Shamelessly transparent symbolism is a rather common theme among flags of the world. It often isn't meant to be obscure - rather, it's meant to be seen and easily understood, to fill the heart of any countryman with warm, finger-licking good patriotism. Take Ukraine, for example, whose flag depicting two horizontal stripes of sky blue and gold could easily be seen as a field of Ukrainian steppe wheat, stretching unto the horizon under a sky of purest blue. Or Nauru, whose flag acts something like a map, showing you that yes, Nauru does, in fact, exist. Or even Somalia, a simple five-pointed star on a United Nations blue background, which more or less sums up that country's fate as a ward of the UN.
Rarely, though, do country flags ever reach the kind of beating-you-over-the-head-with-a-cudgel irredentist symbolism that the Comoros achieves. After Mayotte declined to join the island union in 1975, the remaining three Comoran islands chose a flag that more or less ignored their decision entirely; an Islamic crescent on a deep green background, with four stars running in a line between each crescent point. One star per island component, presumably. One could have been forgiven for assuming that this flag, while not necessary representing reality, nonetheless represented the dreams and aspirations of the Comoros in integrating Mayotte with the rest of the islands. Let the people have their flag of dreams.
Shortly after independence, a certain Bob Denard, as outlined in the writeup above, inserted himself rather rudely into the country's political mechanisms, and ruled as a power-behind-the-throne until being chased out in 1989. This left a shambles of a political process in his wake, necessitating the re-writing of the nation's constitution, which was approved in December 2001 and included greater autonomy for each of the three major islands of Moheli, Anjouan and Grand Comore. In addition to, or possibly in compensation for this, a further amendment to the nation's flag was included. The original design of crescent-and four stars would be kept as a dark green triangle in the hoist. However, to make it absolutely, utterly clear to any layman about the country's true geographic composition, now this hopeful symbolism of four would be overlaid over four brightly coloured horizontal stripes - yellow, white, red and blue, each coloured stripe representing one of the four islands the Comoros would like to own. As a humourous sidenote, the staunchly Muslim nation is now one flag colour away from showing their Gay Pride.
This resulted in an island nation comprised of three islands being represented by a flag containing four stars and four stripes, one per island, in what amounts to either large amounts of denial or optimism. Yes, Comoros, I get it. You want to include Mayotte. I understand. But you really don't need to smack me silly with your hopes and dreams. Three stars probably would have done just fine.