Iran

Jomhuri-ye Eslami-ye Iran

Last modified: 1997-09-16 by rob raeside
Keywords: iran | quran | lion | tashdid |
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Mark Sensen 19-DEC-1995

• History of the flag
• Central device in the current flag
• 1913 and 1941
• Flag of 1905
• Old Persian Flag

See also:

• People's Mojahedin Army
• Iranian peoples

Adopted 29 July 1980.

Mark Sensen 19-DEC-1995

The symbol consists of four crescents and a sword. The four crescents are meant to stand for the word Allah (there is indeed some resemblence to the Arabic writing of it). The five parts of the emblem symbolize the five principles of Islam. Above the sword (central part) is a "tashdid" (looks a bit like a W). In Arabic writing this is used to double a letter, here it doubles the strength of the sword.

Harald Müller, 1996-MAY-14

1913 and 1941

Iran 1913 and 1941: The state ensign is white with a red (on the outside) and green border around three sides, top, fly and bottom of the flag, and a lion stantant guardiant (standing, looking at the viewer with his right fore-paw raised) in yellow. The merchant ensign is the same without the lion.

The lion and the sun are old Iranian symbols, much older than the Pahlawi dynasty.

Harald Müller, 1996-MAY-14

The horizontal tricolor was introduced around 1905, when a constitution was forced on Shah Muzaffar al-Din.

Harald Müller, 1996-MAY-14

I have an old atlas (printed in the term of Chester A. Arthur, so 1881-4) that depicts the flag of Persia as swallow-tailed, but with the angles at the fly sort of curved. It has five equal horizontal stripes: blue, yellow, green, yellow, blue. The green stripe is also the "tongue" of the swallowtail. On the blue stripes are three stars, with "parentheses" around the middle star. The yellow stripes have two red "four leaf clovers" each, and the green stripe has a sword pointing towards the fly and another star in parentheses at the fly.

Josh Fruhlinger, 1996-MAY-11

Before WWI flags showing the lion and sun on a plain background seem to have served as national flags. I have found no reference to the swallow-tailed flag mentioned above.

Harald Müller, 1996-MAY-14