ABSTRACT
This paper presents another example of sartorial politics in the Sokoto Caliphate, one that concerned legal questions and controversies over the wearing of silk. The ‘problem of silk’ – who could legally wear it and when – is believed to go all the way back to the seventh century and the time of Muhammad, and recurring discussions of it reveal the variability of opinions on the social and ethical
Map 7.1 The Sokoto Caliphate, now northern Nigeria
significance of Muslim dress. This specific study of silk in the Sokoto Caliphate is based on two independent sets of primary sources: translations of texts written by leaders of the jihad; and special garments made by and for the Caliphate’s male literati. Silk and sumptuous clothing were criticized in the writings of Shaikh Uthman dan Fodio and his brother, Abdullah, who were the intellectual architects of the jihad.5 Their harshest pronouncements against silk suggest that they may well have prohibited their male followers from wearing fabrics made with this fibre. To test this proposition, I turn my attention to the production and distribution of men’s robes in the Caliphate. Caliphate robes were well known and were far from ordinary items of clothing. Among them there was a signature type of elaborately embroidered garment that was worn by members of the Muslim male elite, with some select examples serving as ‘robes of honour’.6 My analyses of such robes – what they looked like, how they were made, and what the role of silk was in their manufacture – offer a unique perspective on Caliphate society that is quite different from the impression conveyed by the writings of the Shaikh and his brother. Attitudes toward dress were varied, complex, and sometimes contradictory, for the wearing of silk by Muslim men was tolerated and, in some ways, actively promoted.
