Clothing, Textiles and Personal Appearance in Ilkhanid Society

Dress in Ilkhanid Iran combined garments worn close to the body with coats, belts or sashes, head coverings and footwear. Tailoring controlled how cloth fitted and moved, while woven patterns and applied bands altered its appearance. Courtly robes and headdresses made rank visible, and manuscripts show varied ways to combine layers.

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The terlig as a layered court robe

The terlig, a Mongol robe, was fashionable at the Ilkhanid court. The terlig took different forms across the Mongol-ruled world; Yuan Chinese examples provide a detailed comparison. In Yuan versions, the robe could have long narrow sleeves, a fitted upper body and a skirt gathered into many close folds at the waist. A broad waistband or decorated waist threads helped hold it in place; the folds and fastening were suited to movement on horseback.

Ilkhanid versions shared features with Yuan robes but were adapted in their own setting. Depictions show the terlig worn as an inner garment beneath a short-sleeved outer coat. The waist decoration that characterized some Yuan examples appears to have been less common in Ilkhanid dress. Collars also varied, including standing forms. These differences show that a recognizable Mongol garment could change as it circulated, rather than remaining a fixed uniform.

A qaba was a long coat secured with a belt or sash, closing at the centre or wrapping across the front. Beneath it a long-sleeved shirt, called a pirahan or qamiz, covered the torso. Trousers could be tucked into boots or worn with low shoes. These pieces let the wearer combine leg coverage, warmth and an outer layer that could be opened or removed.

The folds at a robe’s waist gave space for the lower body to move while the upper portion remained fitted. A sash controlled excess fabric around the torso. The cut and fastening mattered alongside the fibre: the same costly textile could be made into different garments by changing its panels, sleeves and openings.

Patterns and bands on Ilkhanid clothing

Ilkhanid robes could bring together motifs associated with different artistic traditions. Roundels and pseudo-Kufic decoration, forms that evoke angular Arabic script, appeared alongside Central or East Asian designs such as clouds, dragons, phoenixes and flowers. Their combination gave court garments a visual language that was not simply a copy of Yuan dress or a purely local style.

Some robes also had strips known as tiraz bands along the shoulders and arms. These may have served as reinforcing strips as well as decoration. The garment’s layered construction mattered too: the inner robe and outer coat were worn together, making the overall appearance depend on how garments were combined, not only on the design of one robe.

The boqta and women’s court appearance

The boqta was a tall headdress associated with Mongol women of rank. Accounts describe a light framework, including willow and felt, covered with cloth and ornament. Its height and widening upper shape made it conspicuous above a formal robe. It required a built support rather than being simply a length of cloth wrapped around the head.

Cloth coverings, precious-metal ornaments and feathers could enrich a formal headdress. Other head coverings included veils, hoods, caps and wrapped turbans. Women in Mongol-period paintings appear with long front-opening garments over inner layers, and with different veils or shawls around the head and shoulders.

Reading clothing in illustrated manuscripts

The Compendium of Chronicles was begun under Ghazan and expanded under Öljaitü in the early fourteenth century. Scribes and painters worked on its illustrated copies, including an Arabic manuscript dated 1314–1315. Figures’ layers, fastenings and surface patterns make these pages an important source for studying how dress was represented.

The Compendium of Chronicles pictured many historical and religious narratives, often showing figures of the past in Mongol dress. A painted costume therefore reveals an artist’s choices about cut, layering and ornament within a particular scene. Comparing dated images with surviving textiles helps distinguish a garment’s shape from the design woven into its cloth.

Cloth, tailoring and movement between regions

The silk-and-gold textile carrying Abu Sa’id’s titles, later used in the burial of Duke Rudolf IV of Austria, shows how luxurious cloth travelled. It reached the West before being made into that burial garment. Its woven inscriptions and animal patterns document Ilkhanid textile design, while its final tailoring belongs to a different setting.

For the wider setting, see Food, Dress, Worship and Travel in the Ilkhanate: Everyday Practices and Institutions.