10th century BCE – 16th century
Western Sudan, Ghana, Takrūr, Timbuktu and Jenné
The growth of clothing use, textile manufacture, and cloth exchange in the Western Sudan. Trade and Islam encouraged the adoption of imported cotton and wool garments, while local weaving developed from at least the eleventh century and reached its greatest prosperity in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Timbuktu and Jenné became important centres of weaving and tailoring.
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The Story
The pages associate changing patterns of dress with commercial and religious contact. Rural people in the Sudan were described as wearing skins, while those who interacted with foreign Muslim traders adopted imported cotton and wool clothing. Islam helped create a market for garments, encouraged imports, and supported the expansion of local manufacturing.
In Ghana, clothing marked social and political distinctions. Ibn al-Faqīh wrote in the tenth century that the Sudanese people of Ghana wore skins, whereas al-Bakrī, writing a century later, described commoners in cotton, silk, or brocade robes. Only the king and crown prince could wear sewn clothing according to Muslim fashion, while people in the province of Sāma were described as going naked, with women covering their sexual parts with skins.
The account of Malal presents conversion as a moment of sartorial change: when the king of Malal converted to Islam, he was given a cotton dress. Takrūr was the earliest Muslim state from which the cotton tree and cloth manufacture were first reported. The Western Sudanese cloth industry began in the eleventh century, served local markets, and exported textiles toward the Sahara and Maghrib.
Production flourished especially in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Timbuktu and Jenné, already important centres of trade and Islam, were also known for weaving; in the seventeenth century Timbuktu contained twenty-six tailor workshops, each with fifty to one hundred apprentices. Local production did not eliminate luxury imports, including Egyptian dress in Walata and European clothing worn by the king of Mali.
10th century BCE – 16th century
Western Sudan, Ghana, Takrūr, Timbuktu and Jenné
The growth of clothing use, textile manufacture, and cloth exchange in the Western Sudan. Trade and Islam encouraged the adoption of imported cotton and wool garments, while local weaving developed from at least the eleventh century and reached its greatest prosperity in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Timbuktu and Jenné became important centres of weaving and tailoring.
Continue exploring
The Story
The pages associate changing patterns of dress with commercial and religious contact. Rural people in the Sudan were described as wearing skins, while those who interacted with foreign Muslim traders adopted imported cotton and wool clothing. Islam helped create a market for garments, encouraged imports, and supported the expansion of local manufacturing.
In Ghana, clothing marked social and political distinctions. Ibn al-Faqīh wrote in the tenth century that the Sudanese people of Ghana wore skins, whereas al-Bakrī, writing a century later, described commoners in cotton, silk, or brocade robes. Only the king and crown prince could wear sewn clothing according to Muslim fashion, while people in the province of Sāma were described as going naked, with women covering their sexual parts with skins.
The account of Malal presents conversion as a moment of sartorial change: when the king of Malal converted to Islam, he was given a cotton dress. Takrūr was the earliest Muslim state from which the cotton tree and cloth manufacture were first reported. The Western Sudanese cloth industry began in the eleventh century, served local markets, and exported textiles toward the Sahara and Maghrib.
Production flourished especially in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Timbuktu and Jenné, already important centres of trade and Islam, were also known for weaving; in the seventeenth century Timbuktu contained twenty-six tailor workshops, each with fifty to one hundred apprentices. Local production did not eliminate luxury imports, including Egyptian dress in Walata and European clothing worn by the king of Mali.