Muslin () is a cotton fabric of plain weave.
Muslin was produced in different regions of the Indian subcontinent; the Bengal region was the main manufacturing area and the main centers were Sonargaon (near Dhaka), Shantipur and Murshidabad. Muslin was also produced in Malda and Hugli-Chuchura. The muslin produced at Sonargaon and its surrounding areas was of excellent quality, which is popularly known as Dhaka Muslin. The muslin produced in Shantipur came to be known as Shantipuri Muslin, which was recognized by the East India Company. Muslin was made in Dhaka (Sonargaon) from very fine yarn, which is made from cotton called Phuti karpas; while in Malda, Radhanagar and Burdwan, muslin was made from fine yarn made from nurma or kaur cotton. A minimum of 300-count yarn was used for the muslin, making the muslin as transparent as glass. There were about 28 varieties of muslin, of which jamdani is still widely used. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Mughal Empire Bengal Subah emerged as the foremost muslin exporter in the world, with Dhaka as capital of the worldwide muslin trade.
Etymology
The dictionary
Hobson-Jobson published by two Englishmen named S.C. Burnell and Henry Yule mentions that the word muslin comes from '
Mosul'—a famous trading center and city in
Iraq. Mosul produced a very fine cloth, which became known as muslin in Europe.
History
Early period
A kingdom called 'Ruhma' is found in the
Sulaiman al-Tajir written by the 9th century Arab merchant Sulaiman, where fine cotton fabrics was produced. There were cotton fabrics so fine and delicate that a single piece of cloth could be easily moved through the ring. Very fine cotton cloth was made in
Mosul in the 12th century and later. Arab traders carried it to Europe as a commodity, and enchanted Europeans called it muslin; since then the very fine and beautiful cotton cloth came to be known as muslin. In 1298 AD,
Marco Polo described in his book
The Travels that muslin is made in Mosul, Iraq.
[Marco Polo. "The most noble and famous travels of Marco Polo, together with the travels of Nicoláo de' Conti". Translated by John Frampton, London, A. and C. Black, 1937, p.28.] Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan traveler who came to Bengal in the middle of the 14th century, praised the cotton cloth made in
Sonargaon in his book
The Rihla. Chinese writers who came to Bengal in the fifteenth century praised cotton cloth.
Mughal period
The muslin industry flourished in Bengal between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The main muslin production centers in Bengal during this period were Dhaka and its surrounding areas,
Shantipur,
Malda district and
Hooghly district. The 16th-century English traveller
Ralph Fitch lauded the muslin he saw in
Sonargaon.
He visited India in 1583, described
Sonargaon, "as a town ... where there is the best and finest cloth made in all India". During the reign of Emperor
Jahangir, Islam Khan Chishti shifted the capital from
Rajmahal to Dhaka in 1610 AD, Dhaka gained prominence as the center of trade and commerce of Bengal. During this period the muslin produced in Dhaka achieved excellence, and the muslin produced here became world famous as
Dhakai muslin. Mughal Emperor Akbar's courtier,
Abul Fazal, praised the fine cotton fabric produced in Sonargaon (near Dhaka). Abul Fazl wrote "the Sarkar of Sonargaon produces a species of muslin very fine and in great quantity". European traders began arriving in the Bengali capital of Dhaka in the early seventeenth century, and these traders procured cotton cloth and muslin from Bengal for export to Europe.
After the establishment of Murshidabad as the capital of Bengal, Cossimbazar—a small town on the banks of the Bhagirathi south of Murshidabad city, now included in the Baharampur municipality—became the center of a silk and cotton textile trade. The branch of the Bhagirathi that joined the Jalangi was called Cossimbazar river, and the triangular land surrounded by the Padma, Bhagirathi and Jalangi was called Cossimbazar Island. It was a major trading center for muslin and silk and a trading post ( kuthi) of various European merchants. In 1670 AD, Streynsham Master mention that muslin was produced at Malda, Shantipur, Hooghly etc. Advaitacharya Goswami's Shantipur Parichaẏa, Volume II mentions that the East India Company purchased £150,000 worth of muslin annually in the early 19th century.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, Mughal Empire Bengal Subah emerged as the foremost muslin exporter in the world, with Mughal Dhaka as capital of the worldwide muslin trade.
Decline under Company rule
During the period of Company rule, the East India Company imported British-produced cloth into the Indian subcontinent, but became unable to compete with the local muslin industry. The Company administration initiated several policies in an attempt to suppress the muslin industry, and muslin production subsequently experienced a period of decline. It has been alleged that in some instances Indian weavers were rounded up and their thumbs chopped off, although this has been refuted by historians as a misreading of a report by
William Bolts from 1772.
Many of the threatened weavers fled East Bengal (present-day Bangladesh) and settled in the eastern districts of West Bengal, these districts were famous for the cotton products of Bengal. The quality, fineness and production volume of Bengali muslin declined as a result of these policies, continuing when India transitioned from Company rule to
British Raj.
Revive: 1950s–present
Bangladesh
In the second decade of the 21st century, a scheme called
Bangladesh Golden Heritage Muslin Yarn Manufacturing Technology and Muslin Cloth Restoration was undertaken to restore and develop the muslin production system in Bangladesh. Under this project, samples of muslin from different countries including India, Britain were inspected and data collected. Old maps of the
Meghna River were examined and combined with modern satellite imagery to identify possible locations – where phuti carpus plants could still be found. From there, the genetic sequences of the recovered cotton plants were made and compared with the original ones. After testing, a carpus plant was identified, which was 70 percent identical to the Futi carpus. An island in the Meghna, 30 km north of
Dhaka, was selected for the production of this corpus, where some seeds were sown experimentally in 2015, and the first cotton was harvested that year. But at that time there were no skilled spinners in Bangladesh to produce fine yarn. On the other hand, Indian spinners were able to produce 200-300-400-500 count fine yarn from cotton. As a result, in joint venture with Indian spinners, a hybrid yarn of 200 and 300 count was produced by combining common and futi corpus cotton. At least 50 tools were needed to make cloth from yarn, which had to be reinvented, as they disappeared with muslin. Ultimately, a weaver is able to weave a saree with a thread count of 300, which is nowhere near the quality of real
Dhaka muslin; But much better quality than what the weavers of many generations past have woven.
The (BHB) is implementing the first phase of the project titled Bangladesh's Golden Heritage Muslin Yarn Manufacturing Technology and Muslin Cloth Reviving, and the Revival work was completed in 2020.
In 2022, the Dhakai Muslin House was built on the banks of Shitalakshya river at Rupganj under Tarab municipality of Narayanganj district. The second phase of the project named ‘Dhaka Muslin Commercialization’ begins in 2023.
File:Art Market by Shilpakala Academy 2024 183.jpg|A Dhakai muslin saree, produced by Bangladesh Handloom Board under the project "Bangladesh Muslin Golden Heritage of Technology Reviving the Technology of Muslin Golden Heritage"
File:Art Market by Shilpakala Academy 2024 188.jpg|Dhaka muslin fabric
File:Art Market by Shilpakala Academy 2024 192.jpg|A scarf of Dhakai muslin, woven with 300 count yarn
India
To revive Bengal muslin, two muslin production centers were set up by the Khadi and Rural Industries Commission, one at
Basoa in
Birbhum district district of
West Bengal, and the other at Panduru in Srikakulam district of
Andhra Pradesh. Under the patronage of former Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru, Kalicharan Sharma took the lead in reviving the lost fame of muslin in Basowa, Birbhum district of West Bengal, with the help of some spinners. He soon found the dry climate of Birbhum quite unsuitable for spinning muslin yarn. Later he shifted his work center to the neighboring district of Murshidabad, and chose Chowk Islampur as the site of this weaving industry. Chowk Islampur, situated on the banks of the Bairab River, a tributary of the
Padma River, is an ancient village famous for spinning and weaving since the days of the East India Company. After India's independence, the village had already gained a reputation for high-quality silk weaving. A muslin training center was started at Chowk Islampur in 1955 under the supervision of Kalicharan Sharma.
At first experiments were started on spinning yarn with traditional Kishan Charkha, but it was not possible to make more than 250 counts on this traditional Charkha. Kalicharan Sharma did further experiments and research and developed a highly sensitive six spindle Ambar Charkha (spinning wheel) capable of spinning 500 count yarn. This new Charkha was able to reduce the cost of production and increase the wages of spinners. The use of this ambar Charkha proved to be effective and promising for the regeneration of muslin. To concentrate on muslin spinning, the Khadi Society constructed a separate spacious two-storied building at Berhampore in 1966.
The Government of West Bengal launched "Project Muslin" in 2013 with Khadi. The aim in this initiative was to revive the muslin fabric and support the weavers. Through this project, weavers from Murshidabad, Nadia, Maldah, Burdwan, Birbhum, Hooghly and Jhargram districts who are capable of weaving muslin cloth were identified.
File:Bengal or Banglar muslin with various counts - 100 count, 200 count, 300 count, 400 count and 500 count.png|Display of Bengal muslin fabrics, which are woven from 100 count to 500 count yarns
File:Moslin 1.jpg|Muslin saree passing through a finger ring
File:Moslin 4.jpg|Two muslin sarees packaged in two small cardboard boxes of size approx 8 inches X 6 inches X 2 inches
File:Moslin 8.jpg|Muslin saree weaving in Kalna, West Bengal
Manufacturing process
Since all the processes were manual, manufacturing involved many
for yarn spinning and weaving activities, but the leading role lay with the material and
weaving.
-
Ginning: For removing trash and Combing the fibers and making them parallel ready for spinning a boalee (upper jaw of a catfish) was used.
-
Spinning and weaving: For extra humidity they used to weave during the rainy season for elasticity in the yarns and to avoid breakages. The process was so sluggish that it could take over five months to weave one piece of muslin.
Characteristics
Thin
Muslins were originally made of cotton only. These were very thin, transparent, delicate and feather light breathable
Textile. There could be 1000–1800 yarns in warp and weigh for . Some varieties of muslin were so thin that they could even pass through the aperture of a lady's finger-ring.
Transparency
Petronius (1st century AD Roman courtier and author of the
Satyricon) described the transparent nature of the muslin cloth as below:
Poetic names
Certain delicate muslins were given poetic names such as
Baft Hawa ("woven air"),
Shabnam ("evening dew"), and
Abrawan ("flowing water"). The latter name refers to a fine and transparent variety of fine muslin from Dacca.
The fabric's characteristics are summed up in its name.
Types
Muslin has several kinds of variations. Many of the below are mentioned in
Ain-i-Akbari (16th-century detailed document)
-
Khasa
-
Tansukh cloth
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Nainsook
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Chautar
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Alliballi
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Adatais, a fine and clear fabric.
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Seerhand muslin muslin was a variety in between nainsook and mull (another muslin type, a very thin and soft). The fabric was resistant to washing, retaining its clearness.
-
and varieties of mulmul (Mulboos khas, Jhuna, Sarkar ali, Sarbati, Tarindam)
More variations
Mull is another kind of muslin. It is a soft, thin, and semitransparent material. The name is derived from Hindi "mal" which means "soft". Swiss mull is a type of which is finished with stiffening agents.
Uses
Dressmaking and sewing
Because muslin is an inexpensive, unbleached cotton fabric available in different weights, it is often used as a backing or lining for quilts, and therefore can often be found in wide widths in the quilting sections of fabric stores.
When
sewing clothing, a
dressmaker may test the fit of a garment by using muslin fabric to make a test-model before cutting pieces from more expensive fabric to make the final product, thereby avoiding potential costly mistakes. In the United States, these test-models are themselves sometimes referred to as "muslins", the process is called "making a muslin", and "muslin" has become the generic term for any test- or fitting garment, regardless of the fabric it is made from.
In Britain and Australia, the term for a test- or fitting garment used to be[ Oxford English Dictionary: "toile"; its earliest known use in this sense was recorded in 1561.] Toile.[ Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English ISBN 019 431 5339, 2000, page 1367] The word "toile", from an Old French word for "cloth", entered the English language around the 12th century. (Today, toile simply refers to any sheer fabric, which may be made, for example, from linen or cotton.)
The modern German term for a test- or fitting garment is Nesselmodell.[Guido Hofenbitzer: Maßschnitte und Passform – Schnittkonstruktion für Damenmode: Band 2 Europa-Lehrmittel; 2. Edition (5. Oktober 2016) ISBN 978-3808562444, Page 26]
Use in food production
Muslin can be used as a filter:
-
In a funnel when fine wine or port to prevent sediment from entering the decanter
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To separate liquid from mush (for example, to make apple juice: wash, chop, boil, mash, then filter by pouring the mush into a muslin bag suspended over a jug)
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To retain a liquidy solid (for example, in home cheese-making, when the milk has curdled to a gel, pour into a muslin bag and squash between two saucers (upside down under a brick) to squeeze out the liquid whey from the cheese curd)
-
Muslin is a filter in traditional Fijian kava production.
Muslin is the material for the traditional pudding cloth wrapped around a Christmas pudding. It is the fabric wrapped around the items in barmbrack, a fruitcake traditionally eaten at Halloween in Ireland. beekeeping use muslin to filter melted beeswax to clean it of particles and debris.
Set design and photography
Muslin is often the cloth of choice for theatre sets. It is used to mask the background of
set construction and to establish the mood or feel of different scenes. It receives paint well and, if treated properly, can be made translucent.
It also holds dyes well. It is often used to create nighttime scenes because when dyed, it often gets a wavy look with the color varying slightly, such that it resembles a night sky. Muslin shrinks after it is painted or sprayed with water, which is desirable in some common techniques such as soft-covered flats.
In video production, muslin is used as a cheap Chroma key, either pre-colored or painted with latex paint (diluted with water).
Muslin is the most common backdrop material used by photographers for formal portrait backgrounds. These backdrops are usually painted, most often with an abstract mottled pattern.
In the early days of silent film-making, and until the late 1910s, movie studios did not have the elaborate lights needed to illuminate indoor sets, so most interior scenes were sets built outdoors with large pieces of muslin hanging overhead to diffuse sunlight.
The Wizard of Oz features a sequence with a tornado constructed out of muslin, measuring 35-foot-high.
Medicine
Surgeons use muslin
gauze in
cerebrovascular neurosurgery to wrap around
or intracranial vessels at risk for bleeding.
The thought is that the gauze reinforces the artery and helps prevent rupture. It is often used for aneurysms that, due to their size or shape, cannot be microsurgically clipped or coiled.
Recognition
Many travelers and merchants of the 13th and 14th centuries praised Bengal muslin, and claimed it as the best muslin. From the Mughal rulers to the European colonial rulers, Bengal's muslins were recognized for their superiority, with the muslins produced at Sonargaon being the best.
In 2013, the traditional art of Jamdani weaving in Bangladesh was included in the list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.
See also
Further reading
External links
