Sources: Men and Clothing
Elite scholars wearing heavily embroidered wraps and robes. Note the luxurious width of the sleeves.
In this period, rich and poor alike wore similar styles of clothing differing mainly in quality and quantity of cloth according to social class and profession. The gender queer might wear a mix of socially assigned masculine and feminine styles, perhaps a man’s robe but with hennaed hands or other adornment, more, less, or not at all.
In general, men wore loose pants (sirwal), possibly even a loin-cloth or shorts underneath that, an undershirt, and a long shirt (qamis) over the two. A robe was worn over the pants and shirt, typically closed with a sash, maybe buttons, but also sometimes left open, and then possibly a short cloak or wrap over all that. Pockets were in the sleeves of robes or outer shirts.
All men wore a turban over a cap. The turbans of the rich were grand, made of fine fabrics, some even with gold thread woven through out, and made of lengths and lengths of cloth. The poor wore shorter strips of whatever they could afford. Turbans were wrapped in such a way that one could put them on and take them off like a hat. They were not wound and unwound each time. Turkmen men might wear a short conical hat without a turban.
In the books, I describe men belonging to different schools of law wearing their turbans wrapped distinctively so people could tell the difference between them. I made this up for my narrative needs.
Scholars at that time may have worn a cape with a hood that draped over their turban. The secondary sources and manuscript images describe either a tall, conical cap with or without a turban wrapped around it or simply a turban with the hood over it.
Wealthy men would wear fine fabrics, even silk—typically understood to be prohibited for men according the Islamic legal rulings—with detailed embroidery. Sometimes they would wear a garment with their name either embroidered or inked in a decorative fashion around its edge.
A certain class of wandering Sufi would wear rough wool clothing, patched over and over to cover the wear and tear of life on the road. The majority of the Sufis dressed as everyone else.
Men who worked on the canals or other hard labour would wear a loin cloth or short loose pants without a shirt outside the winter months. Some men might wear a short wrap around their waist, like a sarong, over their short pants or loin cloth or with nothing underneath.
Enslaved men wore whatever clothing was considered appropriate to their their social station and work imposed on them. Enslaved men used for hard labour dressed as labourers, like the canal workers. Whereas, enslaved servants who served the wealthy might be dressed in finery well beyond the reach of the average Baghdadi.
The poor wore sandals of woven palm, or leather if they could afford them. The wealthy wore sandals, slippers, or even boots of fine leather, tooled with decoration.
In the winter months, everyone wore more layers and used thicker fabrics, including quilted fabrics and thick woollen garments according to what they could afford.
See Stillman, Arab Dress: A Short History, Ahsan, Social Life Under the Abbasids