Hadith of black flags: what Wikipedia removed
The hadith of black flags, an Islamic apocalyptic tradition about an army bearing black banners, whose black flag imagery modern jihadist organizations including ISIS have adopted. Through October 6 2023 the opening said the Black Standard “as used by various Islamist organisations (since the late 1990s) consists of a white-on-black shahada.” The word appears nowhere in the article today. A reader today does not learn that modern Islamist organizations have used this apocalyptic flag symbolism since the late 1990s.
The word “islamist” appeared 1 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2020. Today it appears nowhere in the article at all, references included. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01.
The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot
Section titled “The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot”| word | 2020 | 6 October 2023 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| islamist | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| jihad | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Counts are of the opening paragraph only, the part most readers, search engines and AI training sets ever quote.
What was taken out
Section titled “What was taken out”- The statement that modern Islamist organizations have used the Black Standard since the late 1990s left the opening.
- An older phrasing of the opening sentence, dropped when the article was rewritten.
- The statement that modern jihadist groups identify themselves with the black banner tradition left the opening.
How it opened then, and now
Section titled “How it opened then, and now”2020 (revision 951932621):
The Black Standard as used by various Islamist organisations (since the late 1990s) consists of a white-on-black shahada . Hadith of black flags ( Arabic : أحاديث الرايات السود) is a motif featured in Islamic apocalyptics , about people carrying black banners. Originally, probably identifying followers of the Abbasid Revolution , modern jihadistic groups often identify themselves with the black banners. ^ Donner, F. (1986). Black Banners from the East: The Establishment of the ’Abbāsid State–Incubation of a Revolt, by Moshe Sharon. (The Max Schloessinger Memorial Series, monograph 2.) The Magnes Press, Jerusalem; E. J. Brill, Leiden1983. Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, 20(1), 73-75…
2025 (revision 1276373828):
Islamic apocalyptic eschatological motif The Black Standard flown by the Abbasid armies The hadith of black flags or black banners are a body of purported eschatological hadith (traditions attributed to Muhammad ) that describe an army emerging from Khorasan or “the east” bearing black flags, typically preceding the appearance of the Mahdi . Both Western scholarship and Muslim hadith scholars consider the traditions to be spurious. The medieval Muslim scholar Ibn al-Jawzi considered them to be forgeries. The Abbasids used the traditions to legitimise and marshal support for their revolution against the Umayyad Caliphate , widely disseminating them through propaganda. The Abbasid partisans of…
Related
Section titled “Related”- The drift report: what changed across all 61,944 watched articles
- The case file for this article, with every snapshot and every marked removal
- Who made the cuts: removals grouped by the account that made them
- The live article on Wikipedia
Wikipedia text is quoted under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is not affiliated with Wikipedia.