Saudi Arabia vs Iran Flag

Key Differences

• ✕Saudi Arabia's flag is a single solid green field; Iran's flag is a horizontal tricolor of green, white, and red.
• ✕Saudi Arabia's flag features the Islamic shahada (declaration of faith) and a horizontal sword in white; Iran's central emblem is a red stylized symbol designed in 1980, not a textual inscription.
• ✕Iran's flag carries 22 repetitions of the takbir phrase along the borders of the green and red stripes — Saudi Arabia's flag has no repeated border script.
• ✕Saudi Arabia uses Thuluth calligraphy; Iran's border inscriptions are in a stylized Kufic script.
• ✕Saudi Arabia's flag is intentionally never flown at half-mast or printed on disposable items because it bears the shahada; Iran's flag has no such religious-text restriction.
• ✕Saudi Arabia's flag has a 2:3 ratio with the script and sword reading correctly on both sides (it is a two-sided flag); Iran's flag is also 4:7 ratio with symmetric text that can be read from either side.

Similarities

• ✓Both flags use green as a primary color, a color long associated with Islam.
• ✓Both flags feature Arabic script as a central design element.
• ✓Both flags have specific religious significance encoded in their design.
• ✓Both flags require careful handling under their national flag laws.
• ✓Both flags have aspect ratios in the same general range (2:3 and 4:7).

Why Do Saudi Arabia and Iran Flags Look So Similar?

People often search for these two flags together because both belong to large Muslim-majority countries with politically significant green flags that include Arabic script. The shared use of green reflects an old association in Islamic art and heraldry, where green has appeared on banners since the early caliphates and was the favored color of the Fatimid dynasty. Arabic script is a natural vehicle for ideological inscriptions in both countries, since Arabic is a sacred language in Islam (even though Iran's everyday language is Persian, its religious inscriptions remain in Arabic). The visual similarity ends there: Saudi Arabia uses a single green field as the entire backdrop for the shahada and sword, while Iran uses the broader Pan-Iranian green-white-red palette inherited from earlier Iranian flags going back to the 1900s. The flags are best understood as cousins within Islamic flag traditions rather than near-duplicates.

Color Comparison

Fun Facts

• 💡Saudi Arabia's flag is one of only a handful of national flags in the world that is manufactured with two correct-reading sides instead of being identical on both sides.
• 💡Because the Saudi flag bears the shahada, FIFA and other international bodies have at times accommodated requests not to print the flag on items like footballs or merchandise.
• 💡Iran's central emblem on the flag is a single stylized word — 'Allah' — designed so that when you turn the symbol on its side, it reads as the word and shows four crescents and a sword.
• 💡The number 22 on Iran's flag (11 takbir phrases on each of the green and red borders) refers to the 22nd day of Bahman in the Iranian calendar — the day the 1979 revolution succeeded.
• 💡Both countries use the color green for very different reasons: in Saudi Arabia it ties to the Najdi heritage of the House of Saud; in Iran it has long been associated with Iranian national identity even before the Islamic Republic.

Frequently Asked Questions