Under the Mamluks of Egypt and Syria, there was a wide array of headgear. Turco-Mongolian styles of headwear brought from Central Asia and the Eurasian Steppes were the de rigueur amongst the ruling military elitè, especially during the early Bahri Dynasty. Due to the highly stratified nature of Mamluk society, the type of headwear served as a social, religious, and vocational demarcation between the different strata of society.
One has to keep in mind, though, that the hats which disappeared at the end of the Mamluk Empire in the early sixteenth century bore little resemblance to the ones Mamluk officials had on their heads at the beginning of their reign in the mid-thirteenth century.1 The headwear of the Turco-Mongolian Bahri dynasty in the late 13th century slowly disintegrated from common use and was supplanted by the Circassian type of headwear as the ethnic Circassians of the Burji dynasty assumed power in the late 14th century until they were conquered by the Ottoman Turks in the early 16th century.
Despite enjoying a short-lived period of revival even after the Ottoman conquest, Mamluk headgear was completely wiped from Egyptian court fashion, and it was replaced with Ottoman turbans and caftans. Ottoman court costumes took over Arab fashion until the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1920.
1) ʿIMĀMA - عِمامة
The Caliph, the Sultan, judges (Kādi), and learned clergy (ʿulamā’) all wore giant turbans per their status. Despite being only a titular figurehead Caliph, the Abbasid Caliph in Mamluk court maintained the long-established Abbasid courtly splendor in Baghdad, wearing a fine round turban in dynastic black, with a trailing end-piece (rafraf) at the back, about two feet long and one foot wide, reaching from the top to the bottom of the turban.
During the ceremony of accession to office, the Mamluk sultan received his official insignia: a black turban, a black robe, and a sword. The black turban Sultan Baybars I (r. 658– 6/1260–77) received for his coronation was apparently woven of gold material.
High civil servants wore a turban called baqyār. The finest were of embroidered dimyāṭī linen (ʿamal dimyāṭ marqūm), but they could also be of ṭarḥ, a fine Alexandrian fabric that was most likely linen.2
2) ṬĀQIYYAH - طاقية
A Ṭāqiyya refers to a tall, cylindrical cap worn in the 15th century. The Ṭāqiyya later came to denote a low-rise version that was worn as a foundational layer to the turban-cap headwear (coming to replace the qalansuwa) in the Arabic-speaking world.
Its origin is inconclusive, some believe it has Arabic roots from the word Ṭāq (Arch or collar) or to have come into the Arabic-speaking world from Persia or Central Asia.
Al-Maqrizi chronicles in his travelogues describing Egypt during the Mamluk Burji dynasty that common men, soldiers, princes, and officials wore high, cylindrical hats, or ṭāqqiyas without wrapping a turban around them. This was said to be a custom inherited from their predecessor, the Ayyubid dynasty, who in turn took it from the Seljuks–who wore triangular, up-brimmed hats as headwear, the sharbush. It was a glaring deviation from previous Arab ruling dynasties that kept the ongoing tradition of wearing a cap coupled with a turban. Al-Maqrizi notes that it was not an unusual sight to be seen in the streets or markets wearing a hat alone. These caps came in a wide range of colors, such as green, yellow, and blue. The hat was brimless, cylindrical, and roughly 19 cm long.
In the reign of Al-Malik an-Nasir, nicknamed Ibn Qalawun (r. 1285–1341 C.E. ), a type of hat called the “Circassian hat” came into fashion. This Circassian hat was a cylindrical hat with a flat top. It used to be made in several sizes and colors and was one-sixth of an ell high. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, it grew taller until it reached two-thirds of an ell, and the upper part took the shape of a small dome. The base part that rests on the head is encircled by fur. At the end of the fifteenth century, it was manufactured in a two-colored version. The lower part was apparently green and the upper part black.
3) CAPS/QALANSUWA- قلنسوة
The high qalansuwa (cap), which under the Umayyads had been a symbol of royalty, and under the Abbasids was fashionable in Iraq and Iran, became in the later Middle Ages, the common head covering of dervishes. Abū Zayd, the trickster hero of Maqamat Al-Hariri, is frequently depicted in the manuscripts wearing a qalansuwa (usually a high one, or qalansuwa ṭawīla). Usually, the qalansuwa was a simple cone, but it could also be cut to curve around the side of the face and extend down the back of the neck. Sometimes the qalansuwa is worn alone, sometimes with a simple crisscrossed winding cloth (taẖfifah), and sometimes with a full turban cloth wrapped around it. In manuscript illustrations, the qalansuwa is represented in a variety of colors, including brown, yellow, grey, and red. There is even a depiction of a qalansuwa totally black in front and totally grey in the back with a narrow red band on the lower back edge.
Although the high qalansuwa had become the mark of mendicants and members of the demi-monde in the later Middle Ages, the lower version was still worn by people of substance and could be adorned for example with strings of pearls. People working outdoors sometimes are depicted wearing a low-pointed, brimmed, sun hat that appears to have been made of straw.
Surviving Mamluk caps show there was an array of construction techniques and decoration methods. Most caps were made from a base fabric, either linen or wool, and was covered with a silken outer layer. The cap was constructed from a long, wide rectangular band and the crown was made from triangular panels that are sewn around the band that meet at the center top.
4) SARĀQŪSH/SARĀQŪJ سَراقوج/سَراقوش
A hat of Tartarian (Turkic)/Central Asian origin. It was a high, pointed, conical hat with a brim that most frequently was turned up, but also could be turned down. The saraquj was usually white or a light tan. It could also be two-toned, with a brim and a colored crown. The point of the conical crown could be plain or have a decorative metallic knob, pointed plaquette, tuft, or long plumes extending from it. The cone could be simple or paneled in vertical sections, and a colored taẖfifa might be crisscrossed around it with a brooch or plaquette pinned to the point where the cloth overlapped.
5) SHARBŪSH شَربوش
On other public occasions, Mamluk sultans would wear different kinds of headgear. In the early days of the Mamluk sultanate, this could be the sharbūsh, a headgear that resembled, according to al-Maqrīzī, a stiff triangular-shaped cap with a triangular front which in some instances appears to have been a metallic plaque. It was sometimes trimmed with fur. It was used by the Ayyubids (1174-1250) and the Turkish baḥri Mamluks (1250-1380), but it was abolished by the Circassian burji Mamluks (1380-1517). A turban can be wrapped around it to form the taẖfifa. In the early Mamluk period, it was often bestowed on Mamluk amirs as well.
The sharbūsh seems to have been quite popular with Turkish rulers of the tenth to thirteenth centuries and seems to have come with the Turks from the east. In Egypt, the sharbūsh was apparently introduced by the Ayyubids, and its existence was confirmed until the time of the Bahri Mamluks. Finally, we learn from al-Maqrīzī (who does not provide us with any reason for this) that the wearing of the sharbūsh was abolished by the Circassian sultans. Maybe the sharbūsh was too Turkish or Mongolian for them.
6) ZAMṬ زَمط
During the late Circassian period, the so-called zamṭ hat witnessed a breakthrough in Mamluk fashion. Originally it seems that it had been a headgear of the lower classes. Then the Mamluk elite adopted it and made it exclusively theirs. In the year 840/1436 Sultan Barsbāy (r. 825–41/1422–38) forbade every fallāh (peasant) and every slave from wearing the red zamṭ. The zamṭ was described as a red brimless hat with shaggy coarse fur. Arnold von Harrf’s description of a Mamluk soldier wearing this headgear goes like this:
"“… and wears on his head a high red hat, without a brim, about three spans high, with long wool hanging from it about a span long.”
7) KALAWTA كلوته
The Kalawta cap in the Fatimid and especially the Ayyubid dynasty transcended into the Mamluk dynasty. It was changed from yellow to red at the behest of Sultan al-Ashraf Khalil (r. 689–93/1290–93). The kalawta came in a plethora of shapes and sizes across the centuries, it was made in earlier times from wool but later gained opulence and was made from extravagant fabrics and embroidered with gold.
The kalawata had a similar fate to the many caps and garments in Mamluk times that originally belonged to the military personnel and later entered civilian usage. A turban can be wrapped around a kalawta to form the taẖfifa. In fact, it was so symbolic of the Mamluk military that members of the group as a whole were sometimes referred to as the mukalwatun, just as they were referred to since Seljuq times as arbab al-suyuf (masters of the sword). A variant of the kalawta became a common cap for schoolboys much as military caps were common for students in Central and Eastern Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Surprisingly quite a number of these kalawta caps have survived from Egypt and can be found in several museum collections. These caps were worn by men, women, and children in Mamluk Egypt. Decoration techniques varied from quilting to embroidery to appliquéwork.
8) TAH̱FIF KABIRA/SAGHIRA تخفيفة كبيرة/صغيرة
The taẖfifa, a simple cloth wrapped in a criss-cross manner to fashion a smaller version of a turban, seems to have taken on a more elaborate form in the Mamluk period.
As the kallawtah caps with the wrapped turban around them grew larger and were hard to handle on some occasions the Mamluks started to wear only a small, light turban, the taẖfifa ṣaġhīra. The first mention of it can be found in the writings of Ibn Iyās. Sultan Barqūq (r. 784–91, 792–801/1382–89, 1390–99) had a takhfīfah ṣaghīrah on his head when he appeared in public in the year 796/1394. Apparently, the taẖfifa started to become increasingly popular only after the mid-fifteenth century, as we do not find any mention of a takhfīfah in al-Maqrīzī’s Khiṭaṭ, which usually mentions all aspects of contemporary dress. It seems that there were two kinds of takhfīfah ṣaghīrah, i.e., the round one (mudawwarah) and the smooth one (mumallasah). Needless to say, these too started to increase in size over time.
After the year 872/1467, the takhfīfah ṣaghīrah is mentioned on a more regular basis, and by the end of the fifteenth century it seems clearly established that it could be worn by Mamluk amirs at certain public outings, but it was not acceptable to wear it at very official occasions.
At the end of the fifteenth century, another type of takhfīfah increased in popularity among the fashion mavens of the Mamluk military elite, the takhfīfah kabīrah (the big takhfīfah turban). This kind of takhfīfah, worn for special occasions, was the result of the ongoing enlargement of the takhfīfah ṣaghīrah. The amirs even started to put horns on it.
The largest version of this type was called nāʿūrah (waterwheel) and the Mamluk sultan wore it as a crown. Apparently, it reached very impressive sizes. The Venetian ambassador Domenico Trevisan, who was received by Sultan Qānṣawh al-Ghawrī (r. 906– 22/1501–16) in 1512, recalls that the sultan was sitting on his richly-decorated bench (masṭabah) wearing a great turban (“fez”) with two horns which were the length of half an arm.
** Original article: https://lugatism.wordpress.com/