I was watching Aladdin the other day, and I was thinking that a woman in that region of the world could never get away with wearing what they have women wearing in the movie (they're dressed like belly dancers) in public. I'm not indicting disney for their historical accuracy because obviously it's just a light-hearted cartoon, but it did make me wonder: what did women wear around the time of the abbasid caliphate or the caliphates around that time? Did they adhere to the ideas of modesty that we attribute to modern states that follow a very rigid form of islamic law?
The actual cultural dress? No idea. But they were definitely not dressed like belly dancers. The average Muslim woman would have covered the majority of her body other than her face, hands, and feet. Muslim males would have covered the same area except for manual laborers who might have taken their shirt off while working. The actual outfits might have varied from place to place within the Abbassid caliphate but that is what would have been covered by free women in the major cities.
Of course, in distant lands controlled by the Abbassids, you could have any range of dress. I think ibn Battuta mentions in his travels to Africa that he was shocked by how much skin women showed. However, the fact that he was shocked by it shows how rare it would have been in central Abbassid lands.