Black Standard

This article is about the black flag banner standard of Muhammad. For other black flags, see Black Flag (disambiguation). For other black banners, see Black Banner (disambiguation).

"Ar-raya" redirects here. For other uses, see Arraya (disambiguation).

Black Standard

The Black Banner or Black Standard (راية السوداء rāyat al-sawdā' , also known as راية العقاب rāyat al-`uqāb "banner of the eagle" or simply as الراية al-rāya "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), and it has been used in contemporary Islamism and jihadism since the late 1990s.

Origin

Before Islam, visible standards were used at least in the Roman army to identify the core of the legion – the Eagles. By the middle 600s AD, the Arabs were using standards for the same purpose. Among the Arabs the rāya was a square banner; not to be confused with the liwā' or `alam, an identifying mark like a red turban.

Islamic tradition states that the Quraysh had a black liwā' and a white-and-black rāya. It further states that Muhammad had an `alam in white, nicknamed "The Young Eagle" (العقاب al-`uqāb); and (relevant here) a rāya in black, said to be made from his wife Aisha's head-cloth. This larger flag was known as the Eagle. The name might have referred to the Byzantine eagle.

The tradition reports Muhammad said that the advent of the Mahdi would be signaled by "Black Standards" proceeding from Khorasan and that it will be the flag of the army that will fight the Dajjal (Anti-Christ).

At Siffin, according to the Arab tradition, `Ali used the liwā' of the Prophet, which as noted above was white; but those who fought with him instead used black banners.

Historical use

The Abbasid Revolution against the Umayyad Caliphate adopted black for its rāya; 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 Hotaki Empire in the early 18th century, following Mir Wais Hotak's Sunnite rebellion against Shi'ite Safavid rule, and later by the Emirate of Afghanistan under Abdur Rahman Khan (1880–1901).

The Bábí leader Mullá Husayn-i-Bushru'i raised the Black Standard in his westward march from Mashhad starting 21 July 1848, to proclaim the Báb's message. It is reported the Black Standard flew above the Bábí fortress Shaykh Tabarsi.

As Arab nationalism developed in the early 20th century, the black within the Pan-Arab colours was chosen to represent the black banner of Muhammad, while the name of "The Eagle" gave rise to the eagle depicted in the flag of the Federation of Arab Republics (1972), which survives as the modern flag of Egypt.

Ahmadiyya flag

Ahmadiyya flag, first designed in 1939, during the era of the Second Khalifa. The writing above the image of the full moon is a part of the Quranic verse 124 of Sura Aal Imran (English translation: "And Allah had (already) helped you at Badr, when you were a contemptible little force.")

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, a religious movement whose founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (d. 1908) claimed to be the awaited Messiah and mahdi in fulfilment of Islam's eschatological prophecies, also employs black and white colours in its flag (Liwaa-i-Ahmadiyya), first designed in 1939. In explaining the use of these two particular colours and their significance, Mirza Tahir Ahmad, the fourth Khalifa of the community, observed that they hold different connotations in Islam, to what they may traditionally hold in the West, being linked symbolically to the phenomenon of prophethood and the absorption and reflection of divine revelation which only the colours black and white can truly express.

Black absorbs total light, [it] does not emit an iota of light, so from looking heavenly-wards, black indicates that we absorb entire light from heaven; and white reflects total light, without being dishonest about it. So a Messenger has two aspects: one of receiving things from Allah, in that repect he's nabi [prophet], whatever he receives, he completely, totally absorbs; and when he speaks to the others, he reflects the entire light without being dishonest or stingy about it so that reflection makes it white. So reception that is a complete reception without leaving anything out and reflection that is a complete reflection without leaving anything out, they are witnessed only in two colours: black and white. So both have been employed in Islam as flags...

Jihadist black flag

The Black Standard as used by various Islamist organisations (since the late 1990s) consists of a white-on-black shahada.

Flag of Jama'at at-Tawhid wa'l-Jihad, used in their beheading videos

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 Hotaki Empire, was adopted by the Taliban, and thence by Al-Qaeda in the 1990s. This usage was adopted by the global jihadism movement 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-rāya (the banner) or as rayat al-ʻuqab (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 (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.

Word order and placement

Some variant designs depict the second phrase of the shahada in the form of the historical seal of Muhammad. The white circle represents the ring-shaped seal, and encloses the three words, محمد رسول الله (muḥammadur rasūlu-llāh, "Muhammad is the prophet of God"). Inside the seal, they are written from bottom-to-top rather than the usual top-to-bottom order for text in the Arabic alphabet:

Shahada with usual text order		Words as positioned on the flag		Flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
لا إله إلا الله	lā ʾilāha ʾillā-llāh	لا إله إلا الله	lā ʾilāha ʾillā-llāh
محمد رسول الله	muḥammadur rasūlu -llāh	الله رسول محمد	-llāh rasūlu muḥammadur

Usage

The holding of the flag is often accompanied by a single raised index finger. The symbolism behind this hand gesture alludes to their fundamentalist interpretation of the tawhid—"the belief in the oneness of God and a key component of the Muslim religion."

Bans and proposed bans

In August 2014, British Prime Minister David Cameron suggested that anybody displaying the black standard in the United Kingdom should be arrested.

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

The use of the image or the 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.

See also

• Black Banner Organization
• Christian Flag
• Islamic flags
• Jolly Roger
• List of black flags

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)