Textiles and Identity

Abstract

Textiles and clothing are perhaps the most significant markers of human existence. This chapter focuses on a group of inscribed textiles from Egypt and the central Islamic lands commonly known as tiraz textiles that have largely, but not exclusively, survived in Islamic burials in Egypt. It explores how the idea of an Abbasid hegemony was manifested through the medium of inscribed textiles with their documentary and protocolary caliphal content. The chapter then examines how the Abbasids established a significant relationship between the empire's center and its provincial periphery through the administration of production, as well as the epigraphic form and content, and function of textiles as robes of honor. It also focuses on the legacy of this model at a time when the Abbasid caliphate was in steep decline after the establishment of rival caliphates in Egypt and Spain around the mid-tenth century.

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