Last modified: 2005-12-24 by antonio martins
Keywords: morocco | star: 5 points (green) | pentagram | seal of solomon | solomon seal | mourning |
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Red with Solomon’s seal (green outlined fivepointed star). It is one of
the red arabic flags, though Morocco is quite far away from
Emirates.
Željko Heimer, 25 Nov 1995
Concerning the descritption of the flag of Morocco, here is an excerpt of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Morocco (10 March 1974, revised 4 September 1992):
Pascal Vagnat, 16 May 1999Chapter One
Article 7: The emblem of the Kingdom shall be a red flag with a five-pointed green star in the centre. (…)
General provisions
The Decrees of 1915 and
1956 give the width
of the Seal of Solomon as being «contained within an imaginary circle
equalling one-third the width of the flag», and know of no legislation
which has superseded them.
Christopher Southworth, 07 Jul 2004
The green pentagram shown on the national flag of Morocco is often called
Solomon’s seal. Its origin might date back to the Babylonian Empire,
c. 2000 BC. The pentagram might have represented goddess Ishtar, assimilated
by the Muslims to Fatima, the Prophet’s
daughter. On the Moroccan flags, the pentagram represents the link between
God and the nation. Remember that Islam is the official religion in Morocco
and that the King, descendant of the Prophet, bears the title of Commander
of the Believers.
Ivan Sache, 15 Jun 2003, based on
[lux01]
Until the independence it was limited as national flag in
French zone, and was also used as national and
merchant flag in Tangier (while it was not used
in the Spanish zone). After the independence it
remained the national flag on land (for all purposes, so
), but as Smith
[smi82] indicates it was also used as
civil and state ensign on sea
(while the war ensign included a
crown in canton). However, in early 1990’s a new set of ensigns
was introduced.
Željko Heimer, 08 Jun 2002
The official Moroccan Royal Navy flag plates show a big
star, about 1/2 of the hoist.
Armand du Payrat, 20 Jun 1997
Those official flag plates show a Seal of Solomon at one-half of flag
width, however, whilst this flag plate shows the Royal
Standard, Jack, Merchant
Flag, Naval Ensign and
Masthead Pendant it does not include the
National Flag.
Christopher Southworth, 07 Jul 2004
| no frimbriation |
with frimbriation | |
|---|---|---|
| solid |
|
|
| inter- laced |
|
|
These are the possible alternatives for moroccan flags: gapless or
interlaced (these having a different kind of symmetry); fimbriated or
not.
António Martins, 08 Dec 2000
Which one is correct? Old flag
books always show and interlaced pentacle like on the
Ethiopian national flag.
Nozomi Kariyasu, 21 May 2003
Most of my sources
(National Geographic 1917 [gmc17],
Flaggenbuch 1939 [neu92],
Smith 1975 [smi75c],
Smith 1985 [smi85c],
Dorling-Kindersley 1998 [udk98],
Znamierowski 1999 [zna99],
Shipmate 1998 [vdv98] and
2000 [vdv00])
show the “simple pentagram”. Two of them however
([smi75c] and
[smi85c]) show the
“pentagram with gaps” on the
coat-of-arms,
as clearly different from that on the flag.
Only Barraclough [bar71]
and Crampton 1981 [cra81]
and 1989 [cra89] show the
“pentagram with gaps” on the flag. On both, the thickness of
the star’s outline is obviously only intended to separate the two
main colours (red and green).
Santiago Dotor, 17 Nov 2000
This seems to imply that the pentagram on the flag has no gaps,
but on the coat-of-arms yes, which might
explain some flags with gaps on the pentagram, for having been made
from images of the arms. Othe other hand,
could the latter be right and the others wrong? (After all, the
sources above are actually only three, as Zna., DK and Shipmate stem
all from Smith’s material.)
António Martins, 26 Nov 2000
Both the original Decree of 1915 and
its confirmation of 1956
give a size for the Seal of Solomon but no details of its construction.
However, official illustrations (originally sent to
Armand du Payrat on 0 Jan 1997) of the
Jack, Civil and
Naval Ensigns all show an interlaced pentacle
with outline and I think therefore, that we may assume this to be correct
portrayal. I do not know whether actual flags in use show a detailed
pentacle, but it would appear that in theory (at least) they should?
Christopher Southworth, 21 May 2003
I believe that inlcusion of the interlacing patterns is not
considered important part of the flag design and it may be included
or omited just as one includes or omits fring on some flags. Also, it
seems that the more elaborate (ie. expensive) flags do show the
interlacing, while the “common” patterns do not. It was decided for
2000 Album [pay00]
issue, through some evidence that the non-interlaced patterns are far
more common in usage on sea.
Željko Heimer, 22 May 2003
Today Embassy of Kingdom of Morocco in Tokyo confirmed that
the seal of Solomon is interlaced pentacle and that actual flags
in use by the Emabassy show interlaced pentacle.
Nozomi Kariyasu, 04 Jun 2003
I can confirm that the Embassy of the Kingdom of Morocco in
London also fly a flag with an interlaced pentacle, and (like the
Embassy in Tokyo) as far as they are concerned this is what the
flag should be.
Christopher Southworth, 04 Jun 2003
At Yahoo
News site, a flag mourning ritual I have never
seen before. My guess is to prevent the wind from unfurling the national flag,
to show that the former national ruler is deceased. It’s probably
unique to Morocco, or at least the Arab World: «A member of the Moroccan
Consulate in Paris ties the Moroccan flag around a mast to mark official
mourning of the death of King Hassan II Saturday, July 24, 1999.»
David Kendall, 26 Jul 1999