Unknown Maker, Arabian Peninsula

The earliest Arab garments were unseamed lengths of cloth draped and wound around the body, a style still seen today in the consecrated garments pilgrims wear to Mecca (irham). Contact with the Hellenistic Mediterranean world led to the adoption throughout the Near East of the seamed, unfitted tunic (thob), a loose garment that gave refuge from the desert heat, and later suited the Quran's call for modesty in dress. In the southern Arabian Peninsula, wrapped garments continued for some time to cover the lower half of the body, but further north and east, early communication with Persia ushered in the rigid camel sadel and with it, trousers (sarwal). A gift of ancient Central Asian horsemen, the functional trouser form - which protected the legs from chafing while riding - dispersed quickly, both westward and eastward, well before the Christian era.

The austerity of the plain white cotton thob and sarwal here recalls a declaration from the oral traditions conveying the words of Muhammad (hadiths): "The best of your clothes are white," he is said to have advised, for white frees the mind from the distraction and ostentation of luxury fabrics.