Islamic flag
Since then, historical caliphates, modern nation states, certain denominations as well as religious movements have adopted flags to symbolize their Islamic identity.
Some secular states and ethnic or national movements also use symbols of Islamic origin as markers of heritage and identity.
Before the advent of Islam, banners as tools for signaling had already been employed by the pre-Islamic Arab tribes and the Byzantines.
[3] It further states that Muhammad had a banner in white nicknamed "the Young Eagle" (Arabic: العقاب, al-ʿuqāb); and a flag in black, said to be made from his wife Aisha's head-cloth.
[9] The Umayyad Caliphate, which ruled the largest geographical extent of the medieval Islamic Empire,[10] adopted white flags.
[11] Thus in 817, when the Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun adopted the Alid Ali al-Ridha as his heir apparent, he also changed the dynastic color from black to green.
[17] 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.
It is known in Arabic as Khātem Sulaymān (Seal of Solomon; خاتم سليمان) or Najmat Dāūd (Star of David; نجمة داوود).
The flag was made of black wool, according to the Ottoman historian Silahdar Findiklili Mehmed Agha, but there is no further information available.
[20] 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.
7 of Bernard Picart's Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde (1737), attributed to the Janissaries and Sipahis.
[25] According to the Ain-i-Akbari, during Akbar's reign, whenever the emperor rode out, not less than five alams were carried along with the qur (a collection of flags and other insignia) wrapped up in scarlet cloth bags.
[26] 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.
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.
Nader Shah's personal flag was a yellow pennant with a red border and a lion and sun emblem in the centre.
[31] 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.
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).
By the mid 20th century, the star and crescent was used by a number successor states of the Ottoman Empire, including Algeria, Azerbaijan, Mauritania, Tunisia, Turkey, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and Libya.
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.
Besides these, there have been unrecognized jihadist de facto states, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant which at one time controlled parts of Iraq and Syria, the unrecognized government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram ruling parts of Somalia and Nigeria respectively, which use jihadist flags.
