The Abbasid Caliphate represented the haute couture of male headgear and styling. Men wore imposing and colorful turbans, compounded with a multitude of caps in all shapes and sizes. The myriads of ethnicities that assumed power during that time contributed to the multiplicity of these head-coverings.

Men:

 

1- ʿImāma عمامة

The ʿImāma (turban) was the de rigueur headwear of any Muslim man in all walks of life. Many Abbasid contemporary historians mentioned that the ʿImāma differed in type, shape, and color according to a person’s social class, profession, or occasion. Hence, everyone, from the caliph, court officials, jurists, judges, physicians, soldiers, and non-muslims, down to mystics, shopkeepers, and servants, had a designated ʿImāma.

By this time, the turban had developed a unifying symbolic religious identity for Muslims rather than a mere ethnic heritage to be preserved. Historical records mention that the ʿImāma gained such high regard to the point that if a criminal were to be punished and shamed, he would be stripped of his ʿImāma. Aside from the instituted official black, white was the second most commonly worn color—following the prophetic tradition of wearing white garments. The wearing of the ʿImāma, when out of doors, was considered indispensable for males except on occasions of pilgrimage or condolence. While in their offices, government personnel, following the official color of the Abbasids, had to wear black ʿImāmas and were not allowed to take them off, even for a respite.

Commoners were forbidden from wearing black ʿImāmas as they were reserved only for court officials. Common etiquette required that a commoner wouldn’t be allowed an audience with the caliph and his entourage without an ʿImāma over his head, as it was seen as lacking in courtesy and unchivalrous.

 

 

 

 

2-Qalansuwa قلنسوة

The qalansuwa (skull cap) was the second most common headwear in the Abbasid period. Like the ʿImāma, it was an essential garment of the fashionable man’s headwear. The qalansuwa was a foundational base cap around which a turban was wrapped.

Skull caps were constructed from an array of fabrics and adorned with jewels and stones, sometimes encircled with fur, and came in different shapes and styles. Pictorial representations illustrate that the most common types were probably a low-rise dome cap, a nose-cone-shaped cap, or a cylindrical brimless cap (like a pill-box hat).

Most of the caps that have survived today are of the domed and brimless cylindrical type. They were constructed of a long rectangular band encircling the head, and the crown of the cap comprised triangular panels meeting at the center with a silk lapel or a tassel dangling from the top.

The elongated cone or sugarloaf cap, ṭawīla, introduced during the Umayyad period, had long been a widespread headwear worn by all classes. It was reported that Harun Al-Rashid was displeased with the fact that the ṭawīla, a symbol of regality, was used in common wear and therefore forbade ordinary people from wearing it. Only years later, his son and third successor, Al-Mu’tasim (ruled 833-42 C.E./218-227 A.H.), allowed its reintroduction for general wear.

The fashion of wearing this tall headgear and of using muslin for his clothes was so widely imitated in society that the fashion itself became known as Mu’tasimiyat. Al-Mu’tasim was known for being fond of imitating the styles of foreign royalty. Nowadays, the ṭawīla resembles the elongated high cap worn by the dervishes. The wearing of black caps (qalanuswa) was popular during the Abbasid Caliphate. Al-Asfahani reports that Al-Mansur ordered his companions to don black garments and elongated caps reinforced with straw frames or wickerwork.

Information on the construction techniques of these caps is rarely mentioned in literary sources, let alone artistic ones. Market inspection manuals are the only abundant source of information that details how they were made. Inspectors instruct cap makers (sani’ Al-qalanis) that “a knowledgeable professional in the craft must supervise cap makers and prevent them from making caps from old rags because they are damaged and prone to holes. Caps must be made from new cloth, dyed linen or silk, and sewn with silk thread. It is crucial that caps are not made from worn-out or previously used cloth that has been starched or stiffened with Ishras (branched asphodel) – the roots of this plant are commonly employed as an adhesive for books, shoes, and mending garments. Using old rags is deceitful, and those engaging in fraudulent practices should be punished accordingly. Additionally, caps typically padded with cotton should not be padded with alternative materials like combing waste from linen or cotton.”

 

Some qalansuwas/hats that emerged during the Abbasid period were either coupled with the ʿImāma or worn alone.

 

 

3- Shāshiyya شاشيِّة

There is no conclusive agreement on what shāshiyya was or its origins. Arabic dictionaries and historical references mention that it was a headwear called after different things in different places. In Egypt, for example, it referred to a turban-cap ensemble fashioned out of a turban made from shāsh fabric (fine and delicate white cotton) wrapped around a cap or tarboush. The fabric was named after the city of shāsh or Chach, the ancient name for modern-day Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, where Muslims exported many fabrics.

The shāshiyya also refers to the cap itself and was sometimes called a qub and was most likely a soft felt cap. The shāshiyya is said to have been popularized during Al-Mu’tasim’s reign.

One story of origin is that headwear first appeared during the 7th century when the Umayyad Muslim general Uqba ibn Nafi first conquered Kairouan in Tunisia alongside soldiers from Khurasan who wore this headwear. Unfortunately, we can’t know its shape or material at the time due to a lack of proper documentation. Somehow, it was adopted into the Tunisian costume, sold and constructed in the Kairouanian markets, and first called Ash-shashiyyah Al-Kairouaniyyah (Kairouanian shāshiyya).

Whether by means of wars or famines, all well-versed shāshiyya craftsmen in Tunisia made their way to the bustling and thriving Muslim Spain or Al-Andalus and introduced the headwear to the markets of Granada and Cordoba. The headwear was drastically developed and refined with new construction and dying techniques. Interestingly, almost 600 years later, after the last remaining Moriscos were expelled from Spain in the 15th and 16th centuries and resettled in North Africa, they brought back their original trade to the cities where it started.

Ibn Battuta mentioned the shāshiyya in his travelogues: “The common people rose up to the jurist and beat him with their hands and shoes so many times that his turban fell off, and a silken shāshiyya appeared on his head, and they chastised him for wearing it.”

The 13th-century Spanish manuscript “Libro de los Juegos” or “The Book of Games,” by Alfonso X  in 1283, depicts a time when the Christian Spaniards and Muslim Moors lived together. The attire of Spanish Christians and Muslims can be fairly distinguishable in these artworks. Several Christians are depicted wearing red, brimless, cylindrical caps or berets. In Leo Africanus’ 16th-century Description of Africa, he mentions that: “the caps worn by the people of Fes are similar to the crimson berets carried by the Spanish merchants for sale.”

Even though the terms Tarboush and shāshiyya are sometimes used interchangeably to refer to the fez, a red cylindrical cap, a distinction must be made. Despite their similar appearance and color, the modern shāshiyya is shaped like a low pill-box hat and slightly different from the Moroccan Tarboush or fez, shaped like a truncated cone. Tunisians call the Moroccan tarboush “shāshiyya istanbuli.” The shāshiyya still exists today as a part of the traditional attire of Modern-day Tunisians, Libyans, and Moroccans.

 

 

4- Ad-Danniyya الدَّنِّيَّة

The Danniyya was a tall qalansuwa similar to the tawila in shape and was another headwear adopted into the Abbasid judicial costume. The Danniyya comes from the Arabic word “Ad-Dunn الدَّن” meaning a vessel for storing wine and other liquids, speculated to be an amphora. The danniya was described as an inverted amphora in shape.

  

 

5- Ruṣṣafiyya الرُصَّافيِّة

The Ruṣṣafiyya was a tall qalansuwa (similar to the danniya in shape) named after the Russafa area in Baghdad and was the favorite cap of the caliphs, princes, and wealthy people. An Abbasid historian, Al-Ya‘qūbī (d. 897/8), said: “The first person who wore the elongated Ruṣṣafiyya cap was Harun Al-Rashid.”

6- Ṭaylasān/Ṭarḥa طرحة/طيلسان

As iterated before, the ṭaylasān was a head shawl worn during the Umayyad era. During the Abbasid era, it became a designated headwear for the “Qadi” or judge. The ṭaylasān can be draped over the head and shoulders or crossed on each side and left to drape on each shoulder. It came in many shapes, such as square, rectangular, or circular. The high qalansuwa and the black ṭaylasān, in addition to the Ṭarha (head-shawl similar to the ṭaylasān), came to be part of the qadi’s uniform. Around the eleventh century, the qalansuwa was replaced by the ʿImāma as the judge’s headdress. Although the black ṭaylasān remained part of the judicial outfit, it could be replaced by the ṭarha, which also came in white.

 

7- Taẖfifa/takhfifa تَخفيفة

Taẖfifa refers to a lighter and smaller-sized turban. Taẖfifa comes from the Arabic word “ẖafif,” meaning light in weight. The Taẖfifa was a cloth tied in a simple crisscrossed motion around the qalansuwa. It differed from a regular turban in that it was less secure and was wound around fewer times.

 

 

8- Kūfiyya كوفِيَّة

The kūfiyya is a square head-shawl folded diagonally to form a triangular head covering. The kūfiyya could also refer to a coif or a cap worn under head coverings to protect them from sweat and oil. Dozy hypothesizes the origin of the kūfiyya from the Latin word cofia and Italian cuffia, which he says the easterners borrowed from the Italians through trade during the Middle Ages.

Another theory of origin is that the kūfiyya was named after the city of kūfa in Iraq, where it was produced since the Abbasid period. Historians mentioned that weavers of kūfa (a city in Iraq) made turbans out of costly materials like ẖazz for the city elites, while lower-class people wrapped a turban from a low-cost fabric called kūfiyya used by field workers as protection from the sun or as a sweat cloth. Others say the fabric, sometimes called the hata in the Levant, has origins that predate Islam and can be traced back to Mesopotamia, where it was worn by Sumerian and Babylonian priests around 5,000 years ago.

9- Tāj تاج

Tāj is a Persian loanword meaning “crown.” Although not as common as the ʿImāma or khimār, the tāj was an existing headwear worn primarily by men and women of the higher echelons in the Islamic caliphal court. Several rulers are depicted in Islamic medieval illuminated manuscripts wearing ostentatiously large and elaborate crowns. Crowns were a distinct feature of the Persian regalia.

The first Arab Muslim ruler to have worn a crown was the Umayyad Caliph Hisham Ibn Abd Al-Malik. Several stucco figures in Umayyad desert palaces are depicted wearing crowns modeled after Sassanid crowns. Al-Mu’tasim (833–843 CE), known for being fond of imitating the styles of foreign royalty, was the first Abbasid ruler to “wear the attire of the Turks” and crown himself with a Tāj and abandon the “dress of the Arabs.” Several Abbasid caliphs gifted their most trusted generals with crowns as a part of the Khil’a ensemble or the “Robe of honor ceremony,” which Al-Mu’tasim was reported to have done.

Women:

Even though a veritable plethora of such items from the High Middle Ages to modern times, female hats, headdresses, and head ornaments are seldom mentioned in Medieval Arabic historical texts or art. Even some ancient rock drawings from Arabia depict women wearing crown-like hats. The few female figures depicted in Arabic manuscript artwork and miniatures often depict women swathed in outdoor clothing, fully concealed, with no means to see what is under their veils or mantles. Literary references and artistic representations are scant, so we rely on extant sculptures and illustrations of singing girls and dancers to gauge the types of fashionable headwear of the era.

Women’s headgear in the medieval Islamic world consisted of a wide variety of veils, head-shawls, fillets, headbands, diadems, and caps with compound turbans.

1- Khimār الخمار

The headscarf or veil was the most essential head covering for all Abbasid Muslim women. The way Muslim women wore the veil differed from European women. Veils came in a wide array of sizes, colors, and embellishments.

The earliest artistic depiction of veiling by Arab Muslim women in period artwork is in the 8th century of a fresco in the desert palace of Qasr Al-Hayr Al-Gharbi, showcasing, presumably, an Arab woman who has fashioned a turban-veil ensemble with a white scarf.

The second representation is from a panel from a rectangular ivory box from Andalusia (10th-11th century). The couple in the center-front of the panel, a man and a woman, probably court entertainers, are dancing and are attired in simple tunics cinched at the waist by a girdle, and the woman has a scarf wrapped around her head. The third is the 11th-century Fatimid female dancers from the Ivory Plaque at the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.

Artistic representations of veils showed that veils were decorated with golden tiraz bands, either gilded, woven, or stitched onto the fabric at the edges or above the edges by a couple of centimeters.

Khimār, qināʿ‘, miqnaʿa, Naṣif, ẖirkaa, buẖnuq, and ḥijāb are all terms used to describe head coverings in the Arabic language and medieval Islamic literary sources.

 

 

The Khimār was not the only garment used as a head covering; a variety of garments were available to them to serve as a veil. Women covered their heads and faces with large mantles like the izār, Milḥafa, or Jilbāb.

Prior to the Arab conquest of the Mediterranean, many Near Eastern cultures in Mesopotamia, Assyria, and Achaemenia stipulated in law that elite and distinguished women of status veil themselves. It was the norm in Greek and Roman culture for elite women, when they went outdoors, to wear a large enveloping mantle, which could be drawn over the head. Upper-class women in the Middle East and North African Roman colonies followed suit.

The Roman “Toga,” “himation,” “chlamys,” and “palla” were long cloths that were draped over the body, similar in function to the Arab “izār,” “Milḥafa” and “mirt.” The Arabs, situated between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanid Empire, were undoubtedly influenced by the Perso-Romanic cultural spheres even before the advent of the Islamic creed, bringing similar fashions into the conquered regions already familiar with such styles.

Until the early 20th century, urban Arab women sported similar fashions to the average Roman woman when stepping outside the house. For example, Cairine ladies would wrap themselves in a black enveloping rectangular warp called “Milaya Lāf” over their heads and whole bodies.

2- Face veils النُقُبْ

Besides the headscarf, the face veil constituted the second most used head covering for the Abbasid woman. Face veils were either separate articles or could be fashioned from a single garment utilized for multiple uses. Women would sometimes cover themselves entirely with a large mantle and take the remaining ends to cover their faces. Illuminated manuscripts show women using their ample body covers to conceal their entire body, head, and face simultaneously.

By the High Middle Ages, the niqāb seems to have become a basic part of the feminine wardrobe and one of the most common face veils. In fact, it is one of the most frequently listed items in the Genia trousseaux. It came in various colors, including white, pearl, grey, blue, and black, with white and light colors being the most common. Nuqub (Pl. for Niqāb) could be decorated with silk embroidery, gilding, or decorated with colored borders.¹

 Face veils were the equivalent of a medieval Western woman’s headdresses. Just like Medieval European women took great measures to elaborate the fashion of their wimples, coifs, fillets, barbettes, hairnets, and circlets with various decorations and materials, so did Muslim women for their face veils. Black veils from Nishapur in eastern Iran were highly favored at the time.

It’s fair to mention that the niqāb, naṣīf, būrqūʿ, qināʿ, lithām, and others were pre-existing veils in pre-Islamic Arabia mentioned in Jahili poetry; however, they weren’t as codified and strictly enforced in the same manner as after Islam. The reason I put them in the Abbasid period, despite their existence long before this era, is that we don’t have any pictorial evidence depicting contemporary styles of face veiling for early Islam, the Umayyad, and almost all of the Abbasid era, right up to the 13th century, when artwork and manuscript illustrations began to emerge.

The practice of veiling, whether in clothing or the seclusion of women behind closed walls, was not only based on religious grounds but also socioeconomic ones. Women of affluent standing and those belonging to the ruling elite were secluded and put in an elevated status above common women. Veiling served as a way of female social stratification.

Historical accounts by Muslim and non-Muslim commentators of the time portrayed a consensus that covering the face and head was a widely enforced custom, especially for middle and upper-class urban women. A Chinese traveler, Du Han, captured as a prisoner in the battle of Talas during the Abbasid Caliphate, commented on the attire of 8th-century Baghdadi people, including the women:

…Their clothing is handsome, and their carriage and demeanor leisurely and lovely. When women go outdoors, they always cover their faces, regardless of whether they are noble or base.

Muhammad ibn Ahmad Ibn Jubayr visited Sicily in the 1180s, nine years after the Fatimid dynasty collapsed (which used to control Sicily up until 1091), and wrote that Christian women in the capital city of Palermo followed Islamic fashions even at Christmas time:

 “they went out clad in gold-colored silk gowns, wrapped in elegant mantles, covered with colored veils, with gilded brodequins on their feet; they flaunt[ed] themselves in church in perfectly Muslim toilettes.”

Veiling did not only serve as a religious and social marker distinguishing free and respectable women from slave women, but was also considered a marker of elite status. Veiling was seen as a sign of material comfort and privilege. It highlighted that possession of several layers of clothing items, including multiple coverings for the head and face, was typically afforded only to women of good means. Abandoning the veil indicated that a woman was too poor to afford it.

It was generally recognized as a sign of great distress when a respectable woman appeared unveiled publicly. During a period of great civil unrest and house raids in ninth-century Baghdad, women fled into the streets without even throwing the izar over their indoor clothes; this, too, was evidence of ‘great distress.’²

There is a widespread notion, especially in general Western discourse, that the Arabs were the proprietors of introducing veiling to the neighboring populations they conquered after Islam. However, before the emergence of Islam, the Arabs, who were mostly of a nomadic origin, were influenced by veiling conventions emanating from sedentary civilizations like the Byzantines and Persians. The idea of veiling and female seclusion was, in reality, a byproduct of sedentary patriarchal socio-cultural conventions, not nomadic. The practice of veiling and relegating women to the domestic sphere was adopted by upper-class women, particularly in urban areas in Arabia, long before the spread of Islam to countries influenced by the Assyrian culture, like Syria and Palestine. The veiling practice dates back to the Assyrians, the rulers of Mesopotamia, from about 1380 to 612 BCE. ³

There was a consensus that nomadic and peasant women enjoyed greater mobility and social laxity than their urban and upper-class counterparts, required by their physically demanding way of life. A tolerant attitude was shown towards toiling lower-class working women as their low socioeconomic standing granted them leniency in terms of veiling. They sufficed with a simple head veil that aptly befitted their arduous lifestyle. Female singers, dancers, entertainers, and prostitutes were relieved from the onus of veiling and perhaps demanded to do so to distinguish themselves from free and respectable women. 

Christian and Jewish women wanting to emulate dominant Islamic cultural mores also observed modesty and veiled their faces. The Jewish Geniza Tousseaux lists contain several mentions of face veils, indicating it was a common practice amongst Jewish and subsequently Christian women.

In orientalist photography collections and European pictorial travelogues about the Middle East and North Africa (Egypt, Iran, Algeria, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey), from the beginning of the 19th century, one can find images of Christian and Jewish women dressed in attire similar to their Muslim counterparts (Muslim women didn’t take pictures since it was against general propriety). Women would generally sport a spacious cloak over their indoor clothing and a lengthy face veil in a similar fashion to medieval dressing customs.

This is not to say that veiling was unanimously implemented in the same manner across all Islamic lands, but varied on a spectrum. The ubiquity of the enforcement of face veiling was susceptible to influence based on the customs and communal characteristics of each society.

Veiling in the medieval Muslim East was not as prevalent in the Muslim West, especially in Andalusian Spain. Not all free urban women went about veiled all of the time. This is further confirmed by the illustrations of the Andalusian romance of Bayad wa-Riyad, in which women are invariably depicted as unveiled. The most likely explanation for this relaxed attitude is the very different social composition of Andalusian society, with its very large European non-Muslim component and the considerable Berber element in the population. Veiling had not historically been as strict among either of these groups as it had been among Middle Easterners.

Ibn Battuta, who came from a prudish, conservative scholarly background, was also taken aback when he visited the Anatolian Turkish Principalities in Asia Minor in the 14th century and saw the laxity in the veiling of Turkish women. He says:

“…A remarkable thing which I saw in this country was the respect shown to women by the Turks, for they hold a more dignified position than the men. … I saw also the wives of the merchants and common [men]. [Their faces are] visible for the Turkish women do not veil themselves. Sometimes a woman will be accompanied by her husband and anyone seeing him would take him for one of her servants.”

 

The laxity of veiling purportedly came from the nomadic culture of the Turks, as historically, Turkic women were not known to have been engaged in the act of face veiling. Even after conquering large parts of Anatolia and settling in the region, their nomadic and unbridled nature didn’t let up until they, like the Arabs, conquered Constantinople and imported the veiling customs of the Sedentary Byzantines into the Ottoman imperial legal code.

 

Unveiled bereaved women wailing at a funeral, from Maqamat Al-Hariri.

Various face veils could be discerned during the medieval period based on literary references and artworks. They were draped and placed on the face in multiple styles and positions. The materials and fashionability of these face veils greatly depended on the woman’s wealth and social status. Affluent and royal women wore richly decorated, trimmed, and embroidered face veils made from accessible and delicate materials like silk and fine linen. Meanwhile, poor and lower-class women wore simple veils made from simple and rougher materials.

A) Niqāb نِقاب

Firstly, a suspended rectangular cloth tied around the head, falling like a curtain covering the face with two eye holes for the woman to see, is usually referred to as a niqāb.

 

Secondly, a half niqab face veil covers the lower portion of the face, leaving the eyes exposed, and it begins from the bridge of the nose down. It was made from various fabrics; some were made from diaphanous materials, and some were made from opaque ones. Several Arab scholars distinguished the name of this face veil based on the placement of the veil on the nose. If the niqab starts from the bridge of the nose, it’s a lītham لِثام; however, if it’s placed on the mouth, it’s called a līfam لِفام. Yet, other Arab linguists claim it’s the reverse.

 

 

 

 

Thirdly, a face veil called a qināʿ, according to Dozy, is a long veil worn under the overwrap (izar), where one part lies on the head, falls like a curtain over the face, and reaches down to her belly. It was made from sheer and delicate materials such as net-like, muslin, or silk to allow vision. It was embellished and embroidered with gold or silver on the edges. 

Another variant of this face veil is the eye veil called shaʿriyya. The shaʿriyya is a short wool net made from horsehair or goat hair that falls from the head to just below the eyes. This veil was most common in the early Ayyubid period, as the Cairo Geniza trousseau lists testify. They came in colors ranging from aloeswood (i.e., blackish) to green, pomegranate, and red. The late fifteenth-century Italian traveler Leonardo Frescobaldi mentions that:

“the more noble [women of Cairo] carry a black tamin before their eyes so that they cannot be seen, but they see others very well.”

 

 

B) Burquʿ بُرقُع

The burquʿ or “battoula” as they’re called in the Gulf countries, is a harness-like veil or mask consisting of fabric suspended from the center front of the headband (ʿiṣāba ) to cover the face. The lower corners of the burquʿ were attached to the sides of the headband by a string, creating a mask-like effect. Unfortunately, there is no contemporary illustration of a burquʿ worn by the average 9th-13th century Arab woman.

However, three examples of 14th-15th century Mamluk burquʿ face veils were excavated from Quseir Al-Qadim and Qasr Ibrim, Red Sea port sites in Upper Egypt. The least damaged is made from two pieces of undyed plain-weave linen to form a complete length of 61 cm (24″ ) and a maximum width of 19 cm (7.5″). The Qasr Ibrim fragment is made from one piece of crimson plain-weave silk cut across about 4cm (1.5″) from the top to form the eye slit. The forehead band and lower section are joined at the bridge of the nose by a leather plait and an iron ring decorated with five beads.⁴

The discovered Mamluk veils show a general continuity in the construction methods and styles of these veils if they are to be compared to a 20th-century burquʿ. The burquʿ is still worn to this day by elderly married women amongst the Sinai Bedouin and women in some Gulf countries. 

 

3- Tāj تاج

Historical writings indicate that crowns were used as a female head ornament throughout the Abbasid era. Crowns were usually reserved for occasions of matrimony and festivities. Wealthy brides and sometimes grooms complete their wedding attire with a statement piece such as a crown. Well-off ladies and princesses wore crowns, tiaras, and diadems on their wedding days.

Harun Al-Rashid is said to have prepared an obscene amount of jewelry, head ornaments, and crowns for his wife’s bridewealth. Al-Maqrizi mentions in his book on the history of the Fatimids, “Itti‘āz al-Ḥunafā’ bi-Akhbār al-A’immah al-Fāṭimīyīn al-Khulafā,” that Sitt Al-Mulk, a Fatimid princess during her brother’s reign, Al-Ḥākim bi-Amr Allāh (r. 996-1021), gifted him a tāj on his wedding day. It was also mentioned that the caliph, Al-Qa’im bi-Amr Allah, sent Khadija Arslan, a Seljuk princess and his later-to-be wife, around the year 400 AH / 1009 AD, a crown studded with jewels.

There were some cases when the wearing of crowns was not exclusively relegated to the Aristocratic ladies of the court but was also worn by special female entertainers who were fortunate enough to catch the attention of Caliphs and princes. Al-Asfahani writes of the renowned Umayyad minstrel Jamila (d. 743), who donned her slave girls with many ornate crowns. One historical reference mentioned a slave girl presented before al-Ma’mun with a golden crown on her head.

Most female crowns were characterized by the fact that they completely covered the head or the upper part of it. A semi-pointed lateral protrusion and a similar medial protrusion also distinguished it. In many cases, the medial prominence is slightly higher than the two lateral prominences. These crowns varied in their intricacy and elaborate workmanship based on their size, decoration, and style, based on the woman’s socioeconomic standing and personal taste.

 

 

4- Cap/qalansuwa قلنسوة

Historians mention that Abbasid women wore the burnus cap. It was most probably a decorated coif/cap. Al-Asfahani mentioned that this cap was adorned with golden chains, glass beads, or jewels. The originator of this bejeweled cap is none other than ‘Ulayya Bint Al-Mahdi. Abbasid women of affluent status closely followed in her footsteps, and this fashion trend became widespread. 

Abbasid women wore skullcaps with decorated bands at the base. According to Al-Waššāʾ, it is known that the slave girls of the well-to-do people wore a qalansuwa as their headgear, which was profusely decorated with tiraz inscriptions and ornaments. He writes that they were made from brocade (dibaj) and gilded with lines of poetry (bi-thahab).

 From pictorial representations, it seems that the fashionable headwear among Arab ladies across the Middle Ages was a skull cap, round the bottom of which was a circlet or a contrasting band that could be adorned with jewels and plumes. They had a wide variety of sizes, fabrics, accessories, and embellishments. 

Al-Waššāʾ mentions that ladies of elegant taste also used the wiqaya (which comes from the Arabic word “wiqayah,” meaning protection), a band to hold the hair in place or an under cap worn under their veils and headdresses to prevent slippage and to protect them from sweat and oil. The wiqaya was ornamented and sometimes adorned with tiraz inscriptions. It is similar to the Western fillet band in function.

 

 

 

 

5- Karzan الكَرْزَن

In the section “On what is found on headbands and what holds the fringes and hair ends in place”, Al-Waššāʾ writes about what poetry lines elegant women of refined taste inscribe on their headdresses. One headdress, in particular, is called Karzan and was worn by Abbasid women.

The word karzan was an Arabized Persian word that referred to a half-crown made from brocade and was bejeweled and studded, worn by Sassanid royalty.

This headwear was a studded cap that resembled a crown. It was first encountered when described by Al-Masoudi (d. 346 AH) in Muruj Al-Dhahab. He tells us about Al-Mu’tadid’s marriage to Qatar Al-Nada, saying: “The dowry was one million dinars, and other goods, perfume, and the exotics of China, India and Iraq… and among the things that Abu Al-Jaysh reserved for himself was a sum of precious stones of pearls, rubies, various kinds of gems, a bejeweled belt, a crown, and a fillet; It was said: a cap (qalansuwa) and a bejeweled crown (Karzan).” Al-Al-Waššāʾ writes that women adorned their Karzans with gemstones and embroidered their headbands with silk and were gilded.

6- Buẖnūq/Bukhnuq البخنق

Arabic dictionaries defined it as a cloth or a kerchief with two ends tied under the chin that a woman wears to protect the veil from oil and perspiration. They also described it as a small-sized veil that covers the neck and chest. Another definition is a cloth that a woman wears to cover her head from the front and back, but not the middle. Yedida Stillman describes the medieval Bukhnuq as a wimple since it’s a veil “whose primary purpose is to cover the neck.”

From the literary description, it looks like it could be a coif that was worn under veils and headdresses to protect it from hair oil and slippage. It can also refer to a hood-like veil that covers a woman’s head, shoulders, and back. It can also refer to a hood or a cap attached to a garment. So, a bukhnuq could be a wimple, cap/coif, or a hood.

In contemporary times, it refers to a hood sewn under the chin with an opening for the head and is usually reserved for unmarried young girls. The front can be shorter with a longer back, or sometimes long on both sides. The Bukhnuq is now primarily worn throughout the Gulf and is made of sheer and delicate materials such as silks and chiffons, with gold embroidery around the edges surrounding the face and neck, and is predominantly black. The bukhnuq is also worn in Tunisia, Libya, and Algeria, and is rather a large shawl that a woman puts on her head and covers her upper body and back.

7- Miʿjar مِعجر

It refers to the female equivalent of the ʿImāma (turban) in shape and function. It was a veil or scarf that was wrapped like a turban and fell down the back to the heels. The black-colored miʿ jar was in vogue at the time. It was heavily decorated with chains and pearls and embroidered with tiraz. The miʿ jar, or female turban, was smaller in size to avoid resembling the male one. Parallel female turban fashions can be witnessed in Western European and Byzantine headwear as well. Byzantine iconographic art shows female figures sporting a padded headdress, postulated as a turban wrapped around the head with a veil or a crown over it.

The turban was worn by both Byzantine men and women as early as the 4th century, speculated to be a Sassanid influence. The Byzantine Empire was a transcontinental empire that combined elements from both the East and the West.

A female stucco sculpture in a Umayyad palace is depicted wearing a cap-turban headgear. Another fresco fragment from Qaṣr al-Ḥayr al-Ḡarbī depicts a woman wearing a headgear consisting of a low, cloth turban wound with a length of material surrounding the face, which could serve as a veil when necessary.

8- ʿIṣāba عِصابة

The term ʿiṣāba denotes anything that encircles the head, such as a band, wreath, crown, or turban. The ʿiṣāba was a rectangular or triangular-shaped, slim band usually made from fabric and was wrapped on the forehead and tied on the back of the head. It was richly embroidered and decked with jacinth and pearls; sometimes, silver or gold coins were sewn onto the front edges.

In Kitab Al-Aghani, it is mentioned that Ulayya Bint Al-Mahdi (Harun Al-Rashid’s sister) had a deformity on her forehead, so wanting to hide it, she created a fashion trend by devising a fillet set with jewels. The headband served a practical purpose besides being an element of adornment, which is to secure the head or face veil in place.

Women of good circumstances wore fabric headbands made from costly fabric like silk, brocade, and linen, whereas poorer women wore ones made from lower-cost fabric like cotton (cotton was cheap since it was grown in abundance in the Islamic Middle Ages, unlike Europe).

Affluent women, especially those belonging to the Caliphal family and high-ranking women, wear headbands made from precious metals (silver and gold) like diadems or metal bandeaux with filigree work, inlaid or encrusted with pearls or precious gems.

Ibn Jubayr, an Andalusian traveler on his visit to Mosul (1217 AD/614 HD), wrote in his travel records that he saw the daughter of the king of Mosul on her wedding day, stepping out of her palanquin, veiled her head and face, wearing a headband made of gold, as well as her handmaidens.

Women of the middle classes wore a flat golden head ornament, in which a headband studded with pearls and Emeralds was wrapped around. This head covering was quite popular for its elegant appearance and is said to have lasted for a long time.⁶

Two females adorned with golden circlets
from a folio of a manuscript of Kitab al-aghani
of Baghdad ruler Badr al-din lu’lu’, ca. 13 CE

 

1. Stillman, Yedida Kalfon. Female Attire of Medieval Egypt. 1972 ↩︎
2. Baker, Patricia Lesley (1986) A History of Islamic Court Dress in the Middle East. PhD thesis. SOAS University of London. ↩︎
3. Abdelrazek-Alsiefy, A. (2023). Muslim Women, Faith and Appearance Before Western Modernity Between Theory and Practice. In: Modern Egyptian Women, Fashion and Faith. Palgrave Macmillan ↩︎
4. Eastwood, G. (1983). A Medieval Face-Veil from Egypt. Costume, 17(1), 33-38. ↩︎
5. Hoffman, Eva R. 2008. Between East and West: The Wall Paintings of Samarra and the Construction of Abbasid Princely Culture. In Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World XXV. 107-132. ↩︎
6. مختصر تاريخ العرب والتمدن الإسلامي، للمؤرخ والمفكر الهندي “السيد أمير علي” (1849_1928م) ↩︎