What oriental men wear on their heads: turban, skullcap, fez, etc

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

In the hot countries of Asia and Africa, one could not do without them - they protected from the scorching sun, from bad weather, from sandstorms, and also allowed them to designate their belonging to a particular community, to demonstrate their status. Oriental headdresses are usually associated with Muslim countries, while Aladdin's turban and Khoja Nasreddin's skullcap have a much older history.

Skullcap

This headdress is extremely popular among many peoples; it has long been worn in the Volga region and the Urals, in the Caucasus, in the Crimea, in Central Asia. The name familiar to the Russian ear was fixed due to the consonance with the Tatar "tubatei", that is, "hat". In other languages, the skullcap bears different names, among Azerbaijanis it is “arakhchyn”, Uzbeks call it “duppi”, but, for example, in Samarkand this headdress is already called “kalpok”.

Skull-caps were assigned not only a practical role - to protect the head from the summer heat and winter cold. In the old days, it served its owner as a talisman - it was believed that this headdress was able to protect from an unkind eye. Tubes were sewn in different ways: in the shape of a cone or four-wedge, flat or pointed, from several layers of silk, velvet fabric, cloth or satin, decorated with an ornament - embroidery or beads. The making of skullcaps was traditionally a woman's occupation, but this headdress was worn by everyone - men, women and children.

In the forties and fifties of the last century, there was a real boom in these hats in the USSR, when skullcaps began to be worn throughout the country. This "fashion" was brought from the Central Asian republics by those returning home from evacuation. The skullcap could be worn as an independent headdress or by winding a turban over it.

Turban (turban)

It may seem that the turban is one of the attributes of Islam, but it is not. A large piece of cloth wrapped around the head, and this is precisely the turban, is a very ancient human invention. Such headdresses were worn as early as the third millennium BC, this is confirmed by finds related to the culture of Ancient India and Mesopotamia.

Turbans came to the Islamic world from the Arabs of the pre-Muslim period. This headdress became obligatory, since, according to hadith, the Prophet Muhammad wore it. For a turban, take a piece of fabric from five to eight meters long, in some cases up to twenty.

This headdress is also traditional for India. For Sikhs, wearing a turban - "dastar" - is mandatory. And their warriors - nihangs - wear turbans, like other clothes, only in blue. In the past, warriors could wear weapons and things for a campaign in a turban, which made the headdress massive and heavy.

Wearing a turban or turban was associated with social status, for example, in India, the lower castes were prohibited from wearing such a headdress. And the value of turbans can be judged by the jewelry that adorned them. For example, the famous Kohinur diamond, which is now among the stones of the British crown of Queen Elizabeth, for several centuries adorned the headdress of the rajahs from the dynasty of the Malawi Sultanate. Legend has it that if the stone falls from the turban, the people of Malwa will fall into slavery. So, in essence, what happened - when the Rajah's wife handed over the diamond in an attempt to appease the conquerors, the state was destroyed and became part of the Mughal empire.

It is believed that there are more than a thousand ways of tying a turban in the world - hats come out different in shape, number of folds, according to where the end of the fabric is located - on the side or on the back. The colors of turbans are also different for different peoples and social groups. For a Muslim, white is common, and a black or green turban is also worn. The Shiites, like the Indians and Pakistanis, wear a turban without other headdresses - fez or skullcaps.

Traditionally, this headdress was worn only by men. But with the beginning of the Renaissance, women began to build turbans. And Eastern fashion, in turn, borrowed European ideas - as happened, for example, in the Ottoman Empire, when Sultan Mahmud II decided to change the appearance of officials and soldiers, including their hats.

Fez

The son of, according to some versions, the French concubine of the Ottoman ruler, Mahmud II has always been a supporter of Westernization. In 1826, he destroyed the Janissary corps, replacing it with a new military unit - the Victorious Army of Muhammad. The warriors were instructed to wear a high cap with a silk tassel - a fez. The Ottomans used this headdress before by wrapping a turban on it. In general, the history of fez, again, goes back to the depths of the centuries and certainly beyond the limits of the era of Islam. The traditional color for the fez is red.

It is believed that the fez was worn in Byzantium, and possibly earlier, in Ancient Greece. The headdress got its name from the Moroccan city of Fez, where such caps were made, and most importantly, they were dyed red. The word "fez" entered the everyday life of the Ottomans, who once saw such headdresses in their African provinces, Tunisia and Morocco. Moroccans still consider the fez to be an element of their traditional attire, and high-ranking officials also wear it during official events.

Since the twenties of the last century, when Ataturk's reforms also affected the national costume, wearing a fez, like a turban, was prohibited in Turkey and was punishable by a fine or arrest.

Keffiyeh

The simplest of the oriental headdresses among the Asian and African peoples was the keffiyeh - a scarf that protected the head and face from the sun and sand, and also from the cold, since the keffiyeh was used in the desert, where the temperature drops dramatically at night. It is believed that this headdress began to be worn in the city of El-Kufa - hence the name.

In the south-west of Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, northern Africa, including the Sahara, keffiyeh has become an integral part of the men's wardrobe. Most often it was worn with a black hoop - ikal, which held the scarf on the head; in Saudi Arabia, ikal was not used, and in Oman, keffiyeh was tied around the head in the manner of a turban. In Jordan and Palestine, a special way of wearing this headdress appeared - an arafatka, named after the leader of Palestine, Yasser Arafat.

The traditional colors of the keffiyeh are white and red. With the arrival of the soldiers of the British Empire to the east, Europeans began to wear the keffiyeh, it was called "shemagh". They were not worn for reasons of fashion - rather, it was the most convenient way to protect themselves from the hot southern sun. But keffiyeh got into world trends at the turn of the millennium.

Tagelmust

One of the varieties of oriental turbans has long been worn by the Tuaregs, one of the peoples of North Africa. Tagelmust is a headdress made of cotton fabric, connected with a veil - it covers both the head and the face. According to Tuareg customs, this piece of fabric reaches ten meters in length, and the fabric itself should be blue - it is dyed by hand using the own technology of this people. Tagelmust can be inherited.

But what are they, the nomads of the Tuareg: blue people of the Sahara, living under matriarchy.