Dress and Dress Code in Medieval Cairo

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.

• AcknowledgementList of FiguresNote to the Reader1 Introduction: Subject, Sources, and Terminology1 Studies2 Material Evidence3 Archival Sources4 Narrative Sources5 Visual Sources6 Terminology2 Religion, Traditions, and Customs1 Religion2 Sufism3 Dreams4 Urban Customs5 Manners and Rituals3 The Sultanate and Its Historians1 The Sultans’ Perspective2 The Historians’ Perspective4 The Designer Sultans (1250–1380s)1 Al-Ẓāhir Baybars (r. 1260–77)2 Al-Manṣūr Qalāwūn (r. 1278–90)3 Al-Ashraf Khalīl (1290–3)4 Al-Nāṣir Muḥammad (1293–4, 1299–1309, 1310–41)5 Al-Ashraf Shaʿbān (r. 1363–77)6 Al-Ṣāliḥ Hājjī (r. 1389–90)5 The Circassian Revision (1380s–1517) and the Ottoman Termination of the Mamluk Dress Code1 Al-Ẓāhir Barqūq (r. 1382–9, 1390–99)2 Al-Nāṣir Faraj (r. 1399–1405)3 Al-Ashraf Barsbāy (r. 1422–38)4 Al-Ẓāhir Jaqmaq (r. 1438–53)5 Al-Ẓāhir Khushqadam (r. 1461–7)6 Al-Ashraf Qāyṭbāy (r. 1468–96)7 Al-Ashraf Qānṣuh Al-Ghawrī (r. 1501–16)8 The End of the Mamluk Dress Code6 The Khilʿa: Institution and Ritual7 The Khilʿa as a Garment1 The Caliph and the Sultan2 The Military Establishment in the Bahri Period3 The Military Establishment in the Circassian Period4 The Civilian Dignitaries5 The Kāmiliyya: A Circassian Innovation8 The Dār al-Ṭirāz and Mamluk Art1 Production2 Administration3 Tirāz and Mamluk Art9 Dress and Dress Code of the Mamluk Aristocracy1 The Sultan (Fig. 16)2 The Mamlūks3 The Headdress10 The Dress Code of the Civilian Elite and the Commoners1 The Civilian Elite2 The Sufis3 The Commoners11 Women’s Clothing1 The Palace2 The Street3 Wardrobe Miscellenia4 Fashions5 Regulation and Transgression6 European Eyewitnesses12 Mamluk Dress between Text and Image1 Artefacts13 Social Order and Mobility14 Industry, Trade, and Assets1 The Markets of Cairo2 Hoards, Assets, and Security15 EpilogueBibliographyIndex