Before the state was complete…
Its flag was drawn.
Not a mistake.
Not haste.
But because the one who drew it understood what the historians yet to understand:
Nations are not drawn after they are complete…
Nations are complete because they were drawn!
1928.
No established borders yet.
No guaranteed sovereignty.
No one knows what will remain of this spot
after the empires finish dividing their dreams.
And the whole world redrawing itself in ink and blood.
Yet…
In that very moment…
The triangle was drawn.
The colors spread.
The star was placed at the heart.
As if the one who drew was saying:
We are not here by anyone's permission.
We are here because we were written!
Black first.
Not a color of mourning.
But color of the states that passed here and ruled:
The Abbasids.
The Rightly Guided.
Everyone who said “This land is ours”…
Then they left.
Then, the white.
The purity of a promise.
The whiteness of a given word.
Color of everyone who believed that the truth would be declared someday
on a flag that is never folded!
Then the green.
The most ancient and most enduring of colors.
It was here before maps.
And it will remain after them.
Because green needs no one's permission
to be!
As for the red…
It's not a color.
Red is the price.
The price paid so that the other colors
remain in their place.
Red is not explained.
Red is paid!
And the triangle.
It was not placed casually on the side.
The triangle is not an ornament.
The triangle is a wedge!
What enters like a wedge…
Nobody removes it easily.
This flag does not ask for a place.
It secures itself in place!
The dream once said: One nation.
One flag.
One heart beating from the ocean to the gulf.
Then geography broke.
And the earth cracked on maps not drawn by their owners.
And capitals fell that thought themselves eternal.
And ideologies screamed then fell silent.
And revolutions rose in the name of dawn…
But brought a night longer and harsher.
But one thing did not change:
These colors.
This triangle.
This star in this particular heart!
When dreams fail, they are buried.
Except when they are drawn on a flag.
Here… they are not buried.
Here they are raised every morning
as if nothing had happened!
The star.
Seven points.
Not a random number.
Seven because unity was never a single geographical place.
It was always a coalition of layers:
Tribes.
Regions.
History.
Faith.
Promise.
Blood.
And hope.
Each point bearing its weight.
And all together forming one shape that does not fall apart!
And in the center of the star…
Seven words.
Spoken since the dawn of Islam.
Said in the cave.
In battle.
Above pulpits.
And in the last breaths of those who departed.
Placed in the heart of the flag
Not to be read…
But to remind:
Whoever holds the Opening in his heart
Does not fear what comes after it!
A full century.
And the region has not stopped asking.
It asked about borders…
And the borders changed.
It asked about regimes…
And regimes fell.
It asked about identity…
And identities were lost.
It asked about the future…
And the future brought more questions.
And every time the region asked…
This flag waved
above all that noise
in a silence that doesn't resemble weakness.
It resembles certainty!
It did not answer a single question.
Because it was never asked in the first place!
Not because it does not know…
But because the question itself
does not concern it!
A state that is built on an answer…
Is surrounded by it when the questions change.
And one that is built on a question…
Is drained in it when no answer is found.
But one that was written before the questions…
Does not know confrontation.
Nor does it know depletion.
It does not prove itself…
It negates the need for proof!
Today is the day of the flag.
But this flag does not need a day.
The day needs it!
Every day when this flag is raised
becomes the day of the flag.
Every child who looks at it without knowing the history
carries all history without feeling it.
Because it is possessed and indwelling in it!
Every wind that moves it
carries with it a century of resilience
in one flutter!
The questions will return.
They always return.
About identity.
About borders.
About meaning.
About what’s next?
But what was written before all the questions…
Is not shaken by any of them.
The triangle will remain a wedge.
And the colors will continue to carry their prices.
And the star will remain in the heart unmovable.
And the seven words will start everything
and never end.
Because what is written as an answer… gets replaced when the question changes.
And what is written as an explanation… is debated when understanding changes.
But what is written before being asked —
Is neither replaced.
Nor debated.
Nor defeated.
It just flutters…
As it always has.
And as it will continue to be!
