Hand-Knotted Mamluk Navy & Beige Afghani Wool Rug 5' x 7'Hand-Knotted Mamluk Navy & Beige Afghani Wool Rug 5' x 7'

Cairo, 500 years ago

Where it began. Mamluk rugs come from the workshops of Mamluk Egypt in the late 1400s and early 1500s, centered on Cairo. They are among the most admired early carpets in museum collections.

What to look for. A central star or octagon surrounded by smaller geometric shapes, like a kaleidoscope, often in a limited palette of reds, blues and greens.

Your rug. This 5x7 Mamluk rug was woven by hand, one knot at a time. No other rug in the world is exactly like it.

Made by hand, in a family home

This rug was woven on a loom inside a family’s own home, most often by women, one knot at a time. A rug this size takes two to three months to weave, which means steady income for a family in a country where paying work is scarce. We buy directly from weaving families and workshops we know, with no factories and no middlemen.

• Wool: sheared, washed and combed, then spun into yarn, much of it by hand.
• Dye: dyed in small batches, so every rug has gentle color shifts (abrash).
• Weaving: knotted by hand from a pattern or from memory, row after row.
• Finishing: beaten, sheared, singed, washed, stretched and dried by hand.

Read how our rugs are made

Rugistan® was founded in 2021 by Shams Frough. He served five years alongside U.S. forces as an interpreter in his native Afghanistan, then made Chicago home, where he put himself through college and is still studying today.

Shams and his wife run Rugistan® together, with showrooms in Evanston and Chicago. He still travels to the weaving regions himself and buys most of our rugs in person, from the families and workshops who make them. That's how we keep our prices fair. We also clean and repair handmade rugs.