«Тахиййат»: Сборник статей в честь Н. Н. Дьякова

m 96 n David Nicolle apparently to create a sort of reconstituted material consisting of leather and other ingredients. The location of the main leather-working industries of the medieval Is- lamic world, and more particularly those which produced leather armour, is another interesting field of study. Naturally they depended on the availability of abundant and suitable animal hides, but there also seem to have been other considerations. The leather working industry of Egypt, for example, was prob- ably influenced by the availability of alum for tawing or “mineral tanning”. One thousand quintals of alum came from an ‘iqā c of al-Wā ḥ ; in other words the province which consisted of the oases of the Western Desert (what is today sometimes called “The New Valley”), during the Ayyūbid period 1 . Might this have had any connection with the Ayyūbid demand for leather armour during a wartorn period? Another great city and major military centre of this and the Mamlūk period was Aleppo, which was again a major centre of leatherwork- ing. So much so that in the 13 th century the taxes levied from its tanneries reportedly exceeded the total of taxes from all other industries. Information about Islamic armour during the medieval period make it quite clear that the lamellar jawshan cuirass could be of hardened leather or rawhide, as well as other materials. Meanwhile the specialized protection worn by some fire-troops was sometimes known as a mujallidah ; almost certainly indicating a leather construction or at least a significant leather component. Similarly the style of helmet called a khūd, khūdah or other variation on this term, could be partly or perhaps even wholely of hardened leather. The khūd is generally thought to have been of segmented construction and this term was most commonly used when a leather construction was specified in Arabic and, to some extent, also in Persian. However, the discovery of so many helmets made of several layers of treated leather in Tower 4 of the Citadel of Damascus might indicate that the khūd may not necessarily had been segmented, but may rather have been layered. Written evidence Documentary sources from the neighbours and rivals of the Islamic world commonly referred to the use of leather armour and helmets by Islamic troops, whether such sources are poetic or factual. For example 11 th –12 th century French chansons de geste frequently attribute leather protections to the Muslim Anda- lusians, as did Spanish sources. There was, in fact, a thriving leather industry in Cordoba and, perhaps as a result, leather armour became associated with the “Moors”. Yet Ibn Hudhayl, writing for a ruler of Granada in the latter part of the 14 th century, makes no reference to leather armour in his otherwise detailed 1 Huart Cl. Al-Wā ḥ , in Encyclopedia of Islam , [1st edition], vol. 11. Leiden, 2002. P. 1083–1084.