Talk:History of flags

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Heraldry and vexillology

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Date of the introduction[edit]

"Flags that comprise cloth attached to an upright pole at one side seem to have first been regularly used by the Arabs who introduced it to the Western world in the 1st century, although they would not gain popularity in the latter until the 9th century. Tradition holds that a black flag was flown by Muhammad during the Conquest of Mecca and that his followers flew green flags"

Even though I read the reference I find it hard to believe that Arabs introduced flags to the Western World in the 1st century because Muhammad was not born in the 1st century, he was born in the 6th century, in the 1st century there were no Muslim conquests because Islam didn't exist yet, I remember seeing a lot of sourced information on Wikipedia that are wrong like the origin of the word gown, a Wikipedia article claims the word is Germanic with a source from a book even though all dictionaries says the word gown is from Latin, I'm not Historian, and I don't claim to know better than the author of the book, I just think that the century maybe is wrong because Muhammad was born in the 6th century Eddiitt0 (talk) 10:51, 26 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I know you now realise you were looking at the wrong source but if you want the excerpt from Jones 2014 it is as follows: Flags attached to the side of an upright pole were introduced to the west by the Arabs in the 1st century, and flags with actual designs became widespread during the Crusades.

Perhaps it could be made more obvious that the sentence talking about the 1st century Arabs and sentence talking about Muhammad are referring to different periods. Cakelot1 (talk) 11:15, 26 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I read the source by Jones on Amazon even before you copied the excerpt I still find it hard to believe that the introduction happened in the 1st century because back then there were no Muslim conquests, please read this source, it says using of flags by Arabs started with Islam https://archive.org/details/flagsthroughages00smit/page/41/mode/2up --Eddiitt0 (talk) 11:22, 26 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I had read it as being a spread through trade from east to west via Arab traders as they were pretty prolific in the Spice trade in the first centuries of the 1st millennium.

The source above says [...] yet even before the rise of Islam in the early seventh century they were displaying flags of white and black., so to me it still seems possible that pre-Islamic peoples of Arabia used flags. I'll look around to see what some other sources say.

I don't know about the use of Saracens as it isn't particularly precise (if we know it's Arabs or Turks surly that would be better), but again I'm going to look around at some other sources. Cakelot1 (talk) 13:24, 26 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Arab traders used flags? what is the source? the source also says Arabs had had vexilloids, including an eagle standard apparently based on the Roman model,

Britannica used Saracens in their articles about the origin of flags --Eddiitt0 (talk) 14:11, 26 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I was just pointing out why I don't think it's impossible that pre-islamic people spread the flag as discussed in Jones (the sources says they used vexilloids; and also black and white flags pre islam). I certainly don't intent to add it back until I find better sources discussing it. Cakelot1 (talk) 14:35, 26 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, I know Saracens was used by Britannica, but as I said it's not very specific (could be Arabs, Turks, or basically any other Islamic group) so if anybody can find a source that identifies which is being referred to that would probably be better in the long run. But again I don't propose any change until/if a better a source is found Cakelot1 (talk) 14:45, 26 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Eurocentrism/Islamophobia[edit]

"While the Persians used cloth banners to designate their armies, it was the Romans who first made widespread use of these symbols to represent their armies."

It seems more than ridiculous to state the second group to use flags is the first group to use flags. Let's be honest and give credit to Arabic people who utilized loose flapping flags hundreds of years prior to Rome. This sort of rank Islomophbia and Eurocentrism is why Wikipedia is a joke. 2600:1006:B090:C633:3CE6:78FF:BBEA:9F37 (talk) 14:40, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

First, Persians certainly are not Arabs, and the period where taking about here is going to be centuries before the rise of Islam. Second, They were not the second group to use flags ancient China and Greece similarly used flags to identify parts of there army according to Jones 2014. Third and leading on from that, the critical phrase here is widespread use. The language used here reflects what various sources have to say on the topic. With all that said I think the sentence should be rewritten to make it clear that were talking about a different sort of use of flags here. Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 15:52, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]