Fabrics

If a robe is woven on a loom of two heddle rods, it is called munayyar. If it has little quadrangular shapes on it resembling a wild ass's eyes, it is called mu‘ayyan. If it has stripes, it is called mu‘aḍḍad and mushaṭṭab. If it has long trailing forms on it, then it is musayyar. If it has white stripes, or other designs in white, it is mufawwaf. If it has a chevroned pattern it is called musahham. If it has columnar forms, it is called mu‘ammad. If it has a zigzag pattern, it is called mu‘arraj. If it has crescent-shaped figures, it is called muhallal. If it is embroidered with cubical forms, it is called muka‘‘ab. According to Abu ‘Amr, if it flashes [with metal coins?] it is called mufallas, if it has birdlike forms, it is called muṭayyar, and if it has horse designs it is called mukhayyal.
     Abu 'l-Ḥasan al-Salami gave an excellent description of a battlefield (meter: kāmil):

      The sky was a patterned robe, muṭayyar with its vultures.
          The earth was a patterned bed spread, mukhayyal with fine horses.

From The Statutes of Lexicography by Abu Mansur al-Tha‘alibi

What handkerchief is best?

The courtiers surrounding ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan were not particularly erudite. One day, he asked them, "What is the best kind of handkerchief?"
     "The handkerchiefs of Egypt," said one of them "They're like the membrane of an eggshell."
     "The handkerchiefs of Yemen," said another. "They're as [colorful as] the flowers of spring."
     "That's all you've come up with?" said ‘Abd al-Malik. "That's nothing.  The best of handkerchiefs was described by a man of the Banu Tamim," meaning ‘Abda ibn al-Tabib (meter: basīṭ):

      When we halted and rigged up a screen from the sun,
          pots of meat for the party were put on to boil.
      The cook's time was short. Some of the cuts
          were eaten pink, and some were just turning pale.
      We remounted then our branded horses. Their close-cropped
          manes were kerchiefs for [wiping] our hands.

From al-Kamil of al-Mubarrad (cf. Imru’ al-Qays)

Shuttles

Another verse where Abu Tammam goes wrong is the following:

     The places where your tribe once stayed are vacant, I attest,
           [their traces] worn away like the washa’i‘ of a mantle.

He treats washa’i‘ as if they were the mantle's bordered edges, but this is not the case. In reality, washa’i‘ are a weaver's "shuttles," which carry the coiled thread of the weft between the fibers of the warp. Dhu 'l-Rumma says [correctly]:

     [The sands] are played by strenuous winds
           like the weaving of a Yemeni whose washa’i‘ weave a mantle.

As for the verse of Kuthayyir,

     In summer, the huts of ‘Azza's tribe were wiped away,
           whose washī‘ had been renewed in a scrawling pattern [sic].

He uses washī‘ here to mean the stuffing in a gap between two things. But shuttles are for thread... and what Kuthayyir means is that [the sides and ceilings of] the huts had been re-stuffed [with grass]. This mistake is due to his inexperience of the trappings of settled life. When a Bedouin uses the wrong word for something, having never seen it first-hand, it is excusable.
     For Abu Tammam, on the other hand, there is no excuse, because he belonged to sedentary civilization, and was hardly ignorant of it. But he grants himself license, [and is flagrant about it,] as you can see in another poem where he describes his own poetic work:

     Jest and earnest are combined in the shuttling of its weft,
            as are nobility and scurrility with grief and ecstasy.

From The Weigh-in Between the Poetry of Abu Tammam and al-Buhturi by Abu 'l-Qasim al-Amidi

A weaver's song

I am informed by al-Husayn ibn Yahya, on the authority of Hammad, that Hammad's father said:

Malik ibn Abi al-Samh was staying in Mecca, at the home of a man of the Banu Makhzum who had a weaver for his slave. Someone came along and asked: "Have you heard your weaver's song?"
       "No!" the man said. "Does he sing?"
       "Yes," he was told, "with lyrics by Abu Dahbal al-Jumahi."
        The man sent for the weaver and told him to sing it. "It's no good unless I'm at my loom," the weaver said. So his master brought Malik to the weaver's room, where the weaver sat at his loom and sang (meter: ṭawīl): 

   This night goes on too long. It is not lifting.
      [I am harried and dragged down by worry with no relief.
   All night long, angst rides me. It's like 
       being stubbed in the ribs with a glowing coal.]

Malik learned the song, and when he sang it, everyone took it for his composition. "By God," he would say, "it was not I. It was none but a weaver who came up with this song."

From the Book of Songs

By goats are tents unmade

The verb bahiya yabhā, verbal noun bahā’, is said of a tent when it rips and become useless. Active participle bāhin describes a tent that is ill furnished. The transitive verb abhā, formed on the same root, means to rip something up—as heard in the saying: Al-mi‘zā tubhī wa-lā tubnī (Tents are unmade by goats, not made). This is because goats climb on top of tents, and rip their fabrics, and as the rents in them grow wider,  the tent becomes unfit for habitation.
     Conveyed along with this is the idea that goat hair is not suitable for spinning, and this is why tents are not made of their hairs, but from camel hair and sheep's wool. Abū Zayd said: "The meaning of lā tubnī in the saying is that tents are not fabricated from goat's wool. If this were possible, then tents would [in a metonymical sense] be 'made by' goats."
     In Rectifying the Errors of Abū ‘Ubayd, Ibn Qutayba says: "In many places I have seen well-pitched Arab tents of goat hair." And then he said: "The meaning of lā tubnī in the saying is that goats are no good for a tent's roof (binā’)."
     Al-Azharī says: "The Bedouin have two kinds of goat. One is hairless, like the goats of the Hijaz and the lowlands [of the Tihama region], and goats such as are pastured in the uplands [of Central Arabia], far from arable terrain. The other kind of goat has long hair [suitable for spinning and weaving], and arable lands are its terrain, as it roams the outskirts of settled areas where water-sources are plentiful, like the goatkind of the Kurds in the mountains, and in the territories of Khorasan.
     "The saying 'Tents are unmade by goats, not made' would seem to be local to nomads of West Arabia and the Central Arabian plateau. Abū Zayd is correct in what he said." 

Ibn Manẓūr, The Tongue of the Arabs, art. √bhw

At Wadi ‘Abqar

‘Abqar means "hail," which is the fall of frozen water from a cloud. They say that ‘Abqar is a land inhabited by demonic spirits (jinn), as in the proverbial expression "like the jinns of ‘Abqar."
    Al-Marrār al-‘Adawī said (meter: ramal):

    Do you recognize the abode, or do you know it not
        between Tibrāk and the stonefields of ‘Abaqurr?

It is explained [by al-Azharī that the place-name in this verse is altered]: The vowel after the b in ‘Abqar is inserted for metrical reasons, and the final r is redoubled for these same reasons. The vocalic shift of a > u in the last syllable is to avoid the form *‘Abaqarr, which corresponds to no existing morphological template in Arabic. So the poet devised an analogy to words like qarabūs (the pommel of a saddle), which poets are licensed to shorten to qarabus; and the redoubled r is a fine compensation for this imaginary shortening of the vowel.
    Al-A‘shā (sic) said (meter: ṭawīl):

    ...young and old fighting men, like jinns of ‘Abqar

And Imru’ al-Qays said (meter: ṭawīl):

    The sound of the gravel kicked up [by my camel]
        is like the clink of coins subject to scrutiny at ‘Abqar

And Kuthayyir said (meter: ṭawīl):

    May your stars repay your kindness to your friend with a happy life.
        May my Lord rank you with His highest and His nearest.
    On whatever day you come upon [a certain foe]
        you'll find their ingrained quality superior to other people's.
    They are like the wild jinn haunting the sands
        at ‘Abqar, who, when confronted, do not disappear.

Commentators on these verses say that ‘Abqar is a place in Yemen, which would make it an inhabited area, known apparently for its money-changers. And where there are money-changers, there must be people involved in other trades. Perhaps it was an ancient town, since destroyed, and colorful textiles of unknown make have subsequently been attributed to the jinn of the place? God knows best.
    Genealogists say that Hind bt. Mālik b. Ghāfiq b. al-Shāhid b. ‘Akk was married to Anmār b. Arāsh b. ‘Amr b. al-Ghawth b. Nabat b. Mālik b. Zayd b. Kahlān b. Sabā’ b. Yashjub b. Ya‘rub b. Qahṭān, and bore him a son named Aftal, who came to be called Khath‘am. Khath‘am went on to marry Bajīla bt. Ṣa‘b b. Sa‘d, and the son she bore him was named Sa‘d - but was nicknamed ‘Abqar, because he was born near a mountain called ‘Abqar, somewhere in Arabia where patterned cloth was woven.
    ‘Abqar is also said to be a location in central Arabia. Those who say it is a land of jinns point to the verse by Zuhayr (meter: ṭawīl):

    On horses ridden by ‘Abqarī demons, they are
        prepared to seize the day of battle, and overcome.

    One opinion has it that ‘Abqarī is, at bottom, a descriptor for anything the describer is fascinated by. It derives from ‘Abqar, where carpets and other things were once woven, and consequently any well-made thing was said to be from there. Al-Farrā’ said: ‘Abqarī is a kind of velveteen with a thick pile. Mujāhid said: ‘Abqarī is brocade. Qatāda said: ‘Abqarī is carpet for lying down on, and Sa‘īd b. Jubayr concurs, adding that it is carpet of ancient make. Not one of these definitions is in reference to a particular place. But God knows best.

From The Dictionary of Countries by Yāqūt

Merchants and weavers

Sayf al-Dawla found fault with verses 22 and 23 of the poem al-Mutanabbi delivered in his honor (meter: ṭawīl):

      To stand your ground was certain death, and there you stood,
         as if your doom were asleep with your foot in its eye.
      Wounded and sullen, [defeated] warriors filed past you.
         Your face was bright and your grin was toothy.

His objection was that its hemistichs were mismatched "Here's how it should go," Sayf al-Dawla said:

      To stand your ground was certain death, and there you stood.
         Your face was bright and your grin was toothy.
      Wounded and sullen, [defeated] warriors filed past you,
         as if your doom were asleep with your foot in its eye.

"Otherwise," he said, "it's as bad as [verses 37 and 38 of the poem] where Imru’ al-Qays says" (meter: ṭawīl):

      As if I never mounted a courser for sport
         or went belly to belly with a total babe, her ankles jingling!
      As if I weren't the buyer of wine by the skinful,
         nor told my horse, "Attack!" after wheeling about!

"Connoisseurs of poetry will agree that these hemistichs are reversed. The part about the courser goes with the bit about the horse, and the wine belongs with the buxom lass."
        Al-Mutanabbi said, "May God perpetuate the dignity of our master Sayf al-Dawla! If the one who finds fault with Imru’ al-Qays knows more about poetry than he, then Imru’ al-Qays and I are both in error. But our master well knows that in matters of fabric, the expertise of the fabric merchant and the expertise of the weaver are not the same. The merchant knows it as a finished piece, and so does the weaver - but the weaver, who transforms spun filaments into fabric, knows how the finished piece was put together.
       "What Imru’ al-Qays does here is to match his delight in women to the joys of the mounted hunt, and to match his supply of wine for the guest to his bravery in attacking the foe. Now in the first of my own verses, when I mention death, it is fitting that I go on to mention doom. And by way of describing the defeated champions, whose faces cannot but frown and weep, I say: 'Your face was bright and your grin was toothy,' which, through antithesis, gets both meanings across."
        Sayf al-Dawla was pleased with this explanation, and added a bonus of fifty dinars to the reward of five hundred he had paid al-Mutanabbi for the poem.

From al-Wahidi's Commentary on the Diwan of al-Mutanabbi

ِA loom seen in a dream

Weaving means travel. The preacher Abu Sa‘id [al-Khargushi] said: "Who dreams of spinning and weaving something to its completion will die." Al-Kirmani said: "Who dreams of weaving a robe to completion will go on a long journey with a successful outcome. To dream of a robe left incomplete means the opposite. To dream of weaving a robe and cutting it in a way that mars its border means an abrupt end to some affair." Al-Salimi said: "The interpretation of weaving is anxiety and mental effort, but if the weaving is completed it means an end to all of that. To dream of a group of weavers in one's home means a legal battle against multiple contestants, possibly one's own relations."
        A dream of fabric has multiple interpretations. Who dreams of folding cloth or buying it or receiving it as a gift will go on a long journey. This is due to [homonymy: al-shuqqa means "fabric," but also "journey" as in] the Qur'anic verse (9:24): "But distant to them was the journey." Al-Kirmani said: "A dream of green fabric means safe travels. A dream of yellow fabric means travel with a bad outcome. White fabric means safety and health, and blue and black fabric mean travel that is dispraised." And according to some interpreters, a dream of receiving woven fabric as a gift from someone means that friendship will develop with that person.

From A Digest of Pronunciations on the Exegesis of Dreams
by pseudo-Ibn Sirin (on the margin)

◊    

Weaving in a dream is a sign of passing out of life, or the nearness of the end to one's allotted days. It may also signify a middling condition, or [alternating periods] of tension and relaxation in worldly matters. To dream of setting up a warp means to decide on travel, and to dream of weaving a robe means actual travel. If one dreams of cutting fabric after weaving it, then some case in which the dreamer is a contestant will come to an end, either in the dreamer's favor or contrary to it. Whether one dreams of weaving the robe from cotton, wool, the hair or down of goats, or silk or anything else, it all means the same. To dream of a folded robe means travel, and to unfurl a robe means that something absent will become present. To command that a robe be woven from goat's down signifies a matter of domestic help, possibly involving sexual intercourse.

From Perfuming Humankind with Dream Interpretation
by ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi (in the frame)

Description of the spider

Since you are so taken with Penelope's loom - having found a good picture where it appears to lack none of its component parts, its warp tightly and handsomely stretched, its weft containing the bulging fibers - and you hear not only the whir of Penelope's shuttle, but her crying out the tears that Homer melts ice with as she unravels her web: consider the spider [in a picture] nearby, and whether it doesn't outweave Penelope and even the Seres ["Silklanders"], who work in strands so fine as to be nearly invisible.

These gates open onto an ill-kept household. You would say its owners have deserted it. The courtyard within is obviously abandoned. No longer held up by its pillars, the structure sags and is falling in. It is a home to spiders only, for the animal likes a tranquil setting to do its weaving. Look at the strands, and how the spider secretes its spinning and anchors it to the floor. The artist shows them climbing down the web and clambering back up, the "high-flying" spiders as Hesiod calls them, and flying is what the spiders do. They weave their homes in corners, some wide outspread, some concave hollows: the outspread webs are excellent summer quarters, whereas the hollow nests they weave are good in winter.

Nor do the artist's accomplishments end there. The exacting adumbration of the spider, the naturalness of its stippling, the rendition of its wild and shaggy fur - these are the productions of the awesome, truthful power of a good craftsman, who wove for us these slender cords. Look at the rectangular one girding the web's four corners. Like the cable of a loom, it supports a delicate net that whorls round in many orbits, its interstices tautly strung from the outermost circle to the smallest, knitted crosswise at intervals that match the distance between each circle. And all about the web, the weavers ply their trade, tightening up the threads that have fallen slack. As payment for their weaving, there is a feast of flies whenever one gets entangled in the webworks. Accordingly, the artist has not left out the spiders' prey. One is caught by the foot, and another by the tip of one wing, while a third is being eaten up headfirst. And struggle as they may to escape the web, they cannot shake it loose or cause it to come undone.

Philostratus the Elder, Images II.28

The hair of another animal

Abu Dulaf al-Qasim ibn ‘Isa al-‘Ijli paid a call on the caliph al-Ma’mun, who said, "I must say, Qasim, how excellent is your poem that describes war and the delight it brings you, while you scant the delights of singing-girls!
     "Which poem do you have in mind, O Commander of the Faithful?" asked Abu Dulaf.
     "This one," said the caliph, reciting (meter: mutaqārib):

      Here's to drawing swords and crashing through ranks,
         and raising dust and smiting head-crowns...

"How does the rest go, Qasim?" asked the caliph. Abu Dulaf said:

   ...and going dressed in soot and waving banners!
         Fatalities you'll see on spearheads
      when through raised torches comes Fatality's Bride,
         baring the sharp extremity of her fang.
      On she comes on with a seductive gait,
         flanked by the bright vigor of her offspring.
      Ignorant she, who gives the ignorant away!
         When made to speak, her answer is nonverbal.
      When her hand is sought, she claims a dowry
         of heads that plop to earth amid mixed fighters.
      Her company brings more joys than singing-girls
         and a drink of fine old wine on a rainy day.
      The sword's edge is my father, and the flat side my best friend,
         I who am death's nearness and fortune's downturn.*

He then said, "This is the pleasure I take in the thick of your enemies, O Commander of the Faithful, and the power I exert amid your supporters, and the might I wield on your behalf. While other men delight in bouts of wine-drinking, bouts of war and conflict are what I choose."
    The caliph said: "If these verses describe your true nature, and the delight they describe is your true delight, then tell me, Qasim: What's left over for the sleeping beauty on whom you parted the curtain and swore by God?"
    "In which of my poems was that, O Commander of the Faithful?" asked Abu Dulaf.
    "This one," the caliph said (meter: khafīf):

      To the sleeper who makes my eye wakeful, I say: Sleep on,
         and be untroubled. In sleep be your delight.
      God knows my heart is ailing, because He knows
         the torment that I suffer at a look in your eyes.

    "An old conjurement of mine," said Abu Dulaf, "A mere trifle at the end of a sleepless night. The other verses express my mature opinion."
    "Qasim!" said the caliph. "This couplet was well authored, I must say" (meter: ṭawīl):

      It's your fault I cast aspersion on the days we were together.
         For the nights of our togetherness, there is none to accuse.
      If lovers encounter each other only in memory
         of a thing that has passed,  away that thought will fade.

     "Bravo, Commander of the Faithful!" said Abu Dulaf. "How excellent is this couplet by [you who are] the master of the house of Hashim and the Abbasid sovereign!"
     The caliph said: "How does your acumen guide you to my authorship, to the exclusion of delusion and all doubt?"
    "Poetry, O Commander of the Faithful, is a carpet of wool," said Abu Dulaf. "And when pure wool has hair mixed in, and a weaving is made from it, the hair shines through and gleams like fire."

From the Meadows of Gold of al-Mas‘udi

*In al-Mubarrad's Kāmil a version of this poem is attributed to
  Ishaq ibn Khalaf al-Bahrani.

Names of the Undershirt

Ibn Khālawayh said: There are no names for the undershirt besides al-ṣudra, al-mijwal, al-baqīr, al-‘ilqa, al-shawdhar, al-ṣidār, al-qid‘a, al-itb, al-khay‘al and al-uṣda. All mean the same thing, which is "undershirt." And al-maḥjana (?) in Hebrew scripture is an undershirt which Moses wore, God’s blessings and peace be upon him and our Prophet.

[Qid‘a is related to the verbs qada‘a "to restrain a horse" and qadi‘a "to assume a fixed position." The latter is heard in the expression] Qadi‘at nafsī minka mudh zamān ("My soul has long been haltered, concerning you"). This means "My soul was deceived about you" and "My opinion of you was invalid," and "I did not form a judgment of your intelligence or stupidity, nor of your good and harmful qualities."

Al-mimashsh is a towelette, and so is al-mashūsh. [These words derive from the verb mashsha, meaning "to wipe the hands," as in the verse by Imru’ al-Qays, meter: ṭawīl]:

   Namushshu bi-a‘rāfi 'l-jiyādi akuffanā
       idhā naḥnu qumnā ‘an shiwā’in muḍahhabi

   Arising from a meal of roasted kid,
       we wipe our hands on the manes of fast horses.

From volume 5 of
The Book of "Not in the Speech of the Arabs"
by Ibn Khalawayh (Süleymaniye MS Shahid ‘Ali Pasha 2143, fol. 95r)

The dawn of fabric

Whatever myth of origins you believe, the world's first man was surely naked and unclothed when his Potter threw him, before his untimely and unlicensed grab at [the fruit of the Tree of] Knowledge. But enough of esoteric lore. Let's have one of yours instead - the Egyptian tale set down by Alexander for his mother to read about the age of Osiris, back when Ammon, rich in sheep, came out of Libya. It was in their company, the Egyptians declare, that Mercury chanced to brush his hand over a ram, and was so pleased by its softness that he separated a sheep from its fleece. The material's pliancy moved him to keep working it, and at his continued pinching a thread streamed forth. This he wove using a technique he had practiced on strips of linden-bark. Meanwhile, you give credit to Minerva for all wool-craft and construction of looms, even though the work at Arachne's shop was better done.

Tertullian, On the philosopher's cloak III.4-5