Pan-Arab colors

The Pan-Arab colors are black, white, green and red. Individually, each of the four Pan-Arab colors were intended to represent a certain aspect of the Arabs and their history.[1]

Flag of the Arab Revolt, associated with pan-Arabism.

The black represents the Black Standard used by the Rashidun Caliphate and the Abbasid Caliphate, while white was the dynastic color of the Umayyad Caliphate.[2] Green is a color associated with the primary religion of Islam – and therefore also a color representative of the Rashidun Caliphate.[3][4] Green is also identified as the color of the Fatimid Caliphate by some modern sources,[2][5] but that is not correct: their dynastic color was white.[6][7][8] Finally, red was the Hashemite dynastic color. The four colors also derived their potency from a verse by 14th century Arab poet Safi al-Din al-Hilli: "White are our acts, black our battles, green our fields, and red our swords."[9]

Pan-Arab colors, used individually in the past, were first combined in 1916 in the flag of the Arab Revolt or Flag of Hejaz.[10] Many current flags are based on Arab Revolt colors, such as the flags of Jordan, Kuwait, Palestine, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, and the United Arab Emirates.[11]

Liberation Flag, also Revolutionary flag
(A modern revolutionary flag that spread to the Arab World inspired by the 1952 Egyptian Revolution)[12]

In the 1950s, a subset of the Pan-Arab colors, the Arab Liberation colors, came to prominence. These consist of a tricolor of red, white and black bands, with green given less prominence or not included. The Arab Liberation tricolor or the Arab Liberation Flag was mainly inspired by the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 and Egypt's official flag under president Mohamed Naguib.[13] which became the basis for the current flags of Egypt, Iraq, Sudan, Syria and Yemen (and formerly in the flags of the rival states of North Yemen and South Yemen), and in the short-lived Arab unions of the United Arab Republic and the Federation of Arab Republics.[11]

Current flags with Pan-Arab colors

UN member and observer states

Unrecognized and partially recognized states

First-level administrative divisions

Former national flags with the Pan-Arab colors

Flags of Arab political and paramilitary movements using Pan-Arab colors


See also

References
  1. Abū Khaldūn Sati' al-Husri, The days of Maysalūn: A Page from the Modern History of the Arabs, Sidney Glauser Trans. (Washington D.C.: Middle East Institute, 1966), 46.
  2. Edmund Midura (March–April 1978). "Flags of the Arab World". Saudi Aramco World: 4–9.
  3. Teitelbaum, Joshua (2001). The rise and fall of the Hashimite kingdom of Arabia. New York: New York University Press. p. 205. ISBN 1-85065-460-3. OCLC 45247314.
  4. Marshall, Tim (2017). A flag worth dying for : the power and politics of national symbols. New York, NY: Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc. pp. 110–111. ISBN 978-1-5011-6833-8. OCLC 962006347.
  5. Znamierowski, Alfred (2013). The World Encyclopedia of Flags: The Definitive Guide to International Flags, Banners, Standards and Ensigns, with Over 1400 Illustration. Lorenz Books. p. 122. ISBN 978-0-7548-2629-3.
  6. Hathaway, Jane (2003). A Tale of Two Factions: Myth, Memory, and Identity in Ottoman Egypt and Yemen. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. p. 97. ISBN 978-0-7914-5883-9. The Ismaili Shi'ite counter-caliphate founded by the Fatimids took white as its dynastic color, creating a visual contrast to the Abbasid enemy.
  7. Blair, Sheila S.; Bloom, Jonathan M. (1999). "Art and Architecture: Themes and Variations". In Esposito, John L. (ed.). The Oxford History of Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 215–267. ISBN 0-19-510799-3. ...white was also the color associated with the Fatimid caliphs, the opponents of the Abbasids.
  8. Sanders, Paula A. (1994). Ritual, Politics, and the City in Fatimid Cairo. SUNY series in Medieval Middle East History. SUNY Press. p. 44. ISBN 0-7914-1781-6. ...wore white (the Fatimid color) while delivering the sermon (khuṭba) in the name of the Fatimid caliph.
  9. Muhsin Al-Musawi, Reading Iraq: Culture and Power in Conflict (I. B. Tauris 2006), p. 63
  10. I. Friedman, British Pan-Arab Policy, 1915–1922, Transaction Publ., 2011, p. 135
  11. Znamierowski, Alfred (2003). Illustrated Book of Flags. Southwater. p. 123. ISBN 1-84215-881-3. Retrieved November 22, 2014. The designs of these flags were later modified, but the four pan-Arab colors were retained and were adopted by Transjordan (1921), Palestine (1922), Kuwait (1961), the United Arab Emirates (1971), Western Sahara (1976) and Somaliland (1996).
  12. Pan-Arab Colors, crwflags.com
  13. M. Naguib, Egypt's Destiny, 1955
  14. Also used as the flag of Fujairah since 1975
  15. Kingdom of Hejaz 1915–1925, Crwflags.com
  16. Historical Flags Overview (Syria), Crwflags.com
  17. Historical Flags (Palestine) , Crwflags.com
  18. Historical Flags (Jordan), Crwflags.com
  19. Kingdom of Iraq (1924–1958), Crwflags.com
  20. Arab Federation of Jordan and Iraq, Crwflags.com
  21. Evolution of the Iraqi Flag, 1963–2008, Crwflags.com
  22. Mahdi Abdul-Hadi, Al-Muntadha al-Adhabi Archived 2014-05-05 at the Wayback Machine, passia.org
  23. Mahdi Abdul-Hadi, Jam'yiat al-'Arabiya al-Fatat Archived 2014-05-05 at the Wayback Machine, passia.org
  24. Al-Ahwaz (Khuzestan) Political Organizations (Iran) on crwflags.com
  25. S. T. Al-Seyed Naama, Brief History of Ahwaz Archived 2014-07-15 at the Wayback Machine, on al-ahwaz.com
  26. The contrast of white vs. black as the Fatimid/Umayyad vs. Abbasid dynastic color over time developed in white as the color of Shia Islam and black as the color of Sunni Islam: "The proselytes of the ʿAbbasid revolution took full advantage of the eschatological expectations raised by black banners in their campaign to undermine the Umayyad dynasty from within. Even after the ʿAbbasids had triumphed over the Umayyads in 750, they continued to deploy black as their dynastic color; not only the banners but the headdresses and garments of the ʿAbbasid caliphs were black [...] The ubiquitous black created a striking contrast with the banners and dynastic color of the Umayyads, which had been white [...] The Ismaili Shiʿite counter-caliphate founded by the Fatimids took white as its dynastic color, creating a visual contrast to the ʿAbbasid enemy [...] white became the Shiʿite color, in deliberate opposition to the black of the ʿAbbasid 'establishment'." Jane Hathaway, A Tale of Two Factions: Myth, Memory, and Identity in Ottoman Egypt and Yemen, 2012, p. 97f.
  27. The Abbasid Revolution against the Umayyad Caliphate adopted black for its rāyaʾ for which their partisans were called the musawwids. Tabari (1995), Jane McAuliffe (ed.), Abbāsid Authority Affirmed, vol. 28, SUNY, p. 124
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