The image is a website banner. It reads: “silsilat al-liqa’ [al-]ta‘rifi ma‘a al-shaykh al-duktur muhammad al-mas‘ari; akthar min ‘ashara ajza’” (“series of introductory meetings with shaykh Dr. Muhammad al-Mas‘ari; more than ten parts”). Dr. Muhammad al-Mas‘ari is a Saudi Arabian dissident whose website, tajdeed.net, posts reports from al-Qa’ida’s frontline in Iraq and hosts videos of the suicide bombings and beheadings that take place there (cf. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/4700911.stm).
Depicting the Saudi state alone (left), without bordering countries or bodies of water, emphasizes the national context and scope of that specific regional jihad. The country is colored green, which is considered the traditional color of the Prophet Muhammad’s tribe, and which has been adopted as a sacred color based on Qur’anic verses (76:21; 18:65-82) and a reliable hadith (prophetic tradition or report) that associates green with “universally good things.” The color is also related to jihadi doctrine, as it is believed that while the corpses of martyrs lay in their graves, their souls are to be put into the bodies of green birds that drink from the rivers of Eden and eat from its fruit.
