Black Standard

The Black Standard

The Black Banner or Black Standard (Arabic: الراية السوداء, romanized: ar-rāyat as-sawdāʾ, also known as راية العقاب (rāyat al-ʿuqāb, "banner of the eagle" or simply as ‏الراية‎, ar-rāyah, "the banner") is one of the flags flown by the Islamic prophet Muhammad according to Muslim tradition. It was historically used by Abu Muslim in his uprising leading to the Abbasid Revolution in 747 and is therefore associated with the Abbasid Caliphate in particular. It is also a symbol in Islamic eschatology (heralding the advent of the Mahdi) though this tradition is weak according to hadithic standards.^[1]