Khazz silk

Khazz silk (al-khazz الخزّ ) was a blended silk cloth made of silk and wool.[1] The Persian qazz or Arabic khazz, refers to silk or silk products. In medieval Arabic القزّ al-qazz meant "silk".[2]

History

Khazz silk is an olden variety of silken cloths. Khazz was a fabric of the 13th century, and the same cloth is mentioned in the 16th-century document  Ain-i-Akbari.[3][4] There are mentions in the Arabic literature about a type of striped khazz and Kutuf (the velvet cloth) used at the Umayyad Caliphate court, Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik (691-743).[5] Hisham used to have a fondness for robes and carpets." …. In his days there were made, striped silk (al-khazz rakm) and velvets (kutuf)".[6][5]

Texture

The texture of Khazz was similar to velvet or a napped cloth.[3]

Price

Khazz is noted as one of the costlier cloths, and it was priced at 16 Tankahs/silver coins (equal to the monthly salary of a soldier in the 14th century). The price is almost 16 times corresponding to a long cloth which was 1 Tankah.[7][8][9]

See also

References

  1. ^ Gil, Moshe (2002). "References to Silk in Geniza Documents of the Eleventh Century A. D." Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 61 (1): 31–38. doi:10.1086/468976. ISSN 0022-2968. JSTOR 546059. S2CID 162097940.
  2. ^ "Collection of etymologies of English words that came from Arabic". ia801903.us.archive.org. Retrieved 2021-02-09.
  3. ^ a b Phillips, Amanda (2021). Sea Change: Ottoman Textiles Between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. Univ of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-30359-1.
  4. ^ Mubārak, Abū al-Faz̤l ibn (1873). The Ain i Akbari. Asiatic Society of Bengal. p. 92.
  5. ^ a b Vogelsang, Willem. "2. A brief history of velvet". trc-leiden.nl. Retrieved 2021-02-09.
  6. ^ (Serjeant 1973:14)
  7. ^ "Definition of TANKAH". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2021-02-09.
  8. ^ Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Bishop's College Press. 1870. p. 30.
  9. ^ Lal, Kishori Saran (1950). History of the K̲h̲aljis (1290-1320). Indian Press. p. 280.