Black Standard

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The Black Banner or Black Standard (Arabic: ?????? ???????? r?yat as-sawd??, also known as ???? ?????? r?yat al-?uq?b "banner of the eagle" or simply as ???????? ar-r?ya "the banner") is one of the flags flown by Muhammad in Islamic tradition. It was historically used by Abu Muslim in his uprising leading to the Abbasid Revolution in 747 and is therefore associated with the Abbasid Caliphate in particular. It is also a symbol in Islamic eschatology (heralding the advent of the Mahdi).

The Black Banner has been used in contemporary Islamism and jihadism since the late 1990s. A variant is commonly used as the flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Video Black Standard

Origin

Before Islam, visible standards were used at least in the Roman army to identify the core of the legion, the Eagles. By the mid-600s, the Arabs were using standards for the same purpose. Among the Arabs the r?ya was a square banner; not to be confused with the liw?? or ?alam, an identifying mark like a red turban.

Islamic tradition states that the Quraysh had a black liw?? and a white-and-black r?ya. It further states that Muhammad had an ?alam in white nicknamed "the Young Eagle" (?????? al-?uq?b); and a r?ya in black, said to be made from his wife Aisha's head-cloth. This larger flag was known as the Eagle.

The hadith reports Muhammad said that the advent of the Mahdi would be signalled by Black Standards proceeding from Khorasan and that it will be the flag of the army that will fight the Masih ad-Dajjal.

At the Battle of Siffin, according to tradition, Ali used the liw?? of the Prophet, which was white while those who fought against him instead used black banners.

Maps Black Standard

Historical use

• The Abbasid Revolution against the Umayyad Caliphate adopted black for its r?ya? for which their partisans were called the musawwids. Their rivals chose other colours in reaction; among these, forces loyal to Marwan II adopted red. The choice of black as the colour of the Abbasid Revolution was already motivated by the "black standards out of Khorasan" tradition associated with the Mahdi. The contrast of white vs. black as the Fatimid vs. Abbasid dynastic colour over time developed in white as the colour of Shia Islam and black as the colour of Sunni Islam. After the revolution, Islamic apocalyptic circles admitted that the Abbasid banners would be black but asserted that the Mahdi's standard would be black and larger. Anti-Abbasid circles cursed "the black banners from the East", "first and last".

• A black flag was used by the Hotak dynasty in the early 18th century, following Mirwais Hotak's Sunni rebellion against the Twelver Shi'i Safavid dynasty and later by the Emirate of Afghanistan under Abdur Rahman Khan (1880-1901).

• On 21 July 1848, under orders from the Báb, the Bábí leader Mullá Husayn raised the Black Standard in Mashhad (in Iran's Khorasan Province) and began a march westwards. The mission was most likely proclamatory but possibly also to rescue another Bábí leader, Quddús, who was under house arrest in Sárí. After being rebuffed at the town of Barfurush, the group took up making defensive fortifications at the Shrine of Shaykh Tabarsi. It is reported the Black Standard flew above the Bábí fortress until the end of the Battle of Fort Tabarsi.

• As Arab nationalism developed in the early 20th century, the black within the Pan-Arab colors was chosen to represent the black banner of Muhammad.

• The Ahmadiyya movement also employs black and white colours in its flag (Liwaa-i Ahmadiyya), first hoisted in 1939. Mirza Tahir Ahmad, the fourth caliph of the Ahmadiyya Caliphate, explained the symbolism of the colours black and white in terms of the concept of revelation and prophethood.

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Jihadist black flag

The Pashtun tradition of using a black flag with a white shahada (Islamic creed) inscription as a military ensign, harking back to the 18th-century Hotak dynasty, was adopted by the Taliban, and thence by Al-Qaeda in the 1990s. This usage was adopted by jihadists more widely in the early 2000s, and in the 2010s by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.}

A black flag with the shahada inscribed in white appeared on jihadist websites from at least 2001. (Reported on Flags of the World by Santiago Tazon on 17 November 2001: "I have found in several 'hard Islamic' websites the symbol of a white Taliban flag crossed with its inverted colour version (probably identified as Al-Qaeda flag): black background with shahada in white. I do not know if this flag is recognised by Al-Qaeda; but it is normally flying in pro-Al-Qaeda sites.")

Even though the historical black banner did not have any inscription, this variant is commonly known as al-r?ya (the banner) or as rayat al-?uqab (banner of the eagle) after the hadith tradition, and some western observers have dubbed it the black flag of jihad. Islamic extremist organizations which have used such a black flag include:

• al-Qaeda
• al-Shabaab
• the Islamic Courts Union
• the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Daesh/ISIL/ISIS/IS)
• Hizbul Islam (2009)

In the last decade of the South Thailand insurgency, the al-Raya' flag has largely replaced the colourful secessionist flags formerly used by the different groups involved in violent actions against the government of Thailand.

ISIL variant

The variant used by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and before that by Al-Shabaab (since c. 2006) depicts the second phrase of the shahada in the form of a depiction of the supposedly historical seal of Muhammad. The white circle represents the seal, enclosing the three words, ???? ???? ???? (all?h[i] ras?l[u] mu?ammad[un] "Muhammad is the prophet of Allah"). This word order is different from the second part of the conventional form of the shahada, ''mu?ammad[un] ras?l[u] all?h[i] .

In August 2014, British Prime Minister David Cameron suggested that anybody displaying "the Islamic State flag" in the United Kingdom should be arrested. Citing the Terrorism Act 2000, section 13 (1b) of the act states "[a] person in a public place commits an offence if he wears, carries or displays an article in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that he is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation" and can face six months in prison or a statutory fine.

It has also been banned from a public demonstration in the Netherlands since August 2014.

The use of the image of the Daesh/ISIL/ISIS/IS flag (but not other versions of the black standard) for non-educational purposes has been forbidden in Germany by the Federal Ministry of the Interior since September 2014. Neighbouring Austria proposed a ban in the same month.

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See also

• Black Banner Organization
• Christian Flag
• Islamic flags
• List of black flags
• Tawhid

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References

Works cited

• Cook, David (2002). Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic. Darwin Press. ISBN 978-0-87850-142-7. 
• Hinds, Martin (1996). Studies in Early Islamic History. Darwin Press. ISBN 978-0-87850-109-0. 
• Nicolle, David (1993). Armies of the Muslim Conquest. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-85532-279-0. 

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External links

• Collection of imagery of black flags used in Islamic extremism
• The Black Flag (al-raya) at The Islamic Imagery Project, The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
• The Semiotics of a Black Flag (makingsenseofjihad.com)
• Usama Hasan, The Black Flags of Khurasan (unity1.wordpress.com)
• Muslim extremist rally disrupting Remembrance Day in London (November 2010)

Source of article : Wikipedia