Sunlight pairs best with cotton, and cotton is best Egyptian; from romantic metaphors to anecdotes of fine-living, there are few textiles more famous across the world than Egyptian cotton. Characterized by superior quality, it has garnered a worldwide reputation for being the “highest lint quality” among global cottons. As a plant, cotton belongs to a family which includes hibiscus and okra. Scholars cite Egypt’s dynastic period as the first recorded cultivation of cotton, with hieroglyphs and sculptures serving confirmation to the use of cotton fibers as early on as 2500 BC. This dependency reached its peak between the Ptolemaic and Roman periods (circa. 305 BC – 395 AD), with two central species grown in the area (Gossypium arboreum L. and Gossypium herbaceum L.). While the use of cotton fibers existed in some capacity, scholars maintain that the introduction of cotton as a textile is credited to the Arabs, who “are also credited for introduction, later on, of cotton growing and manufacturing in Spain and southern Europe.” The word cotton in and of itself is derived from the Arabic qotn. Muhammed Ali—the father of Egypt’s modern renaissance—was the one who solidified…
