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Afghanistan

Islamic State of Afghanistan, De Afghanistan Islami Dawlat, Dawlat-e-Islami Afghanistan

2:3
by Jaume Ollé modified by Santiago Dotor
Flag adopted 4 January 2004

Other sites:

Map of Afghanistan's ethnolinguistic groups (281 kb)

Description

I visited the Afghan Embassy in Tokyo today. They confirmed that they first hoisted a new flag on December 7th 2004 at President Karzai inauguration ceremony and introduced the flag as the new national flag of the newly born Islamic Republic of Afghanistan since then. The details of the coat-of-arms and flag are regulated in Chapter I, Article no. 19 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan adopted on January 4th 2004 and signed by Karzai as President of the Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan at that time on January 26th 2004.

Differences from the flag of the Transitional Authority:

flag proportion: 1:2 changes to 2:3
solar calendar year: 1380 changes to 1298 (i.e. 1919 AD, year of independence declaration from Great Britain)
a rising sun composed of 9 long and 8 short rays is added between the shahada and the takbir (Allahu akbar)

Jaume Ollé made the flag and arms images based on the new arms image given by the Embassy. Chapter I, Article no. 19 of the Constitution reads as follows:

The Afghan flag is made up of three equal parts, with black, red and green colors juxtaposed from left to right perpendicularly. The width of every colored piece is equal to half of its length. The national emblem is located in the center of the flag. The national emblem of the state of Afghanistan is composed of Mehrab and Pulpit in white color. Two flags are located on its sides. In the upper-middle part of the insignia the sacred phrase of There is no God but Allah and Mohammad is his prophet and Allah is Great are placed along with a rising sun. The word Afghanistan and the year 1298 (solar calendar) are located in the lower part of the insignia. The emblem is encircled with two branches of wheat. The law shall regulate the use of national flag and emblem.

Nozomi Kariyasu, 12 January 2005

Coat-of-Arms

by Jaume Ollé

Meaning of the Colours

According to this website, quoting an AFP news of 29 January 2002 via the Times of India:

Border affairs ministry official Abdul Wakil Omari said the three colours of the flag represented a different page in the history of Afghanistan. The black represented the 19th century era when Afghanistan was occupied and did not have independence, red marked the fight for independence and the green showed independence had been achieved, he said.

Christian Berghänel, 29 January 2002

By sheer coincidence, the three colours happen to be the same as in all Afghan flags between 1928 and 1978... It may be interesting to mention that the origin of these three colours (on the 1928 flag) is possibly:

black appeared representing the previous (monochrome) field of Afghan flags, which in turn represented the sovereign;
red was possibly introduced by emir, later king, Aman Allah as a sign of modernity and progress, copied from the Soviet flag as happened also with the 1928-1929 emblem;
green stood for islam.

Source: Jaume Ollé's History of Afghan Flags, quoting The Flag Bulletin XIX 6 and Flagmaster 58.

Santiago Dotor, 30 January 2002

The Shahada

GIF image by Jaume Ollé

From the Islamic Resources of the Washington DC Area website: Ashhadu Alla Ilaha Illa Allah Wa Ashhadu Anna Muhammad Rasulu Allah — "I bear witness that there is no deity other than Allah and that Muhammad is his servant and Messenger".

Juan Vaquer Jr., 24 March 1999

On the Saudi Arabian flag and all other flags that bear the Shahada it is simplified as, La allah illa Allah wa-Muhammed rasulu Allah. Literally: "No deity but God and Muhammed God's messenger".

Dov Gutterman, 28 March 1999

I would like to precise that the Shahada written on flags —Taliban flag, Saudi Arabian flag etc.— does not have the Arabic conjunction wa ('and') mentioned above. [It is thus simply La allah illa Allah / Muhammed rasulu Allah.]

Omar Amastan Mouffok, 26 December 2001

Shahada means 'testimony' or 'approval' in Arabic, and it is the Islamic credo. (...) The shorter form, found on flags, banners and walls of mosques reads, la ilaaha illa llaah (wa) muhammadu rasuulu llaah i.e. There is no god but Allah (and) Mohammad is the messenger of Allah.

Dror Kamir, 12 June 2002

Single-coloured Afghan Flags

A friend asked me about a flag that he saw hoisted on a terrain military vehicle in Afghanistan that he saw on CNN some days ago. It was supposed to be photographed in areas under control of the Northern Alliance and the flag was a purely black one. Is that some kind of new Afghan flag or maybe just some local unit flag? Possibly a reaction to the purely white Taliban flag?

Željko Heimer, 20 September 2001

Muslim South Asia is awash in single color flags of green, red, black, and white. They are mounted on makeshift poles outside shrines and mosques, especially outside the tombs of Sufi saints. Popular saints often have dozens of these flags of varying colors on display, not only on poles but hanging from telephone and power poles, trees, and so on. The Taliban's ideology would seem to prohibit reverence for such tombs, so I would be hesitant to conclude that display of a white flag at such a tomb necessarily had anything to do with the Taliban.

These flags also attached to the rear of large trucks and buses, etc. I would not ascribe a specific ratio to them as they appear home-made. They seem to be of religious significance, but I was never able to ascertain whether different colors represented different sects.

Joseph McMillan, 3 October 2001

It may not make any difference, but the Taliban are a different sect of Sunni Islam, called (I think) Deobandi. The Wahhabi are from the Arabian peninsula. While in general you are right about Muslim burial practice, there may be some variation here and there. Afghans, after all, are not Arabs. For all I know Turks and Albanians follow different practices too.

Al Kirsch, 3 October 2001

I seem to recall an early edition of The Flag Bulletin had an article on Afghan grave flags, where monochrome flags in the four Arab/Muslim/Afghan colours, green, white, black and red, were flown on graves, with a significance to each colour. I remember green was supposed to be for descendants of Mohammed.

Dean R. Mc Gee, 4 October 2001

Editor's note: see also Origin of the Pan-Arab Colours.