Pesh-kabz

The pesh-kabz is a type of Indo-Persian knife designed to penetrate mail armor and other armor, its name meaning fore-grip in Persian and later borrowed into Hindustani. Its blade is hollow-ground, tempered steel with a thick spine and a needle-like triangular tip engineered to spread the links of chain mail apart as it is driven through. The knife originated in Safavid Persia and is believed to have been created sometime in the seventeenth century to defeat the mail armor worn by mounted and foot soldiers, and it subsequently spread across Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent during the Mughal period, becoming widespread in Afghanistan and the surrounding region. After armor fell out of use in modern warfare the pesh-kabz remained valued as a close-combat weapon, particularly among Pashtun tribes such as the Mahsud, Afridi, and Shinwari, and it is still carried today both as a personal weapon and as a ceremonial badge of adulthood among Pashtun and other Afghan hill tribes. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/