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image located by Esteban Rivera, 28 September 2012
Al-Jazeera shows today in its online edition
a picture of a white horizontal flag, displaying a red circle in the middle,
with an inscription most likely in Arabic. My best guess is that it resembles
pretty much the ISIS/ISIL flag,
but in red letters on white. Any other guesses?
Esteban Rivera, 28 September 2012
image from Esteban Rivera, 21 September 2012
Yes, you posted a news photo of a similar flag a little while ago. [see
editorial comment above]
Andy Shelton, 29 September 2012
image located by Jaume Ollé, 7 July 2016
An image at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Kingdom_of_Syria#/media/File:Damas_Juillet_1920.jpg
shows an unknown flag of 7 vertical stripes of R-W-R-W-R-W-R with golden half moon in
the corners. Could this be the royal flag of King Faisal? Or perhaps a local flag from Damascus?
Jaume Ollé, 7 July 2016
A loose translation (worth revising indeed) would be: "Decided to end the duplicity of Emir Faisal, General Gouraud ordered General Goybet to attack the Chief's Army with his 3 Infantry Division and occupy Damascus. After crossing (Mount) Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon (mountains), the 3rd I.D. delivered a violent fight at Khan Maysalun (mountains); victorious, General Goybet arrived at Damascus, July 25, 1920, deposed Emir Faisal, quelled the Hauran (region) rebellion and exercised control of the territory of Damascus, until its completion on August 17, 1921. He returned to France (and was awarded the) Commander of the Legion of Honor and a fifth mention in dispatches, (as well as) the Military Cross TOE (Theater of Operations) and the Medal of Syria. (On) June 30, 1923, he was appointed Major General."
At first I was mislead into the translation of the text "...l'armée Chérifienne..." because there was a similar entity that existed in Morocco, called Empire chérifien (Sherifian Empire), but then realized that it simply meant the Chief's (Faisal) Army, when reading it in context.
My personal conclusion is that the flag in question is a battle flag used by the Arabs at either the Battle of Maysalun or during the revolts of that time. There are still doubts since the only two captured flags that remain from that period, are black, green, white and red (source), and not red and white with a yellow crescent as described in the image first submitted by Jaumé.
In the same image, one can see yet another unidentified flag below the Légend (Caption) letter "D" at the start of the chapter.
It is important to notice that in the Goybet family's coat of arms (source) (image), there's a crescent featured, perhaps granted for his participation during these military actions as a member of the (French) Army of the Levant and part of the Franco-Syrian War against the (Arab) Kingdom of Syria.
Esteban Rivera, 12 June 2019
The Sherif was, as far as I know, the ruler in Mecca from the Hashemite dynasty, who had their own country Hedschas on the Western shores of the Arabian peninsula and afterwards had been expelled by the Saudis. Thus it means the Army of the Sherif (of Mecca).
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 15 June 2017