Dress and Dress Code in Medieval Cairo

"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 sultanate's 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"

Contents

Introduction : subject, sources, and terminology

Religion, traditions, and customs

The Sultanate and its historians

The designer sultans (1250-1380s)

The Circassian revision (1380s-1517) and the Ottoman termination of the Mamluk dress code

The Khilʻa : institution and ritual

The Dār al-Ṭirāz and Mamluk art

Dress and dress code of the Mamluk aristocracy

The dress code of the civilian elite and the commoners

Women's clothing

Mamluk dress between text and image

Social order and mobility

Industry, trade, and assets

Epilogue