Yeah. Hard to resist borrowing from a culture that has found solutions to things you didn't know were problems until you started empire-building, to look at more sophisticated things than swords.
An example of persian influence in the 'House of Islam' - the early muslim states and armies, if I am right, actually used straight blades like byzantines and european ones, kinda. The scimitars came from persia (or even indian muslims), trickling down as the design was found usefull...
Yeah. Hard to resist borrowing from a culture that has found solutions to things you didn't know were problems until you started empire-building, to look at more sophisticated things than swords.
There is advantages and disadvantages to straight and curved blades, I should search for texts on it...
Straight blades thrust better, curves cut somewhat better, curved are better on horseback for some reason.
You're almost always cutting on horseback so its natural the curved sword is better in the context of horse riding.
Depends on the fighting style.
http://www.pattonhq.com/textfiles/saber.html
I'm not saying Patton is the defining expert here, but he has (pun intended) a point or two worth reading - and as he mentions, thrust or cut both are used.
In the very least in the kind of combat Persians and Arabs fought in curved swords where a far better idea, their primary enemies also made use of similar light infantry tactics so its reasonable for them to prefer it.