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Morocco

Al-Mamlaka al-Maghribiya; Kingdom of Morocco

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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Flag of Morocco
image by Željko Heimer, 08 Jun 2003
See also:

Description

Flag of Morocco, diagram
image by Željko Heimer, 08 Jun 2003

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):

Chapter One
General provisions

Article 7: The emblem of the Kingdom shall be a red flag with a five-pointed green star in the centre. (…)
Pascal Vagnat, 16 May 1999

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«contained within an imaginary circle equalling one-third the width of the flag», and know of no legislation which has superseded them.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 CSW/---), but as Smith [smi82] indicates it was also used as civil and state ensign on sea CSW/CS- (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

Big star (used in the ensigns)

Morocco flag w/ big star
image by Jaume Ollé, 07 Jul 2004

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


Design of the pentagram

no
frimbriation
with
frimbriation
solid solid pentagram solid pentagram, fimbriated
inter-
laced
interlaced pentagram interlaced pentagram, fimbriated
by António Martins and Jaume Ollé, 08 Dec 2000

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


Mourning hoisting

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