The Isis Flag

[sandyRoe]

What does the text on their flag say? Is it something from the Koran?

[Mamyalynne]

Info here Sandy

http://heavy.com/news/2014/08/islamic-state-flag-arabic-meaning-translation-mahdi-black-standard-banner-info/

[tonyav]

Explained here, sandy.
http://heavy.com/news/2014/08/islamic-state-flag-arabic-meaning-translation-mahdi-black-standard-banner-info/

[aelmpvw]

http://heavy.com/news/2014/08/islamic-state-flag-arabic-meaning-translation-mahdi-black-standard-banner-info/

[tonyav]

Snap.

[Old_Geezer]

If one ignore the literal translation I suspect it means, "Death to the infidel!"

[Mamyalynne]

If one wishes to ignore the translation ,it can mean whatever you wish.

[Gromit]

https://i.imgur.com/1GrXl53.png

[sandyRoe]

Thank you all.
I suppose if they ever do manage to found a new state from parts of Iraq and Syria we might see it flying some day at the United Nations.

[ichkeria]

Banning it might prove problematic in a non Arab speaking state because some joker might come up with a version that said 'sandyRoe for Answerbank Editor' and it could be hard to tell the difference
Or is taking the *** now an offence perhaps

[sandyRoe]

If nominated I will not run. If elected I will not serve.

[Gromit]

The Islam Caliphate was abolish in 1924 by Kemal Ataturk and the last Caliph was sent into exile.

Might take the Turks to again end this Caliphate.

[retrocop]

I thought Kemal Ataturk was originally Greek. Seems like they could do with him now.

[retrocop]

Forget last post. Salonica is now Thessaloniki (Greece) but wasn't Greek when he was born in the Ottamann Empire.

[EDDIE51]

The same text is on the coins, bank notes and flag of Saudi Arabia and some other Islamic states. As said it means' There is no God but Allah and
Mohammed is his Prophet.

[jno]

sounds like nothing more offensive than, say, the words of the Marseillaise.

[jenniesmith]

If one ignore the literal translation I suspect it means, "Death to the infidel!"

[Peter Pedant]

it is the witness statement ( shehada )

there are some quite complex elisions DTCwordfan has done classical arabic and may be able to explain

The script has almost complete absence of scrambled egg as well - the dots and dashes. This layer of scrambled egg is called 'rasm'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasm
and may hark back to the earliest scripts which werent marked up

[mushroom25]

probably the case that this otherwise non-offensive flag has been hijacked by extremists for their own ends - rather like the union flag (for some) now belongs to the racist right.

[EDDIE51]

Here is the Saudi flag with the same text
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Saudi_Arabia
The Saudi Flag is in green not black

[sandyRoe]

A bit like our Creed, then.