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Kingdom of Hejaz 1915-1925

Al-Hijaz, Al-Mamlaqa al-Hijaziyya

Introduction
Flag 1915-ca.1921
Flag ca.1921-1925

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Arabia 1905-1923 Map

Introduction

The Hejaz used the Arab Revolt flag — black, green, white horizontally with a red triangle in the hoist. In 1921 or thereabouts the white and green were swapped, making it like the modern Palestinian flag, which is directly derived from it.

Roy Stilling, 12 March 1996

After the fall of Hejaz the colors were used by Husain's sons 'Abdulla (emir of the Transjordan) and Faisal (king of Iraq). Later on they became known as the Pan-Arab colors.

Harald Müller, 13 March 1996

The Kingdom of Hejaz disappeared in 1924-25 when Emir Abdul Aziz of Nejd drove the Hashemites out of Mecca, Medina, and Jeddah, leading to the creation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Joseph McMillan, 13 November 2000

Flag 1915-ca.1921

2:3
by Filip Van Laenen

The flag of the Hejaz was designed by Sir Mark Sykes of the British Foreign Office for the Arab forces under the Sherif Hussein operating with Allenby in Palestine. Hussein modified the shade of red, but I do not know what the original shade was. The original issues of the flag were manufactured by the British military in Egypt.

Theodore Leverett, 12 August 2000

David Fromkin's A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East (Avon, New York, 1990; orig. Holt, New York, 1989), has the following about this flag, on page 315, referring to the period in early 1918, when Allenby's multi-national army was preparing to advance from Jerusalem to Damascus:

Among their banners was one designed by Sir Mark Sykes for Hussein [Sharif of Mecca] and the Arab cause. Its colors —black, white, green, and red— were meant to symbolize the past glory of Moslem Arab empires and to suggest that Hussein was their contemporary champion. Hussein's only modification of the design was to change the hue of the red. Sykes had ordered flags to be made up by the British military supply offices in Egypt, and then had them delivered to the Hejaz forces.

Fromkin cites Sykes's papers at the Middle East Centre, St. Antony's College, Oxford (DR 588.25) for this information. He also shows a photograph (plate 21 in the book) of Arab troops carrying the Hejaz flag. Although in black and white, it appears to match the image above. (...) For more on this subject, read this letter at The Gertrude Bell Archive:

We [King Faisal of Iraq, Gertrude Bell and others] then spent a happy hour discussing (...) the national flag and Faisal's personal flag. For the latter we arranged provisionally this [sketch] i.e. the Hijaz flag with a gold crown on the red triangle. The red I must tell you is the colour of his house so he bears his own nom[en] on it. Father, do for Heaven's sake tell me whether the Hijaz flag is heraldically right. You might telegraph. It's a very good flag and we could differentiate it for the Iraq by putting a gold star on the black stripe or the on the red triangle. The Congress will settle it directly it meets — do let me know in time. Also whether you have a better suggestion for Faisal's standard.

There's a hint in there (the question to Gertrude Bell's father as to the heraldic correctness of the Hijaz flag) of where the change in the sequence of the stripes may have come from. A purist might well have objected to placing black and green together.

Joseph McMillan, 13 November 2000

Flag ca.1921-1925

2:3
by Ralf Stelter

At that point (1923 is the year I am quoting) Hejaz's flag was black, green, white horizontal stripes with a red triangle at the hoist. (...) This came from some research William Crampton did for me when I was doing a historical map of the Middle East showing the changing borders this century. I wanted to make sure that for each year we featured the flags were the correct ones.

Graham Bartram, 1 July 1997

Jordan used the same flag as Hejaz from March 1921.

Jaume Ollé, 10 November 2000

I wonder if Jaume Ollé is actually saying that Hejaz changed the order of its stripes to black-white-green on March 1921. Since the Transjordan Emirate was also created c.1921, the obvious question is, did it ever use the black-green-white flag? Or did it use the black-white-green flag before Hejaz did?

Santiago Dotor, 13 November 2000

The German Navy's Flaggenbuch 1926 shows the flag of Hejaz with a short triangle in a flag of 2:3 (labelled Hedschas und Irak).

Ralf Stelter, 28 January 2001