Stéphane Pradines

“Set the Gaze on Fire”: Gold-Cloth Furnishing and Sacred Propaganda in the Courts of Early Mediaeval Islam

Type
journal article
Year
2023

Three documents from Fatimid Egypt, ʿAbbasid Mesopotamia, and Taifa Toledo – dated between the fourth–sixth/tenth–twelfth centuries – describe the practice of decorating audience halls with gold-threaded furnishing textiles. By identifying fragments believed to be described in these texts, it is proposed that these vibrant interiors were an aesthetic and ceremonial phenomenon of the period. The colour potential of such fabrics, often emphasised in poetry, appears to have encouraged their use, given the symbolic significance associated with the palace and the caliph-imam as vessels and emitters of divine light.

Citation

de Lara, Juan. (2023). “Set the Gaze on Fire”: Gold-Cloth Furnishing and Sacred Propaganda in the Courts of Early Mediaeval Islam. Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World, Volume 3 (Issue 2), 205-234. https://doi.org/10.1163/26666286-12340032

Parent Publications

Authorities

Copyright

Brill

Country

Egypt

Language

English

Dimensions

29 pages

Keywords