When Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi (d. 1023), the great Arab philosopher and belle-lettrist, discussed the relative merits of Baghdad and Isfahan in his al-Risala al-Baghdadiyya (The Epistle from Baghdad) he claimed that in the latter city one could not see, as in the former, the best textiles then produced in Islamic countries, for example, the small rugs manufactured in al-Andalus and more specifically, in Cordoba. In his own way, al-Tawhidi, who was writing a piece of ironic and sophisticated prose, acknowledged the high prestige achieved by Andalusi textile productions, sold in places as distant from their origins as was Baghdad, the capital city of the Abbasid Caliphate.

Material remains of these textiles are preserved in considerable number; recent research estimates that there are about 700 pieces extant in Spain, mainly because they were used as shrouds for the medieval Christian kings and their families, and for other religious purposes (as in ecclesiastical vestments, or linings for relic boxes and coffins). Such a treasure trove has naturally attracted the interest of antique dealers and collectors, but also of historians and more specifically art historians. Andalusi textiles have been the object of numerous studies, for the most part focused on their artistic and technical features, and their places of production and role in international trade. More recently, another trend in the study of historical textiles stresses their social and cultural meaning. In Andalusi studies, this approach has explored the fruitful field of shared cultural patterns between the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula and al-Andalus.

These common cultural developments provide significant insights into the role of Andalusi textiles in the ‘formative process of the medieval Iberian aesthetic vocabulary’, and the formation of Castilian cultural identities. Although authors interested in this subject usually claim that their vision is one of shared cultural areas between Islamic and Christian medieval Iberian entities, their main aim is the analysis of how the latter incorporated the former’s cultural signs into the mainstream of their own society. The same trend can be identified in studies of a later period, when al-Andalus as a political independent body had disappeared yet the Andalusi legacy was preserved, to some extent, first by the Mudejars and afterwards by the Moriscos.