Discussing Islamic textiles can be a daunting subject to tackle due to the lack of extant garments as a result of decomposing and decay due to natural environmental circumstances or human wear and tear. There is also ambiguity in the historiographical description of many fabric weave types and fiber compositions.

As Muslim conquests expanded beyond the Arabian Peninsula, the Islamic empire’s borders at its height grew to encompass territories as far West as Spain and Portugal to India in the East, and from central Asia in the North to Sudan and the Horn of Africa in the South. The levied taxes upon the conquered populations generated insurmountable revenue for the Islamic empire’s treasury. The ruling Arab elites indulged in their newfound wealth and luxuries, forsaking their previous onerous and rugged nomadic lives.

Earlier humble tents and meager mud dwellings no longer satisfied the Arabs’ newly acquired urban sensibilities, and the need to erect grand fortified palace cities and urban centers became the norm. Not to mention, as the Arabs came into contact with the subjugated sedentary civilizations (Byzantine and Sassanid), they adopted their imperial styles of courtly culture manifested in court etiquette, protocol, order of hierarchy, patronage of science and art, and strict bureaucracy. The Muslims would eventually develop their own material culture, a synthesis of diverse non-Muslim local traditions combined with Islamic philosophies and principles. From the eighth to the twelfth centuries, Cairo, Cordoba, Baghdad, Samarkand, and Damascus were the epicenters of haute urban culture in the Muslim world.

Clothing and textiles were another expression of the sophisticated and ostentatious lifestyle embraced by the caliphal court, high-ranking officials, and the bourgeoisie merchant class. The palaces and residences of the governing elites and the well-to-do were furnished with sumptuous textiles and brocades imported from China, Iran, Spain, Sicily, and other Islamic provinces. Austere attitudes toward dress in the era of the early righteous caliphs were soon abandoned and relegated to a small number of ascetics and pietists. The general trend shifted towards indulgence and consumption of luxury.

Muslims controlled and participated in the world’s intercontinental trade via the Silk Road. The strategic geographical location of the Islamic heartlands in the Middle East, which lay on the biggest intercontinental trading routes and maritime ports facilitated access to a wide array of goods and materials imported from around the world.

Textile production in the nascent Islamic empire took over from an established and highly developed textile industry of the local conquered population, especially in Egypt, Syria, and Iran, but was modified according to Islamic theology, particularly in the prohibition on figural representation. Muslims’ aversion to the depiction of the human form incentivized weavers, textile workers, and artisans to produce new patterns and motifs free from it. Intricate floral and geometric patterns, in addition to text and pseudo-text inscriptions, are the central characteristics that define Islamic textile decoration and motifs.

However, that’s not to say that figural depictions were completely absent from Islamic textiles. The Islamic Empire encompassed many cultures with pre-established artistic traditions that were usually heavily figurative. Naturally, pre-Islamic cultures rife with a prolific history of figural iconography like Egypt, Iran, Anatolia, and India would have difficulty promptly abandoning it. Sunni adherents practiced strict aniconism and preferred abstract and geometric designs, Shias showed more tolerance for animal and human representations in their textiles.

In no other culture have textiles been more highly valued, for their own sake, as an invaluable adjunct to court rituals, and as precious trade goods. Unsurprisingly, textiles represented the major medieval industry in the Mediterranean area. It would appear that many, if not most, medieval Middle Eastern people were engaged in manufacturing and trading in this branch of the economy. Textiles in those times were an expensive and long-lasting commodity, that could be passed down as heirlooms and constituted not only a source of income but also provided liquid cash in times of need.

A typical medieval Eastern home differed in domestic furnishing from a medieval European’s. Chairs, tables, and bedsteads common in a medieval European household or contemporary 21st-century Muslim home were rarely found in a medieval Eastern home unless it was for the wealthy. For furnishing, any urban Near-Eastern household primarily relied on low-rise cushioned articles for seating and sleeping (sofas or majlis/divans, pillows, cushions, bolsters, backrests, armrests, mattresses), floor coverings (carpets, mats, rugs), as well as curtains and draperies–objects produced mainly by the textile industry. These seating and sleeping utilities had to provide the utmost comfort and durability.

Muslims preferred to sit, recline, sleep, and eat on the floor; hence, all the house furnishings were placed on the floor and propped up on the entire width of the room walls and corners, or sometimes laid on raised surfaces. Minimal furniture made of substantial structures like chests, trunks, cupboards, stools, and retractable chairs was present and used for sitting and storage. Tables were fashioned out of large trays placed on a trestle or a trivet close to the floor. 

In the Islamic world, raised wooden furniture served as a status symbol demarcating a hierarchical relationship rather than providing function. Illuminated manuscripts depict rulers and governors seated on thrones or daybeds overseeing their court officials, and tutors seated on raised stools or chairs lecturing students sitting on the floor or cushions.

When the martaba, a kind of sofa, literally meaning “step”, was item number one in the list of furnishings brought in by a medieval eastern bride, the reference was not to the material of which the elevation on which one sat or slept was made (wood, wickerwork, bricks, mortar), but to the precious fabrics and their fillings with which it was covered and heightened. The furnishings spread on the ground were pile carpets or mattresses of varying heights. Whoever could afford it, even the poorest of the poor, tried to be comfortably seated or reclined using heaps of textiles.

Most of the textile names mentioned in medieval Islamic historiographical sources have largely disappeared from use. These textiles were imported from other countries or made locally in Muslim provinces. The nomenclature of these fabrics depended on a variety of factors. One type of naming practice entails naming a certain fabric after the provinces or cities where the fabric was manufactured or imported from. For example, many of the fine Egyptian linens mentioned in medieval times such as Tinnisi, Dabiqi, and Iskenderi were named after the Egyptian cities where they were produced. A fabric called Tabari, a sumptuous silk brocade used for domestic upholstered furnishings was imported from Tabaristan in Iran.

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Silk Textiles:

Silk was manufactured all across the Mediterranean even in countries where climatic conditions were unfavorable to sericulture such as Egypt. Silk was produced across the Islamic Middle East and North Africa. Countries with more favorable climate conditions for sericulture were Spain, the Levant, Iraq, and Tunisia, in addition to the progenitor of the silk industry in the Middle East, Iran.

Silk was such a monumental material to the Islamized Near East as Goitein describes it: “The astounding popularity of the upstart silk, which became widespread in the Mediterranean area in the centuries preceding and following the coming of Islam, is one of the most distinctive expressions of a refined and extravagant urban civilization.”

Indeed, historical literature is filled with mentions of a wide array of silks, satins, and brocades manufactured throughout the Islamic Empire, with some descriptions of their fiber composition and weave type being more specific than others. Established sericulture practiced in the Roman Mediterranean prior to the Islamic conquest gave the Latin West and Byzantine East a headstart so that by the time the Muslims took over the Mediterranean, a sophisticated local silk tradition had already been developed.

Spain was the leading country in the production of silk in the Geniza period (in the 10–12th century). It exported cocoons and raw silk, as well as finished products. The origin of this prominence is perhaps to be sought in the fact that in early Islamic times, Spain was chiefly colonized by people coming from Syria and Lebanon, countries with ancient sericulture.

Sicily came second in terms of silk export to the Islamic world in the Geniza times. The silk industry of Sicily was an existing industry well before the Norman conquest in 1147 as attested by the Geniza documents.

The terminology for silk in Arabic varied based on its form in the production process. So, raw, un-weaved silk threads are called qazz, but when it is weaved called ibrīsim, and after it is dyed it is called Ḥarir, and if mixed with another fiber like wool it is called khazz.

• Ḥarir: It means silk in Arabic.

• Ibrīsim: It is an Arabized Persian word Abrishem, meaning clothing made from silk. Ibrīsim or ibrīsimiyyat came to refer to fine silken garments composed entirely from silk (warp and weft) or silk and other fibers. It was manufactured in Islamic provinces South of the Caspian Sea like Tabaristan. The only garments mentioned as made from Ibrīsim are girdles (Al-Tikak Al-ibrīsimiyya), socks (sharabat), and knitted socks (sharabat maftula).

• Tustāri: Tustari is a type of brocaded silk fabric manufactured in the locality of Tustar, which is located on the western side of Iraq between the Tigris and the Bab Basra. Tustari fabrics were used for sumptuous clothes and turbans.

• Khazz: a fabric made from silk and wool (a velvet-like fabric).

• Diībāj: (brocade)

• Ladh: imitated Chinese silk manufactured in Scilly during the 11th-12th century.

• Mulḥam: a fabric made primarily from silk threads and other threads, most probably cotton.

• Aṭlasī: is satin fabric.

• Khusruwani: means “of the old Persian kings” and is a silk fabric with patterns of animals, birds, and humans in roundels. It was a very sought-after fabric, like most Iranian textiles, and was imported all across the Caliphates.

• Rūmī: silks and brocades imported from al-rūm or the Byzantine Empire.

• Sīqlaṭūn: (Eng. Siglaton from the Old French “ciclaton”) It is a rich and costly silk fabric, interwoven with gold threads. It was originally famous in Greece and was attributed to Sicily, and from Greece it moved to Islamic countries, including Alexandria. Sīqlaṭūn was a popular textile during the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt in the 11th-12th century.

• Bu qalamūnī/qalamūni: an iridescent heavy-weight fabric, which the eleventh-century Persian traveler, Nāsir-i Khosraw, considered one of the marvels of Egypt. It was in great demand for covers and saddle cloth, and was in much demand as export.

• Baghdādī: Attributed to the city of Baghdad, it is an expensive figured silk fabric, usually decorated with imagery of animals and birds, and often embroidered with gold and silver threads. Considering its high price, it was afforded only to royalty as royal robes and given away as gifts to dignitaries and loyal subjects. In the late Middle Ages, another less expensive type was made from silk weaved with less valuable materials such as cotton. This fabric was initially made in Baghdad and later in the Ahvaz province in Iran, then in Damascus, and Cyprus. After the Mongol sacking of Baghdad, the Mongols imposed a tribute on the people of the city, part of which was paid in fabrics of this kind. The fabric is known by its western name Baldachin.

• Dimaqs: Damask

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Linen Textiles:

Linen, an ancient textile made from flax, was the prerogative craft of the Ancient Egyptians. This old-age textile was a well-established Egyptian manufacturer from antiquity and seemed to have maintained its superlative status in the Middle Ages. Egypt was the world’s producer and exporter of fine Linen textiles.

In Early Islam, linen was the textile of the wealthy classes.

• Dabiqi: A figured silk fabric made in Dabiq, a town in ancient Egypt, which disappeared from the face of the earth so completely today that even its exact location is not known. It was located on Manzala Lake near Tinnis. The most ubiquitous type of Egyptian linen is used extensively for clothing and bedding. Dabiqi was used for every type of garment, from the slip or undershirt worn next to the body to the cloak a person put on when leaving the house, although one preferred even finer fabrics for underwear and the turban. As the phrase ” whiter than Dabiqi garments” indicates, its natural color was white.
  • The caliphs and princes preferred the Dabiqiyya clothes, and the traveler Al-Masoudi tells us that the Abbasid Caliph had an entire closet of Tusrari and Dabiqi clothes for himself.

• Iskenderi:
  • In the Geniza times, it was frequently mentioned that Alexandrian textiles served mostly for making blankets (for both uses as clothing and as nightly covers).

• Tinnisi: compared to other varieties of Egyptian linen are only occasionally found in the Geniza, led by Tinnisi, originally manufactured in the famous industrial center Tinnis, situated on the shores of the Mediterranean. Tinnisi was used mostly for bedding and cushions, not for garments.

• Qasab: it’s a type of very fine, loosely woven linen used for turbans. This fine fabric was made in Egypt and exported to Italy and Spain, and is mentioned in medieval inventories as boccasino. It was probably a qasab weave.

• Sharb: extremely fine and expensive linen, similar perhaps to a loosely woven gauze. It was used not only for the undergarments (which an Arabic literary source, not the Geniza described as transparent) and for a gala costume or a cloak.

• Qibati: Qibati is a type of Coptic tapestry weaving practiced by Egyptian Christians, from the 3rd to the 12th century CE. Hence the textile is named after the Egyptians (Copts) or qibṭ as they are called in Arabic. Coptic tapestries were often woven with woolen wefts on linen warps, while a few with silk wefts have survived. It also referred to fine white linen made in Egypt. These fabrics were so thin and delicate, that Caliph Omar Ibn al-Khattab warned against women wearing them for their transparent and form-fitting nature.

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Cotton textiles:

The word for cotton comes from the Arabic word quṭn قُطن. Cotton wasn’t a native crop grown in the Middle East. Cotton was domesticated in the Old World and the New World separately. Archeological excavations found that cotton was first cultivated in the Old World around 3000 BCE in the Indus River Valley (present-day Pakistan) and the Indian subcontinent. India remained a major center of cotton cultivation during early historical times as early as the 3rd century BCE.

During the centuries before and after the beginning of the Christian era, cotton production was not limited to the Indian subcontinent, and part of the numerous textile remains found on archaeological sites in the Near East, Egypt, as well as in the Mediterranean area, was probably produced elsewhere.¹

According to several classical authors, cotton was also grown in the Arabian Peninsula during late Hellenistic and Roman times. Theophrastus describes the cotton-bearing trees growing on the island of Bahrain as well as in continental Arabia in the late 4th century.

The discovery of seeds and textiles from Gossypium (cotton) in Achaemenian levels of the mid-6th–late 4th century B.C at Qal’at al-Bahrain (Bahrain), and in early 1st millennium A.D at Mada’in Salih (Saudi Arabia) reveals the role played by the Arabian Peninsula as a textile production center during the centuries before and after the beginning of the Christian era since both these sites were situated on important trade routes.

The Muslims introduced cotton to Europe around 800 AD through Muslim Spain. The knowledge of cotton weaving was spread to northern Italy in the 12th century when Sicily was conquered by the Normans and consequently to the rest of Europe.

Cotton was favored in the Arab world as it made it easier to comply with Islamic sumptuary laws. Being an easily adaptable fabric for many climates, the Islamic world transformed cotton from a luxury fabric into an everyday one. For example, some of the earliest forms of true knitting are cotton socks from Egypt with stranded blue and white patterns.

Centers of cotton production in the Islamic East were Khorasan in Iran, Iraq, and Yemen. Most cotton textiles were exported from the Indian subcontinent and Pakistan. It seems that cotton fabrics had a cheaper and rougher variety called Kirbas (calico).

Cotton was called Karsaf and came in a white and yellow color. The main production centers of Karsaf were situated in Isfahan, Nishapur, and Basra. The prophet PBUH was shrouded in three Yemeni Karsaf garments. The word Bez came to denote cotton textiles or cotton garments. A merchant specializing in selling cotton garments, and linen as well, in the market was called Bazzaz

• Fustian: it is a fabric originally made by weaving two sets of cotton wefts, or fillings, on a linen warp, popular during the European Middle Ages. The word has come to denote a class of heavy cotton fabrics, some of which have pile surfaces, including moleskin, velveteen, and corduroy. Fustian probably originated in Al-Fusṭāṭ, now part of Cairo, about AD 200, and eventually spread to Spain and Italy, where there were guilds of fustian weavers in the 13th century.

• Muslin: it is a cotton fabric of plain weave. It gets its name from the city of Mosul, Iraq, where it was first manufactured. In 1298 CE, Marco Polo described the cloth in his book The Travels. He said it was made in Mosul, Iraq. Arabic dictionaries define Muslin as a fabric made from pure silk or a blend of silk and cotton, decorated with bands of text-inscription, embroidered with vegetal or animal imagery, and has trims/edgings (hashiya) decorated with fine lines decorated with gold or silver (Muqassab).

• Attabi: a fabric made from silk and cotton. When weaved with two colors, it often gives the final fabric a striped or zebra print appearance. This fabric was named after the neighborhood in Baghdad it was manufactured in called Al-ettabiyya. It was described as soft and magnificent in look. The fabric was usually lined with fabrics other than silk, like cotton. Al-qazwini reports that when he was praying in Al-Mansour mosque in Baghdad, he saw a blind man wearing an Attabi Jubba and the outer fabric had disintegrated but the cotton lining was visible. Attabi was introduced to European languages through Spanish by the name “Tabby”, a fabric of good quality or weave.

Woolen textiles:

Wool was the main fiber source for the nomadic Bedouins dwelling in the desert who relied on their livestock (sheep, camels, goats) for sustenance, shelter, and clothing. Biographical literature of Early Islam when the political Islamic state was still confined to Arabia had a large portion of the clothing worn by the Prophet and his companions made out of wool or woolen blends. High-quality woolen textiles were mostly used for domestic furnishings, carpets, tent-making, and curtains.

Goitein mentions that Wool was infrequently used in garment making in Egypt in the 11th century, especially in summer since the heat is prone to cause vermin and other damage. Yet in winter, garments were usually lined with fur or wool for extra warmth. However, historical texts comprise a plethora of garments made from woolen blends with other fibers. Urban dwellers and townspeople who had access to finer and more delicate fabrics developed an aversion to wool for its rough and scratchy sensation on the skin. The elite and caliphs were rarely mentioned wearing garments made out of wool, except for the austerely pious.

The only garments mentioned as being made from wool were the ‘Aba‘ (square cloak) and Jubba (robe) famously worn by the bedouin Arabs. Also, people in destitute conditions (mystics, beggars, and hermits), the pious and devout believers sported simple garments constructed from woolen rags.

According to Al-Tha’alibi, the order of ranking for wool quality is as follows: Egyptian wool is considered the highest quality, followed by Armenian wool. Next in line is wool from the city of Tikrit in Iraq, and finally, the wool from Royan, a town located south of the Caspian Sea in Iran.

1. Charlène Bouchaud, C. Bouchaud, Margareta Tengberg, M. Tengberg, & Patricia Dal Prà, P. Dal Prà. (0000). Cotton cultivation and textile production in the Arabian Peninsula during antiquity; the evidence from Madâ’in Sâlih (Saudi Arabia) and Qal’at al-Bahrain (Bahrain). Vegetation history and archaeobotany, 20, 405-417. doi: 10.1007/s00334-011-0296-0.
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