, they might appreciate it more! Thanks for the suggestion!
Mashallah
Allah Akkbur ......their wood bows I am certain were of the angle asymmetric type but I also believe the composite bow was very common especially the military elite....although it is hot there it is also very dry which is good for maintaining a composite bow.....as for the glue ....for its purpose it was better suited than modern glue with amazing properties...it was able to connect two laminations while allowing them some freedom of movement to slide by each other slightly. You must know that the Asiatic composite bow is very very highly evolved after having been around for what thirty five hundred years that we have evidence of...so likely far older ...they chose that specific glue not because they had no other types of glue but because the swim bladders of sturgeon made for the perfect glue for this specific application
Assalamu Alaikum, I wanted to point out you mentioned that Archery has been mentioned in the Quran, at 1:21 in your video.
I was unable to find anything in the Quran regarding archery.
Please fear Allah and do not speak about the religion without knowledge.
May Allah protect, guide and forgive us All!
Wa aleykum al salam, maybe instead you should look inword towards your own knowledge before criticizing others knowlage
‘Uqbah ibn ‘Āmir reported that he heard the Messenger of Allah (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) say on the pulpit: {And prepare against them whatever you are able of power} [Sūrat al-Anfāl: 60]ز Indeed, power is in shooting. Indeed, power is in shooting. Indeed, power is in shooting."
"And you did not kill them, but it was Allah who killed them. And you threw not, [O Muhammad], when you threw, but it was Allah who threw that He might test the believers with a good test. Indeed, Allah is Hearing and Knowing" (throw referring to the arabic word "رمي" in this case and era it would mean throwing arrows, some tafaseer also add the throwing of sand in battle)
If you seek knowledge, there is a method in which you ask. Do not tell me what to and not to speak about.
May allah forgive and guide us all and increase us in knowledge.
Make the new video!!
Soon!
Horse archery in Arabia is more like shoting from an stationary horse. They where good at everything. They are good Arches but not thst good on avg. The main thing was resuling, stricking and wepone compat especially the spear and sword and bat plus knife/dager.
I dont know the validity of that comment, while infantry combat was more common, there is a ton of information on arabs shooting while riding full gallop . And they were absolutely good on average, bows along with spears and swords were the main weapon of the arabs, and there are texts mentioning that every arab was a competent archer.
@@almubarizunarchery4607 they where comptent in everything not just archery. Incomprisen proportionally to other skills archery not their main focus. They are not like mongolias or turks or Nobliens.
MashaAllah ta BarakAllah. Please do stay in touch - we have launched WMASS (World Masjid Association for Sunnah Sports) in South Africa 5 years ago and run traditiona amateur l Arab-Mamluk archery competitions annually. We would love to engage with you InshaAllah
🇧🇷🙏👍👋👋👊🙏🙏❤️🏹🎯🏹🎯🏹❤️👍👍👍 show my friends 👍❤️🏹❤️🏹🎯
Obrigado ❤️
you need to look Byzantine sorces and also dont underestimate African influence especialy Nubians
I have the pictures of arab bow and others weapons that Arabs from the tribe of banu own used in war against in hind Hindu kings.I want to share these pictures with you please contact with me I will be wait for your reply
🇦🇪
Noway arabs had horseback archery 😂 its comes from the turks 100%
You have no say in either, you aren’t a turk, you’re a mix of an arab and a greek who speaks a dialect of Turkish. You have as much central asian DNA as a cockroach yet you have the most nauseating ultra nationalism. Arabs had horseback archery, the (original muslim) turkic people came and enhanced it.
@@almubarizunarchery4607 anav culture goes till 5000bc so our History goes to Overall 7000 bc and im a real turk if you think im a mix im half oghuz turk and half kipchak turk my mother talked Always about asparuh han he was late ancient bulgar turk and i was born close to his capital that he made and from father side my father told me we are from horasan so turkmenistan and my family looks alot turkic so you yapped about me being not turkic but my both parents side have alot turkic looks and im not radical irational nationalist im proud of my anchestry also turks rode horses First and combined it with archery and teached it to the mongols and other proto folks if you get triggered this much that prooves my point have a great day sir
@@oghuz_kaghan All that (probably untrue) information on your culture yet you have 0 experience on a horse, have 0 experience in archery, have no practical traditional knowledge of turkic warfare, you would have been absolutely useless to your ancestors assuming they were turkic. Maybe try to find similarities and build bridges with other cultures with a shared history rather than needless unearned nationalism in something you had absolutely no part in. Im not triggered, its just really really disappointing.
@@almubarizunarchery4607 you claim that im not turkic also that im not related to them in any way but first how are you so sure and i could say the same for you youre also broblaly useless to the arabs beside yapping nonsense
So depictions of animate things is forbidden, I'm sure that is helpful for civilization.
If thats what you took away from the entire video, then you aren’t helpful for civilization.
@@almubarizunarchery4607 bro only give asSalam to these jhula
It is our religion and we will follow it now go away.This is an archery channel.
asalamu alykum and greetings to everyone.i loved your explanation,i was curious and wondering how ancient arab bows looked like.i am a bow builder of various types of bows after learning by some expert who stays abroad.i have much more to ask ,but i am keeping it short.please send your email