Flags of the Ottoman Empire

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Template:Short description Template:Refimprove Script error: No such module "Infobox".Template:Template otherScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". The Ottoman Empire used various flags and naval ensigns during its history. The crescent and star came into use in the second half of the 18th century. A Script error: No such module "Lang". (decree) from 1793 required that the ships of the Ottoman Navy were to use a red flag with the star and crescent in white. In 1844, a version of this flag, with a five-pointed star, was officially adopted as the Ottoman national flag. The decision to adopt a national flag was part of the Tanzimat reforms which aimed to modernize the Ottoman state in line with the laws and norms of contemporary European states and institutions.

The star and crescent design later became a common element in the national flags of Ottoman successor states in the 20th century. The current flag of Turkey is essentially the same as the late Ottoman flag, but has more specific legal standardizations (regarding its measures, geometric proportions, and exact tone of red) that were introduced with the Turkish Flag Law on 29 May 1936. Before the legal standardization, the star and crescent could have slightly varying slimness or positioning depending on the rendition.

Early flag

Pre-modern Ottoman armies used the horse-tail standard or tugh rather than flags. Such standards remained in use alongside flags until the 19th century. A depiction of a tugh appears in the Script error: No such module "Lang". by Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1718).[1] War flags came into use by the 16th century. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Ottoman war flags often depicted the bifurcated Zulfiqar sword, often misinterpreted in Western literature as showing a pair of scissors.[2]

The crescent symbol appears in flags attributed to Tunis from as early as the 14th century (Script error: No such module "Lang".), long before Tunis fell under Ottoman rule in 1574. But the crescent as a symbol also had 14th-century associations with the Ottoman military[3] and millennium-long associations with the city of Istanbul,[4][5] which became the Ottoman capital after its conquest in 1453. The Spanish Navy Museum in Madrid shows two Ottoman naval flags dated 1613; both are swallow-tailed, one green with a white crescent near the hoist, the other white with two red stripes near the edges of the flag and a red crescent near the hoist.[6]


Crescent flag

File:Ottoman flag c.1490-1701.png
Flag used by the Ottoman Empire between c.1453 to 1780, and even 1799.[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]
[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]

The simple crescent flag started to appear in the Ottoman Empire from its foundation in 1453, and was reported as late as 1780 in the Battle of Kagul,[26] 1799 in the Siege of Acre (1799).[27] or the 1853 Battle of Sinop.[28]

Naval standards

File:Ottoman Naval Flags in Bowles's "Universal display of the naval flags of all nations in the world" (1783).jpg
Ottoman naval flags according to Bowles's "Universal display of the naval flags of all nations in the world" (1783)

Numerous authors, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries reported on the variety of naval flags in the Ottoman Empire, starting with Bowles's "Universal display of the naval flags of all nations in the world" (1783). The designs of the flags depended on the rank or geographical base of their owners.[29]

Crescent and star flag

Template:See

File:Flag of the Ottoman Empire (eight pointed star).svg
The official eight-pointed star flag used by the Ottoman Empire between 1793 and 1844 as the official state flag.[40][41]

The star and crescent design is reported as early as 1526 at the Battle of Mohács,[42], or the Siege of Wien in 1683,[43] and continues to appear more systematically after 1793, on Ottoman flags of the 19th century. The white star and crescent moon with a red background was introduced as the flag of the Ottoman Empire in 1844.[44][45]

Source of the Star and Crescent symbol

It has been suggested that the star-and-crescent used in Ottoman flags of the 19th century had been adopted from the Byzantine. Franz Babinger (1992) suggests this possibility, noting that the crescent alone has a much older tradition also with Turkic tribes in the interior of Asia.[46] The crescent and star is found on the coinage of Byzantium since the 4th century BC[47] and was depicted on Byzantine Empire's coins and shields of Christian warrior saints till the 13th century.[48] Parsons (2007) notes that the star and crescent was not a widespread motive on the coinage of Byzantium at the time of the Ottoman conquest.[49] Turkish historians tend to stress the antiquity of the crescent (not star-and-crescent) symbol among the early Turkic states in Asia.[50]

Imperial standards

File:Osmanli-nisani.svg
Adopted in 1882, the coat of arms of the Ottoman Empire featured a green flag at left (representing the Rumelia Eyalet) and red flag at right (representing the Anatolia Eyalet and the other Asian eyalets).[51]

The imperial standard displayed the sultan's tughra, often on a pink or bright red background.

The standard used by the last Caliph, Abdulmejid II (between 19 November 1922 – 3 March 1924) consisted of a green flag with a star and crescent in white on a red oval background within a rayed ornament, all in white.

Army Flags and Standards with Shahada

The Ottoman army often used verses from the Quran and Shahada on their flags. This tradition continued during the First World War. When Ottoman Turkey joined the war on the side of the Central Powers in 1914, it declared a jihad against the Entente States. The modern Ottoman Turkish army used the Ottoman state coat of arms on one side of their standard regimental flags and Shahada on the other. The Ottoman regimental flags consisted of gold writings and the state emblem on a red background. After the empire was abolished in 1922, this practice continued for a while in modern Turkey.[54][55]

See also

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References

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  1. ↑ Script error: No such module "Lang". cited after Marc Pasquin, 22 November 2004, crwflags.com; cf. also a facsimile image hosted at the website of the Script error: No such module "Lang"..
  2. ↑ For example: Jacques-Nicolas Bellin, Script error: No such module "Lang". (1756).
  3. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  4. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  5. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  6. ↑ Nozomi Karyasu & António Martins, 8 October 2006 on Flags of the World.
  7. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  8. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  9. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  10. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  11. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  12. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  13. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  14. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  15. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  16. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  17. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  18. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  19. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  20. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  21. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  22. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  23. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  24. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  25. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  26. ↑ 1780 Battle of Kagul
  27. ↑ 1799
  28. ↑ Battle of Sinop by Ivan Aivazovsky
  29. ↑ Ottoman naval flags according to Bowles's "Universal display of the naval flags of all nations in the world" (1783)
  30. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  31. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  32. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  33. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  34. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  35. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  36. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  37. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  38. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  39. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  40. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  41. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  42. ↑ Battle of Mohács 1526
  43. ↑ Siege of Wien, 1683
  44. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  45. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  46. ↑ "It seems possible, though not certain, that after the conquest Mehmed took over the crescent and star as an emblem of sovereignty from the Byzantines. The half-moon alone on a blood red flag, allegedly conferred on the Janissaries by Emir Orhan, was much older, as is demonstrated by numerous references to it dating from before 1453. But since these flags lack the star, which along with the half-moon is to be found on Sassanid and Byzantine municipal coins, it may be regarded as an innovation of Mehmed. It seems certain that in the interior of Asia tribes of Turkish nomads had been using the half-moon alone as an emblem for some time past, but it is equally certain that crescent and star together are attested only for a much later period. There is good reason to believe that old Turkish and Byzantine traditions were combined in the emblem of Ottoman and, much later, present-day Republican Turkish sovereignty." Franz Babinger (William C. Hickman Ed., Ralph Manheim Trans.), Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time, Princeton University Press, 1992, p 108
  47. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  48. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  49. ↑ John Denham Parsons, The Non-Christian Cross, BiblioBazaar, 2007, p 69: "Moreover, the question is what the symbol of Constantinople was at the time it was captured by the Turks. And an inspection of the coins issued by the Christian rulers of that city during the thousand years and more it was in their hands, will reveal to the enquirer that though the crescent with a cross within its horns appears occasionally upon the coins of the Emperors of the East, and in one or two instances we see a cross of four equal arms with each extremity piercing a crescent, it is doubtful if a single example of the so-called "star and crescent" symbol can be found upon them."
  50. ↑ "It is clear, however, that, whatever the origin, the crescent was used by Turkish states in various regions of Asia, and there is absolutely no reason to claim that it passed to the Ottomans from Byzantium" Mehmet Fuat Köprülü, Gary Leiser (Trans.), Some Observations on the Influence of Byzantine Institutions on Ottoman institutions, Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1999, p 118
  51. ↑ Sosyal Medyada Şeriat Bayrağı Diye Paylaşılan Bayrağın Aslında Rumeli'den Gelmesi (in Turkish)
  52. ↑ "Ottoman Empire: Standard of the Sultan" at Flags of the World.
  53. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  54. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  55. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".

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External links

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