Pan-Arab colors
The Pan-Arab colors are black, white, green, and red. Individually, each of the four Pan-Arab colors were intended to represent a certain Arab dynasty, or era. The black was the Abbasid dynastic color; white was the Umayyad dynastic color; green was the Fatimid dynastic color; and red was the Hashemite dynastic color. The four colors derived their potency from a verse by 14th century Iraqi poet Safi al-Din al-Hilli: "White are our acts, black our battles, green our fields, and red our swords".
Pan-Arab colors were first combined in 1916 in the flag of the Arab Revolt, designed by the British diplomat Sir Mark Sykes. Many current flags are based on Arab Revolt colors, such as the flags of Jordan, Kuwait, Palestine, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, and the United Arab Emirates, and formerly in the flag of the brief union of the Arab Federation of Iraq and Jordan.
In the 1950s, a sub-set of the Pan-Arab colors, the Arab Liberation colors, came to prominence. These consist of a tricolor of red, white and black bands, with green given less prominence. The Arab Liberation colors were inspired by the use of the Arab Liberation Flag in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. These appear in the current flags of Egypt, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, and formerly in the flags of the rival states of North Yemen and South Yemen, and in the short-lived Arab unions of the United Arab Republic and the Federation of Arab Republics.Current flags with Pan-Arab colors
Former national flags with the Pan-Arab colors
Flags of Arab political and paramilitary movements using Pan-Arab colors
Historical Arab flags
