Depth
At a glance
- Roles
- Artist
- Era
- The Gunpowder Empires
- Region
- Persia & Central Asia
- Review
- Completeness 2/5 · Help complete it
Overview
Asad Allah Isfahani was a celebrated Persian sword-maker, a shamshirsaz, of the time of Shah Abbas I. 1
The helmet
The story goes that the Ottoman sultan presented a helmet to Shah Abbas and offered a sum of money to anyone who could cut it in two with a sword. Asad made a sword that achieved this, and as a reward Shah Abbas remitted the tax on the sword-makers, who continued to be exempt until Qajar times (A. K. S. Lambton, Islamic Society in Persia, 1954). 1
Sources
- Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition (Leiden: Brill, 1954–2008), 13 volumes , vol. 1 p. 734
Cite this page
islam.museum contributors. “Asad Allah Isfahani”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/asad-allah-isfahani/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-25.