Silk: Wealth and Power
In antiquity silk was still a rarity. For a long time people did not even know exactly what silk was, since China kept silkworm breeding and the production and processing of silk a strictly guarded secret. It is not surprising that people made concentrated efforts to discover this secret, or at least to control the trade routes along which the silk came. Two important trade routes, branches of the Silk Road, ended in Syria: one of the overland routes ran from Central Asia via Persia and Iraq to Aleppo and on to Antioch. The other was a sea-route from India across the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf to Basra from where a land route could be taken either via Baghdad and Mosul to Aleppo, or through the Syrian desert to Palmyra and thence to Damascus and Tyre. from Syria the silk trade was continued into the Mediterranean and Europe.
Rome imported its silk from Syria and the Lebanon. The silk-dealers, or sericarii
had their own quarter in Rome. To wear silk garments caused a sensation, and
the response was not always enthusiastic. For a time it was forbidden to wear
silk garments in the Senate, since they were regarded as feminine and therefore
restricted to women. The Christians in Rome were even more unambiguous,
declaring that a true Christian does not wear silk. But the seductive character
o( the material was too great for these puritanical attitudes to prevail. The
wearing of silk garments soon became habitual, for the rich and powerful. When
the Syrian potentate Heliogabalus from Homs visited Rome at the beginning of
the third century he is supposed to have been the first man to wear clothes
made entirely of silk.
For Rome the silk trade became an important source of revenue, but it remained
dependent on Persia. When Diocletian made peace with Persia in 297, the border
and ;customs post at Nisibis became the hub of the silk trade between the two
empires. In 301 Diocletian fixed taxes and prices for silk.
Palmyra, too, owed its rise to the silk trade. Situated in the middle of the
Syrian desert, it was the most important entrepot for the caravan trade between
the Euphrates and :he Mediterranean. During the energetic rule of the
legendary Queen Zenobia, in particular, this desert kingdom
ruled from Palmyra achieved wealth and political importance. There was
trade not only in silk fabrics made in china, but raw silk was also imported to
be spun, woven, dyed - and, of course, worn. Evidence of this is provided by
fragments of textiles, including silk damask, found at Palmyra. The style of
clothing (above all the women's; costumes) and jewellery seen in statues have
in part persisted to the present day. But with the shift of trade "outes due to
wars and the resulting insecurity of the "outes, Palmyra's heyday came to an
end, and like so many places in Syria it became a "dead city"; bedouins now
rest in the shade of its majestic ruins.
There are many stories about how silk was smuggled out of China. One of them
tells how a Chinese princess, when she married a prince from Khotan, took silk
cocoons across the border in her bridal coiffure to give them to her future
husband as a present.
Byzantium's most important suppliers of silk were central Asia and Persia.
Duties and taxes made silk an expensive raw material that was difficult to
obtain. In order to cater for the demand of the Byzantine
court, Justinian established a monopoly of silk processing, which was pracised
exclusively in the state gynaecea (textile factories). private silk
weavers were forced onto the black market. When in 540 the war with Persia cut
off the supply of silk, many Syrian and Lebanese silk-weavers emigrated
immediately to Persia. After their victory over Byzantium the Persians finally
gained control of the silk supply, which led to a crisis in textile production
in the gynaecea.
The secret of silk production was brought to Byzantium by two
Nestorian priests around 553. After a visit to their co-religionlsts in Central
Asia they returned across the border with the eggs of the silkworm moth
concealed in their walking sticks.
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The leaves of the white mulberry tree, which grows in the Syrian and Lebanese mountains, are the staple food of the silkworms. Silk-spinning factories sprang up in Beirut, I Homs and Hama. Since this period the production and processing of silk has been one of the most important factors in the economy of the Syrian and Lebanese region.
When the Muslim armies under Khalid bin al-Walid conquered Damascus, lie seized
three hundred camel-loads of silk. The tribute paid to him amounted to 10,000
gold pieces and 200 silk garments. Like the early Christians in Rome the first
Muslims regarded the use of silk as a luxury that was detrimental to true
religion, but in fact silk now became indispensable for the Umayyad court, just
as it had been for the Roman emperors. This was often disapproved of: a
Bedouin princess from the Euphrates region is said to have told her husband,
Muawiya, that wearing a Bedouin cloak in the midst of her relatives would make
her happier than all the silk at the court of Damascus.
The conquest of Persia not only made the Islamic world a serious rival to China
in silk production, it also meant that it controlled the most important routes
of the Silk Road, giving it the monopoly of the silk trade. Like the Byzantines
before them, the caliphs and later Muslim rulers established state workshops
for their own requirements, but without closing down the private workshops. The
general name given to the textiles made in these workshops is tiraz. Fatimid
Egypt was famous for them. Textiles played an important role in the politics of
gift-giving of the Muslim rulers. Honorific garments were bestowed and precious
cloths were horded. Garments and valuable cloths were passed down from
generation to generation together with the stories of how they were acquired.
The detailed knowledge about the variety and provenance of textiles as well as
the need for luxury textiles is very marked: "May God cover me with striped
cloaks from the Yemen, with linen cloths from Egypt, brocades from Byzantium,
with silk from Susa and China, Persian garments and capes from Isfahan, with
atlas silk from Baghdad and turban cloths from Ubull,... with Armenian
breeches... and with velvet from Merv. May God load me with carpets, with large
carpets from Qaliqala and Maisan, with mats from Baghdad." Such was the desire
of a well-to-do Muslim in the eleventh century (quoted in Eombard, 1987: 180).
The terms used for the cloths and garments made from them give an idea of the
wide range of textile production. The names refer to the places where the
textiles were made, or to the materials, their weave, embroidery, and much
more. Tins information can be used to trace the place of origin of particular
cloths and techniques as well as their distribution (and imitation). Talented
'artisans with the necessary knowledge were very much in demand and were
requested to work for the courts. Their skill was often their undoing. After
wars the victors very often took them by force to their courts. This explains
the sudden appearance or disappearance of particular fabrics and techniques in
various regions of the Islamic world. Lor example, Chinese silk-weavers were
brought to Kufa by the Abbasids (Chehab, 1967). After his campaign in 1401
Timur "confiscated the damascene silk-weavers and other artisans and took them
back with him to Central Asia (Lombard, 1987).
Much care was expended on the production of the
raw material and the control of the finished product. In sources from the end
of the twelfth century we find instructions on the cultivation of- cotton and
flax, silkworm breeding, dye making, etc. Manuals for market overseers contain
detailed information of procedures in the case of falsification of fabrics and
dyes. Kremer noted in the mid-nineteenth century that "silk is weighed under
judicial, supervision" (1855:8).
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Sources describing the specific contexts in which textiles were used show why
textiles play such an outstanding role in Islamic culture. It is in the nature
of the sources that they concentrate particularly on the courts and the urban
upper class. They tell us about the fashions and practices at the
courts, the requirements of the urban population, the circulation of textiles
in social contexts, such as weddings or on special occasions, and the
distribution of textiles as a sign of recognition or expression of benevolence
from the powerful to their subordinates (Scarce, 1989; Lombard, 1987). Certain
fabrics, patterns and dyes were reserved for the Muslim rulers; the court and
dignitaries, particular social groups and religious minorities had their own
turban cloths and were governed by precise dress regulations. Particularly in
the urban milieu clothes regulations were a concrete expression of social
relationships, a reflection of traditional norms and values, as well as of the
fashions of the time. The issuing of such regulations was a political
instrument whose power should not be underestimated. All this demonstrates the
value Islamic culture attached to textiles, both materially and spiritually.
But not only was the use of particular textiles integrated into a cultural
pattern of life, this was also true of their production. The organization of
work was determined by the old crafts. Tills resulted in the interdependence of
the various individual craftsmen involved in the making of a textile, and
thus in the emergence of close, social and work relationships, and in a
necessary sense of solidarity. The economic life of the craftsmen and hence of
a whole social fabric is thus dependent on the continuity of a whole cultural
pattern in which the textiles have their place and which gives these objects
their social and cultural character. It is only against this background that
the scale of the changes which set in at the end of the nineteenth century can
be gauged.
The integration of Syria into the expanding European markets in the second
third of the nineteenth Century, marked the beginning of far- reaching
socioeconomic changes which were to have repercussions particularly on die
textile industry. Syria was discovered as a new market for European industrial
fabrics, and the treaties concluded after 1838 between several European states
and the Ottoman Empire ensured very favorable export conditions for their
goods. The European consuls had the right to observe the market situation on
the spot, defend the interests of their governments and grant a number of
special privileges to the local Christians in order to secure and deepen
business contacts. At the same time Syria became an important supplier of silk
as a raw material, especially for the French silk industry in Lyon. The region
that is now Lebanon was the principal supplier for the French market, and silk
was the staple commodity in the port of Beirut, whence it was shipped to
Marseille. Silk once again became a political issue. In Syria the number of
newly planted mulberry trees increased rapidly, and in regions which had been
regarded as1 secondary silk-producing areas, such as the district around
Safita, production was intensified. At favorable altitudes many peasants
began to plant mulberry instead of their olive or fruit trees. But after 1930,
when the demand for Syrian (Lebanese) silk collapsed and the silk industry in
Lyon went into decline, many peasants who had switched to sericulture faced
financial ruin. The reeling of the silk, in so far as it was done in Syria at
all, was mechanized. Many Armenian women worked in the silk spinning workshops.
Much French capital was invested in these enterprises and the machinery needed
was imported from France. A number of Syrian businessmen who were in close
contact with Lyon founded factories or mechanized their textile production.
Some of the factories still use machines from this period. The flooding of the
market with cheap British fabrics, as well as the shortage and increased price
of raw materials for the traditional sector led to a drastic decline in Syrian
textile production: in Damascus, between 1830 and 1850, it was reduced by
almost a half, and the production of traditional articles fell by almost three
quarters. Kremer (1854:21) lamented (somewhat inaccurately): "The diwans
which were formerly covered with brocade, which, however, became famous under
the name of damask, are now covered with Lnglish calico." In the
towns people began to wear European dress.
Nevertheless, the Syrian textile Industry still managed to defend as share in
the market. It was able to do so by increased concentration on the local
markets, by supplying them with customary fabrics, by introducing cheaper
imitations of traditional cloths, by making structural changes, such as
processing industrial raw materials (e.g., yarns) imported from Europe, and by
establishing specialized centres of production in the cities. Aleppo, for
example, switched to the production of cheaper varieties of traditional striped
materials, to processing more cotton, and it remained the centre of dyeing in
Syria. Damascus specialized on the making of expensive textiles such as gold
brocade and silks, and concentrated on wool, some of which was used for making
Bedouin cloaks. In Homs, on the other hand, the typical heavy silk cloths with
patterns in gold and silver threads were still woven for the peasant and nomad
clientele.
The second serious setback for
the traditional textile sector in Syria was a consequence of the
Second World War and, more generally, of the modern development and
industrialization of Syria which came with independence .
