The origins of the Moroccan kaftan are at best ignored but at worst (and often) surrounded by confusion and misconceptions. From supposed Persian, Ottoman or even Umayyad origins, the origins of the Moroccan kaftan have in reality no link with the East.
What is the Persian kaftan?
Numerous studies conducted on the outfits of the ancient peoples of ancient Persia mention the existence of a kaftan and more specifically of an outfit called candys/kandys [1].
Ancient Greek literature from the 2nd century tells us that the candys was a tunic fitted with sleeves and fastened at the shoulders. The king's was made of fine purple, while that of the other Persians was made of vegetable purple and sometimes made of skin. [2]
Nowadays, it is rare to find sources that allow this garment to be modelled.
However, one of the oldest kaftans on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York [3] can help us better imagine and visualize it.
It is, in fact, a linen coat with silk borders that represents the typical clothing worn by riders along the Silk Road in the North Caucasus during the 8th and 10th centuries. The kaftan was reconstructed from fragments of clothing excavated from a cemetery near Moshchevaja Balka [4]. This Persian kaftan would have travelled thanks to the expansion of Islam to enter Morocco, this idea being obviously false.[5]
You should know that not all peoples automatically adopted the Persian kaftan with Islamization. Moreover, the kaftan entered Morocco much later than the advent of Islam and well before the arrival of the Ottomans in North Africa [6]. It was indeed in the 12th century under the Almohad dynasty that the kaftan appeared in Morocco [7], but this kaftan was very different from the clothes worn in the East.
Ibn Tumart, founder of the Almohad movement, went to Baghdad, then under Abbasid rule, to study under the Persian philosopher Abu Hamid Al-Ghazâlî. From the sight of his costume, the philosopher knew that Ibn Tumart was a foreigner [8].
This is a confirmation that there is no link connecting the Moroccan kaftan to that of ancient Persia.
1. ERNEST PARISET | HISTORY OF SILK | 1862. THE BOOK TELLS US THAT “MEDIC CLOTHING CONSISTED [...] OF A MANTLE WITH SLEEVES, CALLED CANDYS, AND A DOUBLE TUNIC WITH SLEEVES THAT WERE NARROWER THAN THOSE OF THE CANDYS.”
2. METHODICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA KNOWN AS THE “PANCKOUCKE ENCYCLOPEDIA”
ANTIQUITIES, DIPLOMATIC MYTHOLOGY OF CHARTRES AND CHRONOLOGY. VOLUME 2
ANTOINE MONGEZ | 1786
3. HTTPS://WWW.METMUSEUM.ORG/ART/COLLECTION/SEARCH/327518
4. KNAUER, ELFRIEDE R. 2001. “A MAN'S CAFTAN AND LEGGINGS FROM THE NORTH CAUCASUS OF THE EIGHT TO TENTH CENTURY: A GENEALOGICAL STUDY.” METROPOLITAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 36
5. MOROCCAN ETHNOGRAPHY IN THE MEDIEVAL WORLD IS IMMENSELY UNDER-STUDIED. IN THE ABSENCE OF RESEARCH, THE HISTORY OF MOROCCO DEPENDS LARGELY ON SPECULATIVE THEORIES AND THEREFORE SUFFERS MAINLY FROM AN EASTERWARD BIAS.
6. ALMOST ALL ARAB COUNTRIES, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF MOROCCO AND PART OF THE ARABIAN PENINSULA, WERE TERRITORIES UNDER THE RULE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
7. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE CAFTAN COSTUME | MUFIDA ABDLNOR KASSIR | 1978
8. HISTORY OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL, UP TO THE PRESENT DAY | AMEDEE PAQUIS |1836