Veiled Men of the Desert. Perceptions of the Ṣanhāğa Face-Muffler in the Medieval Islamic West

Abstract

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.