The Sharbush or Harbush, Sarposh, Serpush (Arabic: شَربوش, romanized: sharbūsh, Greek: σαρπούζιν, Turkish: Serpuş) probably derived from Persian word Serpush,[1]which means "headdress".[2] was a special Turkic military furred hat, worn in Central Asia and the Middle East in the Middle Ages. It appears prominently in the miniatures depicting Badr al-Din Lu'lu' (ruled 1234–1259).[3] It was a stiff cap of the military class, with a triangular front which was sometimes addorned with a metal plaque. It was sometimes supplemented with a small kerchief which formed a small turban, named takhfifa.[4] The wearing of the Sharbūsh was one of the key graphical and sartorial elements to differentiate Turkic figures from Arab ones in medieval Middle-Eastern miniatures.[5]
The Sharbush could vary in size and shape, sometimes taking huge proportions, as in the depiction of the emir in the frontispiece of the 1237 Maqamat of al-Hariri.[5] The shape of the sharbush seems to have varied depending on geographical regions:
The sharbush headgear was a rallying sign for Saladin, and he wore it on his Mayyafariqin coinage.[7][8] When Henry II, Count of Champagne, king of Jerusalem, tried to build a friendly relationship with Saladin, he requested the gift of a qabā robe and a sharbūsh hat, which he wore in Acre.[9][10][11]
The Sharbush was also a symbol of investitute under the Egyptian Mamluks, as it was part of the khil'a given to an amir on the occasion of his accession.[8] The sharbush was worn by high-ranking officers of the Ayyubid and Bahri Mamluk period.[12][13]
In Mamluk Egypt, the wearing of the Sharbush was banned in 1382.[14][15]
The normal headgear of the military class was a stiff cap with a triangular front which in some instances appears to have been a metallic plaque. It was sometimes trimmed with fur and was called a sharbUsh (see PI. 23 which depicts a Saljuq atabeg wearing a sharbUsh and tiriiz qabii' and also PI. 19), and sometimes it had a small kerchief bound around it to form a sort of turban which was designated a takhfifa. The sharbush was absolutely de rigueur for an amir.
Reference has already been made to the combination of boots and sharbūsh as markers of official status (...) the combination is standard, even being reflected in thirteenth-century Coptic paintings, and serves to distinguish, in Grabar's formulation, the world of the Turkish ruler and that of the Arab. (...) The type worn by the official figures in the 1237 Maqāmāt, depicted, for example, on fol. 59r,67 consists of a gold cap surmounted by a little round top and with fur trimming creating a triangular area at the front which either shows the gold cap or is a separate plaque. A particular imposing example in this manuscript is the massive sharbūsh with much more fur than usual that is worn by the princely official on the right frontispiece on fol. 1v.
This copper dirham, minted at Mayyafariqin in 587 AH (1190/01 AD) shows Saladin wearing the sharbush hat of a Saljuq-style Turkish ruler.
By the end of the 12th century, the wearing of the sharbush demonstrated support for Salah al-Din. Under the later Bahri Mamluks of Egypt and Syria it formed part of the khil'a given to an amir on his investiture.
When the King of England left for home, Henry sent a messenger to Saladin to conciliate him and win his goodwill. He asked him for the gift of a robe of honor, and said: "You know that to put on the qabā and the sharbūsh is not approved among us, but I would put them on if they came from you, because of the regard I have for you." Saladin sent him sumtuous robes of honour, among them a qaba and a sharbush, and he wore them in Acre.
Moreover, the wearing of the sharbish and qaba was considered so characeristic for a Saracenic amire that even a Crusader was prepared to don it in order to show some sort of friendship (if not allegiance) to Saladin.
The texts mention that high-ranking military officers in the early Bahri period wore the sharbush, as in the Seljuk and Ayyubid periods.
Reference has already been made to the combination of boots and sharbūsh as markers of official status (...) the combination is standard, even being reflected in thirteenth-century Coptic paintings, and serves to distinguish, in Grabar's formulation, the world of the Turkish ruler and that of the Arab. (...) The type worn by the official figures in the 1237 Maqāmāt, depicted, for example, on fol. 59r,67 consists of a gold cap surmounted by a little round top and with fur trimming creating a triangular area at the front which either shows the gold cap or is a separate plaque. A particular imposing example in this manuscript is the massive sharbūsh with much more fur than usual that is worn by the princely official on the right frontispiece on fol. 1v. (...) These are of yet another type and are identical to those on the official on the left holding a spear in the painting of the "Purple Betony" in the 1224 Dioscorides (Fig. 65b)
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