Tabarzin
تبرزین · tabarzin
Literally: saddle axe
Also known as: tabar, kuhari
A Persian battle axe with one or two crescent blades on a thin, light, always metal haft; a symbolic weapon of dervishes.
Quick Facts
IranAbout the weapon
The tabarzin, Persian for saddle axe, is the traditional battle axe of Persia, today's Iran. More generally this type of axe is called tabar. We have not been able to establish the dating of its origin in the sources. It carries one or two crescent-shaped blades. A peculiarity of the Persian axe is its very thin haft, light and always metal; a small knife was sometimes inserted into the hollow haft. The long form of the tabar measured about seven feet (roughly 2.1 m), the shorter about three feet (roughly 0.9 m). A surviving Persian ceremonial axe from the 18th century is made of steel with gold koftgari inlay, Kufic script and pierced decoration. In the 17th and 18th centuries the tabar was the standard weapon of mounted fighters in Sindh, who carried single- and double-edged crescent axes locally called kuhari. In the Punjabi Sikh army Khalsa, the tabar had a strongly curved blade and a hammer poll. Indian armourers also created combined weapons: the all-steel tabar-zaghnal, joining an axe with a war hammer with a beak, and the very rare Deccani tabar-shishpar, joining an axe with an eight-bladed mace. The tabarzin was sometimes carried by wandering dervishes as a symbolic weapon, and the tabar also served as a badge of office for Islamic police chiefs, the sahib al-shurta.