Islamic
Textiles
Definition
of Islamic textiles:
Conventionally
Islamic textiles focus on the works, religous or secular, produced in Egypt,
Syria, Iran and Anatolia from the seventh century. Dispite the facts that
Asian countries like Pakistan or Indonesia are Islamic their textile
production is not considered Islamic by convention.
Before
Islam
Textiles
were manufactured and exchanged in Iran, Egypt and the middle east much
before the birth of Muhammad in the 7th century.
It has been proven that there was some kind of commercial exchange between
China, Egypt and the Roman Empire . Silk coming probably from China was found
on an Egyptian mummy dated 1000 BC in THEBES IN 1993; The Roman poet Virgil
(70-19 BCE) refered to Chinese Silk in the Georgics, versus 121, book2.
Textile
technologies were transmitted from the Far East through the multiple
conflicts and tribal wars as hostages with their knowldge moved and
transmitted their know-how from one area to another.
What
Islam changed
Every
aspect of life for a Muslim is theotitically governed by the Islam law, the
Sharia. There are many avdice or rules relating to fabric, dress, colour and
design. Considered as an attempt to imitate the creator in his works, figural
representation of human and animals is proscribed. Consequently the art of
islamic textile cannot be understood without some knowledge of Islam and its
history.
What
Islam did not change
The
middle-east has always been a complicated area divided into a multitude of
human groups with their own customs and powers structure. Islam has not
overcome all what exited before , many groups with different believings, many
old traditions survived for a very long time. The Islamic textile art was
influenced by technic and esthetics coming from the west ( the Bizantine
culture) , the north ( Caucasian and central Asia tribes) and the east (
India and China).
LACMA
Another
measure of social status was personal dress. Textiles from the first
centuries of the Islamic era survive mainly in the form of fragments,
including tiraz, with their characteristic embroidered or woven inscriptions
supplying the name and titles of the ruler. Such cloth, produced in state
factories, would be distributed by the reigning monarch to members of his
court. A remarkable tiraz in LACMA's collection (fig. 16) that testifies to
the ecumenical nature of Fatmid society bears a woven inscription in the
names of the ruler al-'Aziz (r. 975–96) and his chief minister or vizier Ibn
Killis (served 977–90). Killis, who was of Jewish origin, was famous for the
financial reforms that helped bring enormous prosperity to Egypt as well as
to the vizier.
Woven
items play an unique role in cultural and social history. Textiles are one of
the chief means of artistic expression of a culture and the most influential
vehicle for the transmission of artistic ideas and styles. Texatiles move
from national boundaries due to social and political upheaval as well as due
to economic and diplomatic circumstances. Textiles were and are a vital
economic component of Islamic society. Tiraz cloth production was most
important during the Abbasid and Fatimid periods; and cloth production became
the official responsibility of a major government department. The issuing of
Tiraz became a royal prerogative; (the word tiraz is Persian for
embroidery). Tiraz inscriptions often included the ruler's name and title and
the date may be inscribed.
Uni
Michigan
The
Early Islamic World Beginning in the mid-seventh century, Arabic Islamic
civilization spread throughout the Middle East, parts of Europe, Asia, and
Africa due to increasing political power, economic domination, as well as
religious conversion. Even in its earliest stages, this civilization was
complex, because multi-cultural, incorporating the territories, populations,
and traditions of neighboring civilizations, including Byzantium, Persia, and
western Europe, while profoundly influencing them as well. Literacy in the
Arabic language, required for study of the Ko'ran, was crucial to the
dissemination of Islamic culture. Along with a dramatic rise in literacy came
the emergence of decorative Arabic scripts and the growing popularity of
inscriptions in all art forms. Signs of the adoption of Islamic culture
included the emulation of royal customs and participation in an elite
economic network based, in part, upon the giving of significant gifts, such
as finely crafted and inscribed textiles.
Tiraz and Other Inscribed Textiles
Inscribed
textiles record valuable information concerning broad historical trends. They
document increasing government control over the textile industry, names of
officials and rulers associated with these prestige items, the spread of
Arabic language, the phenomenal popularity of the written word, as well as
the special economic force of gift giving. The strictest government controls
were reserved for a garment decoration called "tiraz," which is an
inscribed arm band, given by the caliph as a badge of honor, favor, and
distinction. The word "tiraz" originally meant embroidery,
especially a robe with embroidered bands with writing on them. It came to
mean an inscription--embroidered, woven, or painted. "Tiraz" was
also used to designate the royal factories that manufactured such work and
the operations of these factories. The word is of Persian origin, but the
practice of bestowing special garments and cloths was an ancient one,
mentioned in the Old Testament and Roman histories and important in the
Byzantine empire. The most significant precedent for Arabic Islamic custom,
however, seems to have come from the beginning of Islamic history, when the
Prophet Muhammed gave his mantle to the poet Ka'b b. Zuhayr. To medieval
Middle Eastern bourgeoisie, royal tiraz garments were status symbols as well
as valuable property. Tiraz were also bestowed privately among Muslims,
Christians, and Jews. Examples of early Islamic inscribed textiles from the
Kelsey Museum's collections provide unique insights into the tiraz
collections of named individuals as well.
THE
OPULENT WORLD OF TIRA^ AND PRECIOUS TEXTILES It was briefly noted in Chapter
Two that the production of special embroidered fabrics in palace textile
factories began during the first caliphal dynasty and became a standard
element of the Islamic ves-timentary system. Tiraz, or embroidered, garments
were in fact such a hallmark feature of medieval Islamic material haut
bourgeois cul-ture that they are almost invariably worn by the people
depicted in medieval illuminated miniatures with the exception of slaves and
laborers. Although the wearing of such luxury garments was by no means as
ubiquitous as the illustrations of Arabic manuscripts would suggest, they
express a fashion ideal much in the same way as mod-ern magazines or
Hollywood depict a mode that was to be aspired to. Because of this centrality
of tiraz and other luxurious textiles in the Islamic vestimentary system, no
history of Arab attire would be com-plete without some detailed discussion of
the tiraz institution and the world of fine fabrics. The Term Tiraz The
Arabic term tiraz is a Persian loanword (cf Pers. tardz, “adorn-ment” or
“embellishment” and tiriz, “gusset” or “gore”) originally meaning
“embroidery” or “decorative work” (Arabic ‘alam) on a garment or piece of
fabric.1 It later came to mean a khil’a, or “robe of honor,” richly adorned
with elaborate embroidery, especially in the form of 1 Cf. the Persian verb
tardziddn. The root appears in the Talmud in a variant reading of Tractate
Shabbat 98b in the form tiriz and is understood by Hay Gaon (died Baghdad,
1038) as being of Persian origin. See Samuel Krauss, ed., Additamenta ad
Librum Aruch Completum Alexandri Kohut (Pardes: New York, 1955), p. 207a. The
Arab lexicographers al-Layth and al-Azhari also believed the word to be
arabized ( muarrab) Persian. See al-Zabldi, Toj al-Arus IV, p. 48. the
OPULent WORLd OF TIRAZ and PReGIOUS teXtILeS 121 embroidered bands with
writing upon them. These embroidered bands ran either along the border of the
textile, sometimes arranged in two, or even more, strips around the upper
part of the garment or were placed around the neck, around the sleeves, on
the upper arm or wrists of a sleeved robe and even on the headdress. In
medieval manuscript illuminations most people are depicted in garments with
gold tiraz bands on the upper sleeves, sometimes with actual inscrip-tions as
in the case of the atabeg Badr al-Din Lu’lu’ ‘Abd Allah in Pl. 23. Tiraz
patches frequently adorn men’s turbans in these paintings, as in the case of
Pls. 39 and 40. They were used not only as ornamental borders but were also
put in the pattern of the material. Many, if not most tiraz bands contained
pious formulas and blessings. But in addition to these formulaic
inscriptions, the name of the place of manufacture and of the vizier or other
official in charge of the treasury or of the firaz-factory where the textile
was produced could be found; more rarely the name of the artist who made the
cloth might also be given. In the earliest centuries of Islam, such a garment
was worn by rulers and members of their entourage (ashab al-khil‘a). Tiraz
(and dar al-tiraz) also came to designate the workshop in which such fabrics
or robes were manufactured. A secondary development from the mean-ing
“embroidered strip of writing” is that of “strip of writing”, border or braid
in general, applied not only to inscriptions woven, embroidered, or sewn-on
materials, but also to any inscriptions on a band of any kind, whether hewn
out of stone, done in mosaic, glass or faience, or carved in wood.2 Until
about the middle of the tenth/ fourth century, when the production of papyrus
ceased in Egypt, the word tiraz sometimes also designated the inscriptions
officially stamped with ink upon the rolls of papyrus in the factories. This
usage of tiraz was in turn extended to indicate the factories themselves.
Umayyads (661–750)
Abbasid
Caliphate (750-1258)
Safavids
Iran
Like the Ottomans, the Safavids inherited a tradition of symmetrical
scrollwork designs set with fantastic blossoms. They used them with
impressive skill. On the Ardabil carpet, two designs of this type, one laid
over the other, cover the vast, dark-blue field of the carpet. A simpler
example is offered by the central design on the blue silk hanging. The
flowerheads in the borders show the new floral motifs that were imported from
India after 1600.(V&A)
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