Fact Check: Sword in viral image does not belong to Maharana Pratap
By Satya Priya BN Published on 9 Jun 2020 3:54 AM GMT
A photo of a sword and a scabbard that allegedly belonged to Maharana Pratap has gone viral on the Internet.
According to one Twitter user, "The sword of Maharana Pratap weighs around 50 Kgs each, he used to offer one Sword to the Enemy when his enemy would be disarmed. Imagine the calibre of this warrior in battlefield. But Sadly there is not much mentioned in our History books (sic)."
Meanwhile, others have claimed that the sword was used by Maharana Pratap during the Haldi Ghat Battle.
Fact Check:
The above claim is FALSE.
If we observe the handle of the sword, we will notice some Arabic words encrypted in the design. NewsMeter did a reverse image search on Google and Yandex and found that this image is popular on platforms like Pinterest, Tumblr, and Imgur.
An Instagram account, under the name archeoveyasam, posted this image in September 2019 and said it was the sword of Boabdil (Muhammad XII).
Boabdil was the last Nasrid ruler of the Emirate of Granada, Spain, who ruled from 1482 to 1492. By the beginning of 1491, Granada was the only Muslim city left in Spain, which had now been taken over by the Christians. Many social media users have also posted the image with the same claim that the sword belonged to Boabdil.
NewsMeter also found a website, Sword-site.com, which displays the image under the title "Jinete Sword of Boabdil Last Nasarid Emir of Granada". The website states that "on the hilt (of the sword) there is an inscription with the motto of the Nasrid dynasty: La ghaliba ila Allah (No Victor but God)".
https://sword-site.com/thread/317/jinete-sword-boabdil-nasarid-granada
A website, Unusual Historicals, in an article titled "The Moorish Loss of Muslim Granada in 1492" displays a different image of the same sword and states that the sword is in display at the Museum of Cluny in Paris.
http://unusualhistoricals.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-moorish-loss-of-muslim-granada-in.html
Hence, the claim that the sword in the viral image belonged to Maharana Pratap is FALSE.
