Eagle of Saladin
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The Arab eagle, in Egypt also known as the Eagle of Saladin (Arabic: نسر[1] صلاح الدين Nasr Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn)[2] or as the Republican Eagle (النسر الجمهورى an-nasr al-jumhũrā), is an eagle symbol used as an emblem in Arab nationalism and in the coat of arms and flags of several Arab states. It is currently used as part of the emblems of Egypt, Iraq and the State of Palestine.
While the Pan-Arab colors of the Flag of the Arab Revolt date to the early 20th century (the Arab Revolt of 1916), the eagle as a symbol of Egypt was introduced in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. The emblem was inherited by the United Arab Republic of 1958, and from this time the "Arab eagle" was taken to represent wider Arab nationalism rather than Egypt in particular. In the Republic of Iraq, following the 1963 coup by the Arab nationalist Ba'ath Party, the Arab eagle was introduced as the new emblem of Iraq, directly based on the design used by Nasser for the Egyptian revolution.[3] The Federation of Arab Republics, established in 1972, at first adopted a hawk as its emblem, representing the Quraysh tribe, but the hawk was replaced by the Arab eagle in 1984.[4] Conversely, the Libyan Arab Republic in 1969 also adopted the eagle, but replaced it by the Hawk of Quraish in 1972.
In the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, the eagle was associated with the Mubarak regime. Mehrez (2012) describes a stencilled graffiti depicting the "Eagle of Saladin" turned upside down as a call for the regime's downfall.[5]
See also
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- Coat of arms of Egypt
- Coat of arms of Iraq
- Coat of arms of Palestine
- Coat of arms of the United Arab Republic
- Coat of arms of Yemen
- Coat of arms of Libya
- Hawk of Quraish
- Pan-Arab colors
References
- ↑ Note that the word نسر nasr, which may mean either "eagle" or "vulture", is used for the Arab nationalist emblem, while the actual word for "eagle", عقاب ʿuqāb is reserved as the name of the Black Standard used in Jihadism.
- ↑ Whitney Smith: Flags Through the Ages and Across the World. McGraw-Hill Book Company (UK) Ltd. Maidenhead, 1975. The association with Saladin is due to the depiction of an eagle on the west wall of the Cairo Citadel, which was built under Saladin, although the eagle itself is of more recent date. "The eagle in the Citadel of Cairo is of very uncertain date, probably considerably later than the period of Saladin". L. A. Meyer, Saracenic Heraldry (1933), p. 195, cited after The Flag Bulletin 24 (1985), p. 44. The eagle is headless, and is assumed to have originally been double-headed. The Cairo Citatel is not its original location, it has been transferred there from an unknown location at an unknown time prior to 1670. Nasser O. Rabbat, The Citadel of Cairo: A New Interpretation of Royal Mameluk Architecture (1995), p. 24.
- ↑ Amatzia Baram, Culture, History and Ideology in the Formation of Ba'thist Iraq, 1968-89, Springer (1991), p. 151 (note 15).
- ↑ Elie Podeh, The Politics of National Celebrations in the Arab Middle East, Cambridge University Press (2011), p. 87.
- ↑ "Ganzeer, an Egyptian graphics artist widely known for his revolutionary street art, explains, 'The current "Eagle of Saladin" emblem in the white band of the flag, however, wasn't used until 1984. Which means ... the current eagle on our flag belongs to Mubarak's regime.' This connection of the 'Eagle of Saladin' with the Mubarak regime provides the key to understanding this stencil piece." Samia Mehrez Translating Egypt’s Revolution: The Language of Tahrir (2012), p. 119.