I have noticed various Asian men wearing a variety of different colour turbans. I have seen black, orange, white, and green.
Is this an indication of their position in their religious hierarchy, or simply a fashion choice?
Countries under sha’ria law did formelry require non-Muslims to wear colour coded turbans, (blue for Christian, yellow for Jewish, etc.) but this died out a long time ago and was only briefly reveived by the Taliban.
The Sikh religion requires all men to wear turbans, but I think they can be any colour (for example the British police issue a special turban for Sikh Constables instead of a helmet).
I understand that if you claim descendency from Muhammed, you wear a black turban.
A Sikh friend of mine in secondary school wore a different coloured turban every day of the week, so I doubt that there’s any sort of denomination (at least these days).
Sikhs in the RCMP are issued dark navy turbans - just part of the uniform.
there is a guy down the street from me that has all kinds of colored turbans. i think its just fashion nowadays.
Black? I thought it was green.
Regards,
Agback
This sounds like it could make for an excellent gimmick for 21st-century “B” movies – “Lissen, kid, you can tell which ones are the good Ay-rabs – they wear the white turbans!” 
A long time ago meaning centuries or forty/fifty years ago when stars and triangles weren’t considered fun shapes to have in Lucky Charms?
The variation is huge and often indicates nothing at all. In some places, certain colors and styles are often associated with certain ethnic groups or regions. In a few ( Iran for example ), different colors signify different standards of descent ( Sayyid vs. non-Sayyid ) and religious learning among the ulema.
But there is no universal standard in the Muslim world ( or among those non-Muslims that wear turbans, including Sikhs, some Hindus, some Buddhists and even some Christians, I believe ). Instead differences in headgear are highly regional.
- Tamerlane
According to a Sikh friend of mine, the colors (at least to that religion) make no difference. He said that when his parents go out, his dad tended to choose a color that would match whatever his mom was wearing.
No, the practice died out centuries ago AFAIK (Taliban and excepted), were talking about colour coded turbans not Nazi badges.
So, is tye-died out of the question then?
Back in the nineteenth century, a green turban signified that the wearer had made the hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca), according to a biography of Richard Francis Burton; I don’t remember if that’s specific to a particular tradition or branch of Islam. (Burton studied Sufism for a while.)
Not at all.
One of the joys of traveling in Rajasthan is seeing the wide array of colors and styles of turbans that are on display. As this site, http://www.rajasthanunlimited.com/artandculture/turb2.html, says
For the curious, the site linked above goes into further detail about the fashion and tradition of turbans in Rajasthan.
Thanks to you, I found this thread in a vanity search! I do have something to add though. In Malaysia, only Moslems who have been to Mecca get to wear white caps.
Haj
You’re welcome, and thanks for the additional info.
Maybe this is the equivalent of wearing underwear with the days of the week printed on them…
No, no, no. Tamerlane has this right.
Some jurisprudence, if I recall correctly derived from Umar, had it that non-Muslims should wear distinctive clothing from Muslims, which in some areas including yellow for Jews, etc. There was never a generalized rule on this (and certainly not turbans), and for example in North Africa yellow turbans are an old fixture of Berber tribes.
In regards to the reporting by Burton, he’s not always reliable and again to stress the color coding is a highly regional issue.
Further to that Sufism is NOT a seperate sect of Islam, although some Sufi tariqa can get to that point. Sufism is a style or approach, the best analogy being to charismatics in Xianity, where you have Catholic and Protestant (and perhaps Orthodox as well) charismatics with a huge variety of practice.
In Oman, which still has a strong tribal heritage (industrialization was disallowed by order of the old Sultan), headscarves (they aren’t really turbans, per se) are often colored to represent tribal allegiance.