“The only thing uniting Arab, Kurd, Albanian, and Bosnian is the unity of Islam,” he said, according to Dominic Lieven’s book Empire: The Russian Empire and its Rivals. Influenced by European notions of nationalism yet desiring to hold together the multiethnic Ottoman Empire under sovereign Turkish rule, Cevdet Pasha imagined Islam and its symbols to be the glue. Even the Islamic State’s quotation of Ahmad Cevdet Pasha unwittingly betrays a modern perspective. The white scrawl across the top, “No god but God,” is deliberately ragged, meant to suggest an era before the precision of Photoshop, even though the flag was designed on a computer. Yet the Islamic State’s choices display the modern sensibilities they try so hard to displace. They are like a single body and what knits them together is stronger than the bond of blood relatives. The secret in creating a flag is that it gathers people under a single banner to unify them, meaning that this flag is a sign of the coming together of their words and a proof of the unity of their hearts.
The group quoted a 19th-century Ottoman historian and official, Ahmad Cevdet Pasha, to make the point: Why make a flag? In addition to following the prophet’s example, the Islamic State wanted a symbol to rally people to its cause. (Modern scholars doubt the letters’ authenticity.) We are meant to believe the Islamic State had inherited the prophet’s seal, just as the early caliphs had. As the anonymous authors noted, they took the circle’s design from a seal of the prophet used on a set of letters, now housed in Turkey’s Topkapi Palace, that were supposedly written on Mohammed’s behalf. The Islamic State’s design of the Muslim profession of faith is different from every other attempt to replicate the prophet’s flag: “No god but God” is scrawled in white across the top and “Mohammed is the Messenger of God” is stacked in black inside a white circle. “What is written on the flag is what is written on the flag of the Messenger of God, peace and blessings be upon him.” The white scrawl across the top, “No god but God,” is deliberately ragged, meant to suggest an era before the precision of Photoshop, even though the flag was designed on a computer. The authors were equally confident when explaining the banner’s text. “On the flag of the prophet was written, ‘No god but God, and Mohammed is the Messenger of God.’” The flag even had a name: “the eagle.”Īlthough the authors acknowledged other reports of green, white, and yellow flags, they concluded the Islamic State’s flag would be black, because most of the reports about Mohammed mentioned a black flag. Another describes Mohammed “standing on the pulpit preaching” surrounded by fluttering black flags. “The flag of the prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, is a black square made of striped wool,” according to one account. Anonymous authors affiliated with the Islamic State explained its design, quoting passages from Islamic scripture and historical accounts. It was not until January 2007 that al-Qaeda’s media distribution arm, al-Fajr, released a picture of the Islamic State’s new flag. When the Islamic State first announced itself on October 15, 2006, it had no flag of its own. The spread of the flag, then, traces the spread of an idea and chronicles a major changing of the guard in the global jihadist movement. The group’s cause proved so compelling among jihadists that in 2014 the organization supplanted its former master, al-Qaeda. Was it the flag of an Islamic state, or the flag of the Islamic state-the caliphate that had once ruled land from Spain to Iran and whose prophesied return would herald the end of the world? The Islamic State encouraged the second interpretation but let the global community of jihadists read into the flag and the “state” what they would. He and others were confused because the Islamic State had used terror and Twitter to advertise its brand, and Islamic tradition to obscure its meaning.īefore the group declared itself the caliphate reborn that summer, it had been ambiguous about the flag’s meaning and the cause it represented. It says, ‘There is only one god, Allah, and the prophet Mohammed is his messenger.’ It’s not meant to be a symbol of hate.” Dunaway, like many Muslims and even Middle East experts, did not know that the flag had been designed by ISIS in 2006.
“I understand now that people turn on CNN and see the flag associated with jihad, but that’s not the intention … at all.
“You’ll find it in any mosque in the world.” Still, he took it down. “Every Muslim uses that black flag,” he said. The flag’s owner, Mark Dunaway, had converted to Islam a decade prior, he explained to the police when they arrived, and he flew the flag to mark Muslim holidays. What the Peng Shuai Scandal Is Really About Michael Schuman