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joeyblake joeyblake
 

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M$1.00  Funded By Mahalo ? |  March 06, 2009 04:46 PM

What do the different Arab headdresses mean? I have seen white and red and white ones. Are they country specific?

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albanian albanian
 
 March 06, 2009 06:18 PM
Some of them are. Others have religious meaning, and yet others are just personal choice.

Here is one note I found:
The kaffiyeh is not technically a turban. It is really a rectangular piece of cloth, folded diagonally and then draped over the head ‹ not wound like a turban. Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, has made the kaffiyeh famous in recent times. However, the kaffiyeh is not solely Palestinian. Men in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Arab Persian Gulf states wear kaffiyehs in colors and styles that are particular to their region. Jordanians, for example, wear a red and white kaffiyeh, while Palestinians wear a black and white one. And a man from Saudi Arabia would likely drape his kaffiyeh differently than a man from Jordan. The black cord that holds the kaffiyeh on one's head is called an ekal."
Source(s):
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/nation-world/infocus/mideast/islam/tu...



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elbaso elbaso
 
March 06, 2009 07:13 PM
This is accurate. I lived in Saudi Arabia for about 10 years. The names are accurate, and the way different regions wear the ghuttrah (what the kaffiyeh is called there) in different ways is accurate.
Religious people tend to wear the plain white ghuttras with no eka, just draped down their shoulders.
Businessmen wear either white or white and red checkered ghuttrah folded up over the ekal, in a style based on where they come from.

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nushka nushka
 
March 06, 2009 05:17 PM
It is called
keffiyeh (Arabic)
shmagh (Turkish)
ghutrah
ḥaṭṭah
or mashadah

I found it first here (online store)
http://www.desertstore.com/arabic-clothes-men-clothing/palestinian-style-kuffiyah-480.html

Once I've got the right name I googled it... and wikipedia says:

* (Ya)sh(e)magh: a piece of cloth, usually made of cotton or flax and decorated with many colors but usually by red and white.
* Ghutrah: a piece of white cloth made of cotton mild, wearing in western Iraq and the gulf states.
* Keffiyeh: a piece of white/black cloth made from wool and cotton worn primarily by the Iraqis in southern Iraq

Its distinctive woven check pattern originated in an ancient Mesopotamian representation of either fishing nets or ears of grain.
Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keffiyeh


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farhada farhada
 
March 09, 2009 05:45 AM
The black-and-white keffiyeh is a symbol of Palestinian heritage. The red-and-white keffiyeh is worn throughout these regions as well as in Somalia, but is most strongly associated with Jordan, where it is known as shmagh mhadab. The Jordanian keffiyeh has cotton decorative strings on the sides. It is believed that the bigger these strings, the more value it has and the higher a person’s status. It has been used by Bedouins throughout the centuries and was used as a symbol of honour and tribal identification. The keffiyeh, especially the all-white version, can also be called a ġutrah, particularly in Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Bahrain (where the skullcap is confusingly called keffiyeh), but is also known in some areas as shmagh or ḥaṭṭah.
Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keffiyeh


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