The Cloud Binders

Once upon a time, the Khan of Kokand set out to do what Khans of his sort usually do. Along the way, he encountered the daughter of a poor weaver, a girl as radiant as the sun. Being a Khan of the Kokand variety, he naturally demanded she become his fourth wife.

The weaver, suppressing his grief and fury, pressed his forehead to the fertile Fergana soil and begged for mercy. The Khan pondered for a moment and offered a single choice: the weaver had three days to create something so beautiful it would drive the sight of the girl from the royal mind.

Despondent, the weaver collapsed on the banks of the all-knowing Syr Darya. There, through a veil of tears, he saw the rays of the scorching Central Asian sun reflecting in the rising mist of the great river, creating a screen of the utmost delicacy, shimmering like a rainbow in the clouds.

The weaver rushed to his workshop, toiling day and night until he managed to manifest in fabric what his eyes had seen. The cloth, glowing with a kaleidoscope of colors, so softened the Khan’s heart that he agreed to forgo the daughter—well, he married her off to his son and heir instead. The young couple lived happily and proudly until the Red Army arrived and sent them to teach agriculture at a kolkhoz in Khujand.

Since that day, the *Abrband* fabrics (from the Persian for “cloud-binding”) of the Fergana Valley—a fertile region now split between Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan—became a craft renowned far beyond the borders of Bukhara, Samarkand, and Kokand. They fetched high prices in the markets of Delhi, Kabul, Kashgar, and Nishapur, and were even exported to Russia and other distant lands.

*Abrband*, or *Atlas* (Uyghur: ئەتلەس), is a weaving method using silk threads that are pre-dyed in segmented patterns. When woven on a loom according to complex designs, they produce fabrics of immense richness that were traded as luxury goods across Central Asia and beyond. While the ikat technique (from the Malay *ikat*, a method of resist-dyeing fibers using ties or wax) is common globally, the dyers and weavers of Central Asia developed a distinct style. It remains a staple of the textile industry today, ranging from high-end luxury to cheap synthetics and souvenirs—a kind of unofficial flag for all of Central Asia.

Dyeing and weaving Atlas—Hotan, Southern Xinjiang, China.

Dyeing and weaving Atlas—Hotan, Southern Xinjiang, China.

Dyeing and weaving Atlas—Hotan, Southern Xinjiang, China.

Dyeing and weaving Atlas—Hotan, Southern Xinjiang, China.

We do not know for certain where Central Asia’s intoxicating Atlas fabrics originated. Textile scholars link them to Persian and Indian techniques, as well as floral and faunal motifs rooted in the pre-Islamic traditions of the Central Asian steppe.

An Atlas-like fabric from the early centuries CE. Hotan/Lop, Xinjiang.

Like all great textiles, Central Asian Atlas binds the ethnic and geographical texture of the entire region within its fibers, reflecting the many shades of the society that produced it.

While the weavers were mostly Tajiks and “Sarts” (the sedentary Turks now known as Uzbeks), many of those engaged in the “despised” craft of dyeing were actually Jews. They specialized in processing indigo (*Indigofera tinctoria*), which a Jewish trade network centered in Herat imported from India and the Middle East. The Kyrgyz and Kazakh nomads on the fringes of the agricultural zones were not suppliers—wool was rarely used in Atlas—but they were enthusiastic consumers, purchasing the colorful fabrics for festive attire, dowries, and even as a form of currency.

The production itself was the domain of urban craftsmen organized into guilds with strict social frameworks. The relationships between these trades—raw silk weavers, dyers, and carpenters—were governed by internal codes. These rules regulated the acceptance of apprentices and oversaw their certification as master weavers, a process that culminated in the mandatory, lavish feast of mutton.

A Bukharan Jewish “Cheder,” early 20th century. The boy on the left wears an ikat/Atlas/Abrband fabric.

Kyrgyz nomads clad in Atlas—Pamir Plateau.

The peak of Atlas production in Central Asia occurred during the 18th and 19th centuries—a period that, surprisingly, coincided with economic and political decline. It is possible that the wane of international trade and the fading of the “Silk Road” created a greater need for local luxury textiles. Production centers flourished in Samarkand and Bukhara, as well as in Fergana cities like Kokand and Margilan.

Like any human society, traditional Central Asia was hierarchical to its core, and textiles were essential for defining class boundaries. The traditional coat, the *chapan*, and its light-sleeved counterpart, the *khalat*, were the primary shells in which a person presented themselves in public. The fabric carried decisive social weight. While the lower classes wrapped themselves in simple cotton or wool, the elite adorned themselves in magnificent Abrband silks or even gold-embroidered velvet, often cinched with gold and silver belts crafted by master goldsmiths.

The fabric was so prestigious that even small scraps were preserved to decorate lower-quality garments, purses, and even the colorful robes of the *Qalandars*—the wandering Sufis who roamed in intimidating bands through the bazaars and near holy sites.

A bureaucrat in the court of the Emir of Bukhara wearing an Atlas-decorated chapan as a status symbol.

Turkestani Qalandars in a painting by Vasily Vereshchagin.

With the arrival of Russian and Soviet rule, the agricultural zones of Turkestan were converted into cotton-growing regions for export. Meanwhile, the markets of Bukhara, Samarkand, and Tashkent were flooded with cheap cotton from Russian and European sources. The economic shifts of the 20th century led to a decline in the local elite textile industry, yet mechanization and historical memory preserved the weaving techniques. Among the Uyghurs of Xinjiang, who learned the art from Kokandi weavers during the reign of Yaqub Beg (d. 1877), the technique remained largely unchanged until recent decades.

The Atlas fabrics of Central Asia are a wonderful example of how fragments of civilization are woven and swirled together.

Thus, Chinese silk-making technology traveled the trade routes, took root in the mulberry orchards of the Fergana Valley, was dyed in the colors of the desert and mountains, and adorned the bodies of Kyrgyz nomads and Bukharan bureaucrats alike—before wandering onward to other markets, under different clouds.

Uyghur workers with Atlas fabrics. Hotan, 1965.

Chinese cigarettes from Xinjiang with an Atlas pattern.

Synthetic Atlas-style fabric, Yarkand, on a teahouse wall in southern Xinjiang province.