This is the coat-of-arms of King Faisal I of Iraq The breast star to the left and right above the arms on the manteau is the Wisam al-Rafidain or the Honorable Order of the Two Rivers which the king founded in 1922. An image of the grand cordon and star of the order can be seen here:
As well as the arms of his son King Ghazi, and his grandson King Faisal II (last King of Iraq).
So that is what they stand for? I have usually seen them described as two stars to stand for Kurds and Arabs. Interesting to compare them with the national flag at the time:
http://flagspot.net/images/i/iq_39.gif
More images if anyone is interested:
Chief of the General Staff of the Army (again featuring the two stars)
Also, Military Rank Insignia of this period:
Example, showing the theme of these stars again:
http://uniforminsignia.net/_i/iraq-army-old_14.gif
Rank Insignia of a General (Fariq Awal) of the Royal Iraqi Army.
Regards,
I had not even considered that the stars on the flag of the Kingdom of Iraq had anything to do with the Wisam al-Rafidain. Could it be a coincidence that the star of the order on the coat-of-arms has seven points and the stars on the flag have seven points? Could the two stars on the flag represent a claim to the Kingdom of Syria from which Faisal was deposed in 1920 and his new Kingdom of Iraq?
MohamedHossam wrote:
As well as the arms of his son King Ghazi, and his grandson King Faisal II (last King of Iraq).
So that is what they stand for? I have usually seen them described as two stars to stand for Kurds and Arabs. Interesting to compare them with the national flag at the time:
http://flagspot.net/images/i/iq_39.gif
More images if anyone is interested:
Chief of the General Staff of the Army (again featuring the two stars)
Also, Military Rank Insignia of this period:
Example, showing the theme of these stars again:
http://uniforminsignia.net/_i/iraq-army-old_14.gif
Rank Insignia of a General (Fariq Awal) of the Royal Iraqi Army.
Regards,
The rank insignia is influenced by the Brittish, with the "pip" replaced by a star and the baton replaced by a sword.
http://www.uniforminsignia.net/_u/unitedkingdom-army_16.gif
Rank insignia of a Brittish general, from the uniforminsignia.net.
Isn’t the descendent of this king alive and well? I seem to remember that when we overthrew the Saddam Hussein regime that he and his party were in the public papers and on TV talking about a restoration of the monarchy in a limited way when the discussions of a newly created political regime and constitution were begun. I seem to remember that…maybe it was in regards to Afghanistan instead…I forget which now…
**OT** Mohamed, I am almost finished with your achievement now. After the several renovations we’ve made it is coming out great. I can not scan it in and email it to you, as I put my scanner into the shop for repair by the ‘Geek Squad’ people. Sorry about that. But when I am totally finished I will let you know and mail it out. I am thinking this will happen either Monday or Tuesday. I’ll let you know when it was sent. 
The former king of Afghanistan, Muhammad Zahir Shah, is still alive and was involved in trying to unite the country after the ouster of the Taliban.
The immediate family of the last Iraqi king was massacred after the 1958 revolution. A cousin of the last king, Prince Ra’ad bin Zayd, would be the heir according to European rules of primogeniture and the pre-revolutionary constitution, but there’s also another, more distant cousin named Ali bin Al-Hussein who leads a political party called the Iraqi Constitutional Monarchy and had (has?) aspirations of his own. I think Sharif Ali was involved in the transitional government. There has also been support expressed to put former Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan (brother of the late King Hussein, uncle of the current King of Jordan, and another distant cousin of the Iraqi royal family) on the throne. I don’t think any of these has has a snowball’s chance in Fallujah of happening.
Would have been a bit reminsicent of the placing German princes (of which there were like a million and one 
) on the thrones of various Balkan and other nations, dontcha think? Of the top of my head I can name Greece (Bavarian prince Otto), Albanian (Wilhelm zu Wied), Romania (Hohenzollern), and Bulgaria (Saxe-Coburg-Gotha). Correct me if I am wrong, please!
Regards,
Placing the original Faisal bin al-Hussein (Faisal I) on the Iraqi throne was even more of an alien transplantation than bringing in Ali or Hassan would be today. I don’t think Faisal had ever been to Iraq before the British rigged the referendum calling him to the throne. Remember that he was the principal leader of the Arab Revolt (see Lawrence of Arabia—Sharif Faisal is the chap who looks just like Obi-Wan Kenobi ). Faisal was originally intended by the Brits to take the throne of Syria, but under the Sykes-Picot agreement the French were given authority over Syria, and the French Republic was having nothing to do with setting up a monarchy on its turf. So the British essentially gave Faisal Iraq as a consolation prize, but neither he nor his family previously had anything to do with Iraq, and some of the indigenous Iraqi notables were not too pleased at having him imposed on them.
Lawrence of Arabia, terrific movie!
However, to be honest, was there ever actually an Iraq? It was actualy made by combining the Ottoman Vilayets (provinces) of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra (which I think accounts for most of the violence going on nowadays.)
I saw a map once done by T.E Lawrence himself which showed the partitions as he would have had them,here It was a rather pleasant experience to go to the FOTW page, and read under the information "Joseph McMillan" and think, "I know him!" Always nice to have a fellow FOTW-er aboard. To see the only example of my work on the FOTW go to the page about historic Hawaiian flags, about King Kalakua’s Royal Standard.
I hope to soon post on the Heraldry of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
Regards,
Hmm. Very interesting. So, and please forgive my serious ignorance here, but did this pre-existing three state Iraq have any autonomy from Turkey? If so did they have heraldry at least in the Turkish/Ottoman manner? Or was it split with that in the north and say a more Persian influence in the south and east?
After 1864, these three vilayets or provinces were governed by a vali or governor appointed by the Ottoman Emperor. It is interesting that the Ottoman Emperor and his councilors saw the wisdom of dividing this region, that would someday compose the future country of Iraq, into three provinces of similar ethnic composition.
As for the question as to who influenced which part of present day Iraq more when it comes to heraldry or official symbols, it is hard to say exactly which foreign culture influenced the Iraqis more. Here are examples of Persian and Turkish symbolism taken from the book Flags of the Maritime Nations 1899:
The Persian ensign:
http://img214.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc00176hf3.jpg
The Turkish Imperial Standard:
http://img215.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc00178mh8.jpg
and one very colourful and interesting Arabic flag from the same book, the standard of the Bey of Tunis:
Very interesting, thanks David.
The emblem on the Bey’s standard is the Zhul Faqar, the Sword of Ali.
BTW, those circles/roundles are actually crescents. It was common in depictions of foreign (and to western minds, exotic) flags to be not so accurate.
But it is an extremely interesting book, vexillology is brought me to heraldry!
Regards,
