The Position of Tiraz in Fatimid Court

Knowledge about Fatimid’s textiles from the early days of Islam comes mainly from Egypt, where fragile materials, including linen, cotton, wool, and silk have been found as burial shrouds. These luxury fabrics were used as clothing and furnishing materials. Fatimids were famous for their luxury textiles and in particular the so-called tiraz textile workshops. The Persian word tiraz denotes an embroidered decorative band, attached near the edge of a fabric or a garment, and included blessings phrases. In the Fatimid period, Tiraz was contained the name of the ruling caliphe or high-ranking patrons. Each tiraz workshop had a designated manager to oversee the production, packing and transportation of the textiles. The status of this man was very high and he had gained high salary as well. Tiraz was a very magnificent fabric that produced during ruling of Islamic governments in Egypt, especially Fatimid’s court. Golabutton yarns were used for weaving or embroidering on silk or linen fabrics. Therefore it was necessary to change gold bullion into brocade yarns. This activity resulted to establishment an accurate controlling on the amount of gold went into weaving workshops and the weight of brocaded fabrics. Tiraz was produced from silk, cotton and linen. The background of fabric had a simple weave. The designs were produced with three different methods namely: by block printing using natural dyes- embroidery and tapestry. Tiraz fabrics were contain inscription as well as animal and botanical motifs. In embroidery, writings were produced by silk colored yarns with opposite colors of background to emphasis on the inscriptions. The sentences were short or long or sometimes repeated texts in a narrow band of a fabric. Kufic inscription was common at first but gradually it turned to a decorative element combined with other designs such as flowers and birds. In Islamic world alphabet became holly and used for fabric decoration. The number of writing styles in Fatimid period is noticeable. The bands of tirazes were put on the edges, breast or arm of the royal official clothes. The king used many tirazes and gave them to anybody that was selected as a governor. Actually tiraz can be counted as an honored medal. The high ranking individuals and their wives, supporters and foreign ambassadors were deserved to receive tiraz. Also European kings received tiraz because the Fatimid kings wanted a good political relationship with them. The decoration on these textiles mainly consists of Arabic inscriptions, often involving Allah and the name of the ruler. Many of these items were intended for the royal household. Tirazes had inscriptions and sometimes family signs that probably copied from Sassanid traditions. Other phrases also were shown on the tirazes such as religious phrases from Shia’s or a list of name of accepted sultans to confirm the position of the present king. The inscription were selected according to the usage of the fabrics. A group of tirazes were used as shrouding and burial cloth and second group were used for nobles, and in different occasions were granted as gifts to high rank individuals.