Black Standard

Origin

Historical use

• The Abbasid Revolution against the Umayyad Caliphate adopted black for its rāyaʾ 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.
• On 21 July 1848, under orders from the Báb, the Bábí leader Mullá Husayn raised the Black Standard in Mashhad 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 Abbasid dynastic color.
• The Ahmadiyya movement also employs black and white colours in its flag, 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.

  Jihadist black flag

Works cited