RT Article
T1 Veiled Men of the Desert. Perceptions of the Ṣanhāğa Face-Muffler in the Medieval Islamic West
JF Occhialì
VO 7
SP 33
OP 47
A1 Diéguez, Guadalupe González
LA Italian
PB Università della Calabria, Dipartimento di Lingue e Scienze dell’Educazione
YR 2020
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1841835161
AB In this paper, I trace shifts in the perception of the face-muffler employed by the men of the North African tribal group of the Ṣanhāğa in medieval sources from al-Andalus and the Maghreb. The men of the Ṣanhāğa traditionally wear a face-muffler or "veil" that covers the lower half of their face, as it continues to be the custom among the Tuareg community, for instance (Keenan, 1977; Rassmussen, 2010), whereas the women go about unveiled. In an Islamicate context, such as the medieval Maghreb, the "masculine veil" of the Ṣanhāğa stands in a particular position. First noted by Arab geographers as some sort of anthropological curiosity, it was later employed by a rival tribal group, the Maṣmūda, in order to delegitimize the political rule of the Ṣanhāğa during the Almoravid period, accusing them of effeminacy.
K1 Almohads
K1 Almoravids
K1 Face-muffler
K1 Veil
K1 Ṣanhāğa