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Unknown artist, Thai

Man's prayer cap, early 1900s

Description

Maker

  • Unknown

Culture

Thai

Title

Man's prayer cap

Year

early 1900s

Medium

Cotton; embroidered, drawnwork, quilted

Materials/Techniques

Materials

  • cotton

Place

Thailand; Siam

Type

  • Fashion,
  • Costume Accessories

Credit

Bequest of Miss Ellen D. Sharpe

Object Number

54.147.103

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Sartorial Sanctuary

December 19, 2008 - April 26, 2009

Following the example of Muhammad and his companions, men in most Muslim societies have traditionally worn a head covering, especially when praying. This basic requisite has led to the adoption of a wide variety of turbans, hats, and caps—so long as they have no brim that would interfere with a worshipper’s forehead touching the ground during prayer. Some caps might serve as a base for the turban, though men also wear them alone, offering their decoration as a display of devotion and dedication. Mirrors, for example, on the Middle Eastern prayer cap here might be seen to reflect God’s glory and to deflect the evil eye, while the ritual of embroidering the text on the Iranian dervish cap is said to aid in the attainment of salvation.

Other hats, differing in shape from the typical rounded cap, reveal additional layers of meaning related to history and geography. The turban form of the Javanese batik head covering shows an indigenous fabric fashioned to announce the wearer’s faith while keeping him relatively comfortable in a typically humid environment. The Turkish fez, originally imported from North Africa, has a complicated political history: a symbol of Turkish nationalism and modernization under Sultan Mahmud II around 1826, when it largely replaced the turban, it changed to one of Islamic orthodoxy under Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk), who outlawed it in 1925 in favor of Western varieties of hat.

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in Copyright. This object is Man's prayer cap with the accession number of 54.147.103. To request a higher resolution file, please submit an online request.

Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

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