The thing with the Iranian flag...

The Iranian flag with its 3 different known versions, manifests different political streams, but as far as I know, not many actually know the meaning of the symbols they so vehemently insist on hissing. There are surely many different stories to them depending on who you ask, but we shall simply tear down the wall of made up realities and hope to plant the seed of awareness so certain versions are let go to drift into history where it belongs.


One is the pre-revolutionary tricolor with the Lion and the sun emblem holding a sword. The story behind this emblem started in 1795 when the founder of the “Kajar” dynasty…Agha-Mohammad Shah, started his military campaign against the “Zand” dynasty using his tribal emblem a red “Lion and the Sun ” (taken over from the Afshar Dynasty with a few changes) to announce who and what he represents. As he successfully conquered different towns, provinces and cities,  he started to demand loyalty and allegiance from different tribes and cities he still had not attacked and asked them to join him in battle so as to establish his new reign/rule/ kingdom/dynasty... and in order to have them recognized in a battlefield, they were advised to carry the "Lion and Sun" as their sign of political allegiance... alongside the Iranian tricolor...The emblem was then called the "Kajar" emblem, Someone came up with the idea of stamping it on the white area of the flag to save a second flag and that nobody can hide it if a battle goes south, so that is the way it found its way upon the Iranian tricolor flag.... This move may have been a temporary measure to tactically ease the way to the throne, but since his legendary antipathy towards the “Zand“ dynasty was very personal in nature, the reasons of which was also known to all other tribal leaders, so the other tribal commanders and leaders kept up with this gesture (keeping the “Lion & the Sun” emblem on their national flags) until it became a normality.


The reason for Agha-Mohammad Shah’s unforgivable approach towards the "Zand" dynasty may lie in the fact that he was a Eunuch and had to serve in their (Zand) Harems since his “Aunt“ was one of their wives. However, over a hundred and some years later, when the Pahlavi dynasty took over (through a quite coup), they did not want or could not simply break with existing facts so they simply added a sword into the hands of the existing "Kajar" emblem and made it their own.. One very unflattering issue about this flag version was the appearance of Iran’s fifth column using this emblem fighting alongside the Iraqis against Iran in Iran’s last national war.



The other version of Iran's flag, is the post Revolutionary tricolor with the word “God” as a symbolic emblem in the middle, having replaced the Kajar emblem. It was designed by a Mr H. Nadimi and approved by Iran's Parliament. The logic behind this emblem is a simple calligraphic encryption  which translates into "There is no God but God" using four crescents to illustrate and its optical resemblance to the name of "God" is also visible which is also probably wanted. One argues that since the revolution and because of the 8 year war against Iraq and the World, including the fact that two generations of Iranians fought under this flag letting their lives to safeguard the territorial integrity and honor of Iran, so disrespecting this flag, equals disrespecting their bloods and sacrifices. There are people who consider this argument as a bit harsh, but one has to consider the wounds of this war to be too fresh for hundreds of thousands of families who suffered grave loses in Iran. True Iranians would respect and recognize the feelings.



The third Version of Iran's Flag is the one without any emblem, often preferred by those Iranians who consider themselves not affiliated with any political stream, those hissing and claiming this flag are usually outside of Iran, and the flag is simply a mean to distance themselves from the politically motivated psychological rivalry between the pros and contras of Iran's system of Government. One might think it all ridiculously unnecessary, but as long as the big powers insist on permanently ganging up on Iran by recognizing and actively supporting truly irrelevant and far away from Iran for too long, members of so called opposition movements hissing their own versions of flags and nostalgic realities, these 3 versions will keep making the rounds.