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Shaving Hair and Beards in Early Islamic Egypt: An Arab Innovation?

Shaving Hair and Beards in Early Islamic Egypt: An Arab Innovation? Three papyri dating from the first 80 years after the Arab conquest record the Arab authorities in Egypt punishing some Egyptian officials by shaving off their hair and beards. Literary sources confirm that in this period the Arab authorities ordered the shaving off of the beards of the native Egyptian population. Later Arabic narrative sources abound in references to this punishment, both official juridical texts and popular descriptions of public punishments and shaming ceremonies in mediaeval Egypt and elsewhere in the Islamic territories. There are, however, no attestations of the systematic use of this punishment from pre-Islamic Egypt, nor does the context fit the later narrative accounts of the shaving off of beards and hair. This article examines where the practice of shaving off of beards and hair as an officially prescribed punishment in early Islamic Egypt came from and why it was – or was deemed to be – effective as a punishment. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Al-Masaq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean Taylor & Francis

Shaving Hair and Beards in Early Islamic Egypt: An Arab Innovation?

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Shaving Hair and Beards in Early Islamic Egypt: An Arab Innovation?

Abstract

Three papyri dating from the first 80 years after the Arab conquest record the Arab authorities in Egypt punishing some Egyptian officials by shaving off their hair and beards. Literary sources confirm that in this period the Arab authorities ordered the shaving off of the beards of the native Egyptian population. Later Arabic narrative sources abound in references to this punishment, both official juridical texts and popular descriptions of public punishments and shaming ceremonies in...
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
ISSN
1473-348X
eISSN
0950-3110
DOI
10.1080/09503110.2018.1425809
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Three papyri dating from the first 80 years after the Arab conquest record the Arab authorities in Egypt punishing some Egyptian officials by shaving off their hair and beards. Literary sources confirm that in this period the Arab authorities ordered the shaving off of the beards of the native Egyptian population. Later Arabic narrative sources abound in references to this punishment, both official juridical texts and popular descriptions of public punishments and shaming ceremonies in mediaeval Egypt and elsewhere in the Islamic territories. There are, however, no attestations of the systematic use of this punishment from pre-Islamic Egypt, nor does the context fit the later narrative accounts of the shaving off of beards and hair. This article examines where the practice of shaving off of beards and hair as an officially prescribed punishment in early Islamic Egypt came from and why it was – or was deemed to be – effective as a punishment.

Journal

Al-Masaq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean – Taylor & Francis

Published: Jan 2, 2018

Keywords: Egypt; Penal law; Administration; Beards; Hair

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