Military uniforms carried symbolic weight that weapons did not

Evidence

That Muslim armies use modern equipment and weaponry may be ascribed to necessity, and there are ancient traditions declaring it lawful to imitate the infidel enemy in order to defeat him. But that the officers of these armies wear uniforms and, more remarkably, visored and peaked caps cannot be so justified, and has a significance at once cultural and symbolic. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1142

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s Islam-West representation cluster: how Western clothing conventions functioned as symbolic markers of cultural allegiance.