Dress for a community of faith

This lesson asks you to identify specialized clothing markets, among them religious or faith groups, to explain how and why each is a separate market, and to describe their fabrics and what those do. The museum holds what one community, Muslims, says about dress in general and about the pilgrim's garments; the innovations and modifications in making clothes, and the other markets, are for your class to add. ¹

Notice what a community needs to wear because of its rites, when it needs it, and which fabrics and colours it prefers. Then ask what turns that need into a separate market.

Look at two cloths. The record on the rida' gives its lexical sense as the garment that covers the upper body over the izar, which covers the lower body. ² It reports that it is recommended for a pilgrim in ihram to wear a rida' and an izar that are white, new or washed. ² In prayer, the majority prefer a shirt with a rida' over a single garment. ³ The record on clothing adds, from the same encyclopaedia, that a muhrim may not wear saffron- or safflower-dyed clothes, ^{4 5} and that it is recommended to dress well at festivals, in new and fine clothes, white being best. ⁶ Neither record says who wove, sold or priced these cloths.

The record on clothing sets out differences among the jurists over colour. On red for men, some Hanafis and Hanbalis disliked it when pure, while others allowed it if it was not dyed with saffron or safflower. ^{7 8} On saffron-dyed clothing, the Shafi'is forbade it to men and allowed it to women, while the Hanafis and Hanbalis disliked it for men. ^{4 5} The record places the views side by side and gives no ruling between them, and neither does this page.

Both records rest on one work, the Kuwaiti jurisprudence encyclopaedia, and they cite its pages. ^{9 2} Where a ruling rests on a report, the record names the report and its narrator, such as Aisha's report of two garments for Friday and the report of Samura ibn Jundab (may God be pleased with him) on white, ^{9 10 11 7} but it does not set the reports out in full. The records describe what the jurists say about dress. They do not say where cloth was bought or what it cost, so the market itself is for your class to add.

The two records name garments, fabrics and colours, and show the schools differing over some of them. ⁷ Give your reason first: do the records show a separate market for cloth, or only a set of rulings, and what would a record of sales have to add?

• Albisa (clothing: rulings, colours and manners): the rulings, colours and materials as the jurists give them.
• Rida': the upper garment, in ihram and in prayer.
• Ihram: the state of consecration for hajj or umra, as the jurists define it.

Read the record on Albisa and the record on Rida'. Collect in a table the fabrics, colours and garments the records name and when they are worn, then mark what you think is the function of each.