Graven Images, Astromagical Cherubs, and Mosaic Miracles: A Fifteenth-Century Curial-Rabbinic Exchange

Clothing Sacred Scriptures

“…This distinction is rooted in proscriptions of the Kitāb al-libās (Book of Dress) or Kitāb al-libās wa'l-zīna (Book of Dress and Ornaments) in the canonical hadith collections, which prohibit the use of gold jewelry and silk by men, while mentioning the Prophet's use of a silver signet ring as a positive precedent. According to the Maliki jurist Ibn Abi Zayd (d. 996), for example, "It is not wrong to use silver to decorate a ring (of leather, for example) or 20 Al- Samarqandi 1982, 413-414. 21 For a useful survey see Lawee 2006, 760-768. 22 Ibn Abi Dawud, Kitāb al-maṣāḥif, in Jeffery (ed.)…”