Maronite flag

Maronite Flag

Adopted	1848;177 years ago (1848) 1913;112 years ago (1913)
Design	A white field charged with a green and brown Lebanese cedar tree.

There have been several Maronite flags throughout history, although the most documented is the cedar flag which is believed to have been created in the 18th century, its first recorded use was in October 1848. ^{[1] [2]} The cedar flag was also raised as the first national flag of Lebanon on October 2, 1918, following the fall of the Ottoman Empire. ^{[3] [4]}

Cedar flag

See also: Flag of Lebanon § History

The cedar flag goes back to the 18th century as a Maronite symbol under the Ottoman Empire. ^{[5] [6] [7] [8] [9]} The 1913 version of the flag was proposed by two Lebanese Brazilian journalists, Shukri El Khoury and Naoum Labaki, who were both part of the Mahjar movement in the Americas, to be the national flag of Lebanon. The flag was raised on November 2, 1918, following the expulsion of Ottoman troops from Mount Lebanon and was hung in the Administrative Council (Majlis) of Mount Lebanon until May 1919. ^[10] The flag and government were eventually succeeded by the state of Greater Lebanon in 1920. ^[11]

The flag was also used by the second Lebanese delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, led by the Maronite patriarch Elias Peter Hoayek, ^[12] to petition for an independent Lebanese state separate from the Arab kingdom of Faisal I. ^[11]

Symbolism

Lebanon League of Progress Executive Committee in São Paulo, (1914)

The flag has a simple design with two main features:

• The white background represents the snow of Mount Lebanon as a symbol of purity and peace.
• The cedar is based on the national symbol of the Maronite Christians, the Cedrus libani. ^[13] The cedars of Lebanon are mentioned seventy-seven times in the Bible, especially in the book of Psalms, chapter 92, verse 13, where it says that "The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree, He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon" ^[14] and chapter 104, verse 16, where it is stated: "[t]he trees of the Lord are well watered, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted". ^[15]

Cross flag

Maronite Cross flag according to Prince Ferdinand Tyan

Gérard de Nerval described a Maronite flag with a red banner and white cross in his 1851 travel book Voyage to the Orient. ^[16]

Prince Ferdinand Tyan, nephew of Maronite Patriarch Joseph Tyan, wrote about the Maronite cross flag in his 1916 work "The entente cordiale in Lebanon" describing it as “A white cross on a champ de gueules.” ^[17] Tyan also mentioned the flag in his 1917 book "France et Liban: défense des intérêts français en Syrie" where he advocated for an autonomous Mount Lebanon protectorate within a French controlled Syrian state with the provisions of it being ruled by a Lebanese emir with the Maronite flag flying over Beirut. ^[18]

Flag under Bashir Shihab II

Maronite flag under Emir Bashir Shihab II

On 30 January 1830, Emir Bashir Shihab II was fighting against the sheikhs of Nablus who were rebelling against Abdallah Pasha, the Ottoman governor of Akka and Sidon. Five hundred men came from Deir al-Qamar and the surrounding districts but they gathered first in the Maronite Church of Notre-Dame of Talle. There they presented their flag “red and white, with a golden sphere with a cross above it near the top of the design.” The flag was carried by Wehbe Eid Boustani of Deir al-Qamar. ^[19]

Gallery

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See also

• Maronites
• Flag of Lebanon
• Lebanese nationalism

References

1. "Cedar Flag 1918 (Historical Flags, Lebanon)". crwflags.com. 2020-07-31. After XVII century the flag (white) with cedar was used by the Maronite Christians. But the first attested use is dated only to October 1848.
2. Burton, A; Nehme, Joseph; Kelly, Ralph (1996). "Cedar Tree Green - Lebanon". Crux Australis. 12/2 (50): 78–96. In the 18th and 19th centuries (AD) Maronite Christians in Lebanon used a white flag displaying a Cedar.
3. "Flags and banners". lebarmy.gov.lb. Lebanese Armed Forces. December 2016.
4. Rinkevičius, Šarūnas (2023). "The Collective Memory of the Maronite Community in the 21st Century: an Anthropological Perspective". Hemispheres. Studies on Cultures and Societies. 38 (2449): 35–58. doi:10.60018/Hemi.RBCU8003. Of course, the Maronites played a huge role there as well – for example, if we look at their flag, the cedar, it became the flag of Lebanon.
5. Sorek, Tamir (30 June 2004). "The orange and the 'Cross in the Crescent': imagining Palestine in 1929". Nations and Nationalism. 10 (3). ASEN: 269–291. doi:10.1111/j.1354-5078.2004.00167.x.
6. Foley, Michael P. (2005). Why Do Catholics Eat Fish on Friday?: The Catholic Origin to Just About Everything. Hampshire, England: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 133. ISBN   9781466886735. In the eighteenth century the Maronites used a white flag with a cedar tree in the center
7. Brown, Frances Z. (16 May 2005). "Double vision in Beirut". www.khaleejtimes.com. Galadari Printing and Publishing LLC. But some Lebanese are troubled that the flag itself is descendent of an 18th century Maronite flag
8. Minahan, James B. (2016). Encyclopedia of Stateless Nations: Ethnic and National Groups Around the World. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. p. 262. ISBN   9781610699549. The Maronite flag is a white field bearing a centered green-and-brown cedar tree.
9. Smith, Whitney (1980). Flags and Arms Across the World (1st ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 130. ISBN   978-0070590946. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Maronite Christians used a white flag bearing a cedar.
10. National Eucharistic Congress (1941). The National Eucharistic Congress: Volume 9, Part 1941. Falcon Heights, Minnesota: National Eucharistic Congress. p. 116.
11. "Histoire du drapeau libanais" (PDF). mémoires. pp. 92–93. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 November 2014.
12. "Lebanese Flag story". minbaladeh.world.
13. Mumford, Simon; Baines, Francesca; Letsu, Philip; ElNaggar, Jennette, eds. (2021). Complete Flags of the World: The Ultimate Pocket Guide. New York, New York: DK. p. 240. ISBN   9780744060010. Specifically, the cedar is the symbol of the country's Maronite Christian community.
14. "The Bible" . Retrieved 27 October 2014.
15. "The Bible" . Retrieved 27 October 2014.
16. de Nerval, Gérard (1884). Voyage en Orient, Volume 1: Les femmes de Caire; Druses et Maronites. Paris, France: Calmann-Lévy. p. 293.
17. Tyan, Ferdinand (1916). The Entente Cordiale in Lebanon. Adelphi Terrace: T. Fisher Unwin. pp. 12–13.
18. Tyan, Ferdinand (1917). France et Liban: Défense des intérêts Français en Syrie. Paris, France: Perrin. p. 77.
19. Burton, A; Nehme, Joseph; Kelly, Ralph (1996). "Cedar Tree Green - Lebanon". Crux Australis. 12/2 (50): 78–96.

Further reading

• Nehmé, Joseph (1995): Le drapeau libanais: A Travers les Siècles, Dayr al-Qumr (Lebanon) (in French and Arabic)