In this book, Doris Behrens-Abouseif responds to the Mamluk chroniclers whose loquacity regarding clothing matters demands our attention. Using a multiplicity of sources including chronicles, European and Muslim travel narratives, popular storytelling, legal treatises, literature, and poetry, Behrens-Abouseif delves into the details of Mamluk dress. Whether as a vehicle for the sultanateâs self-representation both internationally and domestically or as an expression of religious and social identities, status and wealth, female assertion, urban culture, and artistic creativity, clothing personified the broad Mamluk social spectrum. Replete with colorful anecdotes and copious illustrations, Dress and Dress Code in Medieval Cairo offers a lively and comprehensive study of this fascinating topic.
Doris Behrens-Abouseif (Professor Emerita at SOAS), is an art and cultural historian who has many publications on Islamic culture, architecture, urbanism and the decorative arts of the Mamluk and other periods of Islamic Egypt and Syria and the Arab world in general.
Acknowledgement List of Figures Note to the Reader
5 The Circassian Revision (1380sâ1517) and the Ottoman Termination of the Mamluk Dress Code
â1âAl-áºÄhir BarqÅ«q (r. 1382â9, 1390â99)
â2âAl-NÄá¹£ir Faraj (r. 1399â1405)
â3âAl-Ashraf BarsbÄy (r. 1422â38)
â4âAl-áºÄhir Jaqmaq (r. 1438â53)
â5âAl-áºÄhir Khushqadam (r. 1461â7)
â6âAl-Ashraf QÄyá¹bÄy (r. 1468â96)
â7âAl-Ashraf QÄná¹£uh Al-GhawrÄ« (r. 1501â16)
â8âThe End of the Mamluk Dress Code
6 The Khilʿa: Institution and Ritual
7 The Khilʿa as a Garment
â1âThe Caliph and the Sultan
â2âThe Military Establishment in the Bahri Period
â3âThe Military Establishment in the Circassian Period
â4âThe Civilian Dignitaries
â5âThe KÄmiliyya: A Circassian Innovation
8 The DÄr al-ṬirÄz and Mamluk Art
â1âProduction
â2âAdministration
â3âTirÄz and Mamluk Art
9 Dress and Dress Code of the Mamluk Aristocracy
â1âThe Sultan (Fig. 16)
â2âThe MamlÅ«ks
â3âThe Headdress
10 The Dress Code of the Civilian Elite and the Commoners
â1âThe Civilian Elite
â2âThe Sufis
â3âThe Commoners
11 Womenâs Clothing
â1âThe Palace
â2âThe Street
â3âWardrobe Miscellenia
â4âFashions
â5âRegulation and Transgression
â6âEuropean Eyewitnesses
12 Mamluk Dress between Text and Image
â1âArtefacts
13 Social Order and Mobility
14 Industry, Trade, and Assets
â1âThe Markets of Cairo
â2âHoards, Assets, and Security
15 Epilogue Bibliography Index
Medievalists in general and specifically of the Muslim world. Scholars and students of Middle-Eastern social history, culture, material culture and art.