Collections: Arts of the Islamic World

Silk Textile Fragment of Caliph Marwan II. Tunisia, Umayyad period, mid-8th century. Silk, compound twill weave, 3 1/8 x 20 in. (8 x 53 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Pratt Institute, 41.1265

From the earliest period after the emergence of Islam, textiles were among the most economically and artistically significant material objects. One important type of textile is known as tiraz, a word of Persian origin that means "embroidery" and which later referred to the workshops in which these cloths were made. Tiraz textiles were produced for the ruler to offer to favored individuals as honorary gifts, and often contain inscriptions that include the ruler's name and the date of manufacture.

This extraordinary silk tiraz fragment belongs to a group of fragments that together make up the earliest dateable Islamic textile. When placed together, the fragments' inscription, seen along the upper register of the Brooklyn fragment in yellow silk, reads: "The servant of God, Marwan, Commander of the Faithful. Of what was ordered [to be made by] al-R. [or al-Z.] in the tiraz of Ifriqiya [Tunisia]." Although there were two rulers named Marwan during the reign of the Umayyads (661–750), the earliest Islamic dynasty, the textile is ascribed to Marwan II (reigned 744–750), since Marwan I ruled for only about a year and had no known associations with tiraz textiles.

A collaborative study of this group of textile fragments, now dispersed in various collections across the world, was supported by the government of Tunisia and the Brooklyn Museum in 1997.