Early Islam Before the advent of Islam, banners as tools for signaling had already been employed by the
pre-Islamic Arab tribes and the
Byzantines.
Early Muslim armies naturally deployed banners for the same purpose. Early Islamic flags, however, greatly simplified its design by using plain color, due to the Islamic prescriptions on aniconism. According to the Islamic traditions, the
Quraysh had a black banner and a white-and-black banner. It further states that Muhammad had a banner in white nicknamed "the Young Eagle" (, ); and a flag in black, said to be made from his wife
Aisha's head-cloth. This larger flag was known as the "Banner of the Eagle" (), as well as the "
Black Banner" (). In the Islamic tradition, Muhammad used the white flag to represent both the leader of the Muslim army and the Muslim state. Other examples are the prominent Arab military commander
'Amr ibn al-'As using a red banner, and the
Khawarij rebels using a red banner as well. Banners of the early Muslim armies in general, however, employed a variety of colors, both singly and in combination. The
Umayyad Caliphate, which ruled the largest geographical extent of the medieval Islamic Empire, adopted white flags. During the
Abbasid Revolution, the Abbasids incorporated the Black Standard based on the
early Islamic eschatological saying that "a people coming from the East with black banners" would herald the arrival of the messianic figure
Mahdi. The
Shiite Alids chose the color of white to distinguish themselves from the Abbasids, but also adopted
green flags. The Abbasids continued to use black as their dynastic color. However, their caliphal banner was made of white silk with the
Quranic inscriptions. The white color was then adopted, in deliberate opposition to the Abbasids, by the
Ismaili Shiite
Fatimid Caliphate, and cemented the association of black and white with
Sunni and Shia respectively. It was also used by the
Almohads. The Fatimid caliphal banner was decorated in red and yellow, sometimes emblazoned with the picture of a lion. Early Muslim rulers are generally not known to have used emblems of a distinctly dynastic, religious, or personal nature. File:Abbassid_banner.svg|
Abbasid Caliphate used Black standards and are also attributed to
Muhammad. File:Umayyad_Flag.svg|The
Umayyad Caliphate,
Fatimid Caliphate and
Almohad Caliphate used white standards. White flags are also attributed to Muhammad. File:Rectangular green flag.svg|Green flags were sometimes used by
Shi'ites. File:Red_flag.svg|The
Kharjites used red standards
Middle Ages '' of
al-Hariri of Basra in a
13th-century manuscript created by al-Wasiti (BNF ms. arabe 5847). The
Ayyubids and
Mamluks, succeeding the Fatimid caliphate, retained the association with yellow. The Ayyubid founder
Saladin carried a yellow flag adorned with an eagle. Mamluk sultanic banners were yellow, but on occasion they used red banners.
Mongol and Turkic dynasties to the east, including the
Ilkhanate,
Oghuz Turks and the
Seljuq dynasty, preferred the white banner. Religious flags with inscriptions were in use in the medieval period, as shown in miniatures by 13th-century illustrator
Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti. 14th-century illustrations of the
History of the Tatars by
Hayton of Corycus (1243) shows both
Mongols and Seljuqs using a variety of war ensigns. The
crescent appears in flags attributed to
Tunis from as early as the 14th century
Book of Knowledge of All Kingdoms, long before Tunis fell under Ottoman rule in 1574. The Spanish Navy Museum in Madrid shows two Ottoman naval flags dated 1613; both are swallow-tailed, one green with a white crescent near the hoist, the other white with two red stripes near the edges of the flag and a red crescent near the hoist. The
hexagram was also a popular symbol among the Islamic flags. It is known in Arabic as
Khātem Sulaymān (
Seal of Solomon; ) or
Najmat Dāūd (
Star of David; ). The "Seal of Solomon" may also be represented by a five-pointed star or
pentagram. In the
Qur'an, it is written that David and
King Solomon (Arabic,
Suliman or
Sulayman) were prophets and kings, and are figures revered by Muslims. The Medieval pre-Ottoman
Hanafi Anatolian beyliks of the
Karamanids and
Jandarids used the star on their flag. The Mamluks served the
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques during their reign. During this time, they deployed what was believed to be the genuine relic of the Islamic prophet Muhammad's banner. The banner was later captured by the Ottomans, who called the flag the "noble banner" (
Sancak-ı Şerif) and used it during their military campaign. The flag was made of black wool, according to the Ottoman historian
Silahdar Findiklili Mehmed Agha, but there is no further information available. File:Flag of Ayyubid Dynasty.svg|The
Ayyubid yellow standard File:Flag of the Mameluke Sultanate.png|A flag of the Mamluk Sultanate according to the
Catalan Atlas Pre-modern era ;Ottoman Empire War flags came into use by the
Ottoman Empire in the 16th century, gradually replacing (but long coexisting with) their traditional
tugh or horse-tail standards. During the 16th and 17th centuries, war flags often depicted the bifurcated sword of
Ali,
Zulfiqar, which was often misinterpreted in Western literature as showing a pair of
scissors. A Zulfiqar flag used by
Selim I (d. 1520) is on exhibit in
Topkapı Palace. Two Zulfiqar flags are also depicted in a plate dedicated to Turkish flags in vol. 7 of
Bernard Picart's
Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde (1737), attributed to the
Janissaries and
Sipahis. During the
Tanzimat of 1844, the
flags of the Ottoman Empire were redesigned in the style of European armies of the day. The flag of the
Ottoman Navy was made red as red was to be the flag of secular institutions and green of religious ones. As the reforms abolished all the various sub-sultanates, pashaliks, beyliks and emirates, a single new flag was designed to replace all the various flags used by these entities with one single national flag. The result was the red and white flag with the crescent moon and star, which is the precursor to the modern Turkish flag. A plain red flag was introduced as the
civil ensign for all Ottoman subjects. File:Türkei Seidenfahne makffm.jpg|An early 19th-century example of a
Zulfiqar flag File:Flag of the Ottoman Empire (1844–1922).svg|The flag of the
Ottoman Empire (1844–1922) File:BarbarosSancagi.svg|
The flag of Hayreddin Barbarossa ;Mughal Empire The
Mughal Empire had a number of imperial flags and standards. The principal imperial standard of the Mughals was known as the
alam ( ). It was primarily
moss green. It displayed a
lion and sun ( ) facing the hoist of the flag. The Mughals traced their use of the
alam back to
Timur. The imperial standard was displayed to the right of the throne and also at the entrance of the Emperor's encampment and in front of the emperor during military marches.
Edward Terry, chaplain to Sir
Thomas Roe, who came during the reign of
Jahangir, described in his
Voyage to East-India (1655) that the royal standard, made of silk, with a crouching lion shadowing part of the body of the sun inscribed on it, was carried on an elephant whenever the emperor travelled. File:Alam of the Mughal Empire.svg|
Alam of the Mughal Empire File:Shah Jahan Flag.png|Flag of the Mughal Empire (1631) ;Persian Empires The
Safavid dynasty (1501–1736) employed various
alams and banners, especially during the reign of the first two kings, each with a different emblem.
Ismail I, the first Safavid king, designed a green flag with a golden full moon. In 1524
Tahmasp I replaced the moon with an emblem of a sheep and sun; this flag was used until 1576. It was then that
Ismail II adopted the first Lion and Sun device, embroidered in gold, which was to remain in use until the end of the Safavid era. During this period the Lion and Sun stood for two pillars of the society: the state and Islam. The
Afsharid dynasty (1736–1796) had two royal standards, one with red, white, and blue stripes and one with red, blue, white, and yellow stripes.
Nader Shah's personal flag was a yellow pennant with a red border and a lion and sun emblem in the centre. All three of these flags were triangular in shape.
Nader Shah consciously avoided the using the colour green, as green was associated with
Shia Islam and the
Safavid dynasty. Safavid Flag.svg|Flag of Safavid dynasty after
Ismail II (1576–1732) Afsharid Imperial Standard (3 Stripes).svg|An Imperial Standard of the
Afsharid dynasty Modern history ;Flags of the Mahdiyya
Muhammad Ahmad declared himself al-Mahdī al-Muntaẓar (the Expected Rightly-guided One, successor to the prophet Mohammed) in 1881 and lead an Islamic revolution against the Ottoman-Egyptian rule of Sudan until his death in 1885. During the
Mahdist War, the followers of al-Mahdi (
Anṣār or ‘helpers’) adapted a traditional form of flag used in prayer by followers of Sufi religious orders, for military purposes. The traditional form of Sufi flag was adapted by adding a quotation from the Quran – "Yā allah yā ḥayy yā qayūm yā ḍhi’l-jalāl wa’l-ikrām" (O God! O Ever-living, O Everlasting, O Lord of Majesty and Generosity) – and the highly charged claim - "Muḥammad al-Mahdī khalifat rasūl Allah" (Muḥammad al-Mahdī is the successor of God's messenger). The flags were specifically colour coded to direct soldiers of the three main divisions of the Mahdist army – the Black, Green and Red Banners (
rāyāt). ;Star and crescent By the mid 20th century, the star and crescent was used by a number of successor states of the Ottoman Empire, including
Algeria,
Azerbaijan,
Mauritania,
Tunisia,
Turkey,
the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and
Libya. Because of its supposed "
Turkic" associations, the symbol also came to be used in
Central Asia, as in the flags of
Turkmenistan and
Uzbekistan. The star-and-crescent in the
Flag of Pakistan is stated as symbolizing "progress and light" (while the green colour is stated as
representing Islam). The star-and-crescent in these flags was not originally intended as religious symbolism, but an association of the symbol with Islam seems to have developed beginning in the 1950s or 1960s. By the 1970s, this symbol was embraced by both
Arab nationalism or
Islamism, such as the proposed
Arab Islamic Republic (1974) and the American
Nation of Islam (1973). ;The Pan-Arab flag and colours The
Pan-Arab colors were first introduced in 1916, with the
Flag of the Arab Revolt. Although they represent secular
Arab nationalism as opposed to Islamism, the choice of colours has been explained by Islamic symbolism in retrospect, so by Mahdi Abdul Hadi in
Evolution of the Arab Flag (1986): black as the
Black Standard of Muhammad, the
Rashidun Caliphate and the
Abbasid Caliphate, white as the flag of the
Umayyad Caliphate, green as the flag of the
Fatimid Caliphate and red as the flag of the
Khawarij. On May 30, 1917,
Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, leader of the
Arab Revolt replaced his plain red flag with one horizontally striped in black, green, and white with a red triangular area at the hoist. This was seen as the birth of the
pan-Arab flag. Since that time, many Arab nations, upon achieving independence or upon change of political regime, have used a combination of these colours in a design reflecting the
Hejaz Revolt flag. These flags include the current flags of
Iraq,
Syria,
Yemen,
Egypt,
Kuwait,
United Arab Emirates,
Jordan,
Palestinian National Authority,
Algeria, and
Sudan, and former
flags of Iraq and
Libya. ==Contemporary flags==