ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1745
http://www.s-gabriel.org/1745
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16 May 1999
From:  (Josh Mittleman)


Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!

You asked for advice on designing period Middle Eastern heraldry.  This
letter is a brief answer to your question.

We can recommend a few sources for examples and discussion of Islamic
heraldry.  The best is:

  Leo A. Mayer, Saracenic Heraldry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933).

This book discusses heraldic insignia on ceramics, glassware, metalware,
and the like, but doesn't cover banners. 

The most easily available source is an article based on Mayer's book,
written for the SCA's Known World Heraldic Symposium Proceedings:

  Da'ud ibn Auda, "Muslim Heraldry, an Introduction", Known World Heraldic
  Symposium, June 17-19, 1988, Leavenworth, Kansas (SCA Inc., 1988).

The volume of proceedings that includes this article is available from Free
Trumpet Press, which you can find on the web at:

  http://www.sca.org/heraldry/ftpw/

Another book that may help you is:

  William Leaf, Heraldic symbols: Islamic insignia and western heraldry
  (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1986).

You wrote that you are interested in a banner in green, black, and silver
with your name in Arabic script.  That's a good start: These colors were
used in Islamic heraldry, and some arms did feature the owner's name in
Arabic script.  Arms which contained script did not contain
representational charges: It was always either one or the other.  For
example, a 15th century bowl bears four roundels each bearing arms which we
might blazon: On fess between the phrase "May his victory be glorious", the
name "al-Malik al-Ashraf Qaitbay", all in Arabic script.  Islamic arms are
often divided into three horizontal stripes that bear the charges or
script, and are often displayed on a round field [1, 2].  This example
might be a good model for your own arms.

We hope this brief letter has been useful.  Please write us again if you
have any questions.  I was assisted in researching and writing this letter
by Da'ud ibn Auda, Rouland Carre, and Zenobia Naphtali.

For the Academy,


  Arval Benicoeur
  16 May 1999


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References

[1] Da'ud ibn Auda, "Muslim Heraldry: An Introduction", Calontir Known
World Heraldic Symposium Proceedings (SCA, Inc, AS XXIII).

[2] Atil, Esin, _Renaissance of Islam, Art of the Mamluks_ (Washington, DC:
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981), pp.102-3.