The Yemeni Striped Cloth

Yemeni Striped Cloth (given in class)

While I couldn’t find the official name for this cloth, I did find a lot about its history, and one thing led to another and the history of this cloth speaks volumes about where it comes from, why people wore it, how it was made, what it symbolized and who made it.

Where?

A thousand years ago, when Baghdad was capital of the Islamic empire under the Abbasid caliphs, Yemen was a flourishing center of agriculture and trade, shipping its famous products to the north by caravan and to India and Africa by sea. Among these products, Yemen’s striped textiles were sought far and wide. It used to be primarily produced in San`a and Aden.

Who?

Weaving and dyeing was passed on through generations until everything became industrialized. Most of these weavers and craftspeople moved on to other forms of occupation. But until then, the local craftspeople wove this cloth for the royalty in pure cotton using natural dyes like indigo.

Manufacturing of the Striped Cloth

When?

Yemeni textiles maintained their fine reputation in the Islamic period and were exposed for use by the caliphs and the elite, the Rulers favored Yemeni tie-dyed and brocaded cotton cloth and Yemeni textiles in particular. From the 11^th to the 13^th centuries Yemeni exports declined.

What?

The striped Yemeni cloth symbolized the status of the wearer. The women wore it as a veil to indicate that they are not slaves; hence it became a status symbol but later became a customary practice. It was mostly worn by women but men wear it as kilts or Futha. This finely striped Yemeni Cloth was used to cover the Ka’ba in Mecca, a tradition maintained by the Prophet Muhammad (whose body was also wrapped in Yemeni Shrouds) and continued until the mid-7^th century.

Weaving of the cloth

How?

The weavers, though now flourishing as much as they did in the past, still produce this cloth for certain purposes. But now, today, Yemen in its short path to modernization does not export any more of this cloth.

The craftsmen still perform tie-dyeing as they have done through the ages although the dyes used now are imported while those employed in the past were of natural origin. The cloth comes from Wusab where it is woven on small hand looms and later brought to Sana'a for coloring. Men who perform tie-dyeing work are from families with a long standing involvement in this specialized skilled craft.