Dagger and sheath

Faizallah Shushtari Isfahani

ca. 1700

gold, jade, and steel

Aga Khan Museum

A curved dagger with an ornate hilt and a matching sheath are displayed against a plain gray background. The dagger and sheath are decorated with intricate metalwork and green velvet. Further Reading Some information is known about Faizallah Shushtari Isfahani, who lived and worked in the late 17th to early 18th centuries in Iran, and whose nisba (place-name) associates him with the city of Isfahan. In 1707–8, he was commissioned by the Safavid Shah Sultan Husayn (r. 1694–1722) to make sets of steel door plaques for the Shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad. His signature appears on a variety of other objects, including a small steel orange and a steel ewer which were donated by the Shah to the same shrine.[2] The blade of this dagger in the Aga Khan Museum Collection may also have been produced for the Shah. It is made