I am writing this post as a reply to an interesting question I read about whether the clothes in the middle east were always baggy and long. Most of my history readings are from the last 500 years (which shouldn’t be much different from the previous periods) mainly about Iraq but also about Turkey, Iran, Levant, and Egypt. In these readings, I found that clothing in these mostly-arid areas was always baggy, long and fully-covering for reasons related to heat of sun but later that was reflected on culture and identity too. I can mention some of my notes about the rules and exceptions that I’ve read:
- Necessity of Turbans: Ibn Iyas mentions that the Ottoman soldiers used to humiliate Egyptians by taking off their turbans. They pass by them while riding a horse, take the turban and leave the man ashamed in the street to return to his destination turbanless. It seemed like a big humiliation not much different from being naked. Some Sultans or rulers around the Muslim world used to do that as part of the shaming process when they want to punish someone: they make the punished person ride the mule overturned, shave his head and beard either fully or irregularly (shaving is still a punishment in many cultures), and of course removing his turban. I always thought of that as something also related to the heat of sun, or at least this is the reason why it started. However, looking at similar traditions of wearing hats in western Europe could indicate that it’s also related to protecting the head in general. This could have continued as a tradition that nobody knows a reason for it, but in the beginning, it could’ve started as some form of protection.
- Robbing clothes: Bandits in many places in middle east used to steal the clothes completely and leave the victims naked in the deserts, that’s mentioned in many sources and all around the middle east. This also shows the importance and the high value of the clothes, probably some of those Bedouin bandit members do lack enough clothing so it’s like a fortune for them.
- Clothes could provide protection and heat insulation: Tuaregs in the contemporary times fully cover their bodies and heads while the live in greater Sahara, one of the most arid and hot areas on earth. Anyone would imagine that showing up the skin would expose it to wind and hence make it feel a little bit better, but in the same time, exposing the skin would increase the risk of melanoma, and covering it with many layers of clothes could provide a layer of insulation that reduces the heat and reflects away the sun beams when the clothes aren’t dark.
- Cloaks as honorary gifts: when Muslim rulers wanted to honor someone, they used to give them cloaks of different types. Khil’a (خلعة) or Kaftan (قفطان) were even used as a formal way to declare someone as a ruler of some region. This shows how the long clothes were considered very important and more related to honor and nobility.
- Naked women: While women were/are more appreciated for having white skin color in the middle east, covering most of the body and keeping it away from the sun was always a requirement. Caliph Omar used to hit the slave women when they cover their heads because he considered it as a sign of free women only (maybe not as a religious order), Muslim jurists (Fakihs) used to allow slave women to be as naked as men in public, i.e., to show everything except the area from the knee to the navel. That indicate two things: it was possible to see half naked women wandering around in Muslim cities or being presented in the slaves’ markets; and the high value of the fully covering clothes.
- Men covered with a loincloth: In Hadith, the men who’re called Aṣhab Al- Ṣuffa (أصحاب الصفة) were very poor men that weren’t belonging to any powerful tribe, they were homeless, unable to marry, wearing pieces of loincloth, and they were sleeping in the prophet’s mosque in Madina where they can receive food as charity. Their clothing indicates how poor people in that time could be living, it also shows that it was possible to see people with almost no clothes.
In summary, in middle east and specifically in Islamic cultures, the more the clothes, the more honorable and noble it was. Naked or half naked women and men could be seen but they were probably slaves of both sexes or very poor men. Many forms of honoring or dishonoring people were often related to pieces of clothes. Long baggy clothes could also protect from heat as well as from exposure to sun light. While this rule applies to many regions of the ancient world, it doesn’t apply to many, sub-Saharan Africans in general and many tropical areas have completely different opinion of clothes. Turkic tribes during Ibn Fadhlan trip to central Asia had no problem at all to have their women sitting with other stranger men while the women’s genitals are exposed (the Turkic man was laughing because Ibn-Fadhlan felt shy of what he’d seen), probably their skirts were also very short as well. In my opinion, these traditions are highly related to the weather but later gets embedded into habits and manners.