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Religious Symbols

Star and Crescent

Polygram

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Origin 1200 BCE to 500 CE

The crescent with a star beside or within it is far older than Islam and was not originally Islamic at all. It appears on a Babylonian boundary stone of the twelfth century BCE, on the margins of Sasanian coins from the fifth century CE, and as a civic device of Byzantium and later Constantinople. Ottoman use of it as a state emblem begins under Mustafa III in the mid-eighteenth century and is fixed by the flag law of 1844; from there it passed to the successor states and, by the mid-twentieth century, was read as standing for Islam generally. It occurs nowhere in the Quran or the hadith, and a number of Muslim scholars reject it on precisely that ground.

Facts
Origins
Origin Period
1200 BCE to 500 CE 2
Place of Origin
Mesopotamia, for the astral device itself. 2
Adopted as an Emblem
From there it passed to the successor states 1Tradition: Islam
Adopted as an Emblem
Only by the mid-twentieth century was it read as standing for Islam generally 1Tradition: Islam
Adopted as an Emblem
Ottoman state use begins in the later eighteenth century and is fixed by the flag law of 1844 1Tradition: Islam
Form
Type of Symbol
Star or polygram 1
Type of Symbol
Astral figure: sun, moon or planet 1
Geometric Form
A crescent moon with a star set beside or within its horns 1
Geometric Form
Earlier astral versions vary 1
Geometric Form
The Ottoman and modern flag forms use a five-pointed star 1
Contested Use
Contested or Appropriated Modern Use
A number of Muslim scholars reject its use as an emblem of Islam on exactly that ground 1
Contested or Appropriated Modern Use
It occurs nowhere in the Qur'an or the hadith 1
Contested or Appropriated Modern Use
Its standing is an Ottoman inheritance, not a scriptural one 1
Learn More
Three Thousand Years Before Islam

The crescent with a star is one of the oldest astral devices in the record, and every layer of its early history is pre-Islamic.

The earliest well-known instance is Mesopotamian. On a boundary stone of Nebuchadnezzar I, of about the twelfth century BCE, a crescent and a star appear together in the standard divine triad: the crescent of the moon god Sin, the rayed disc of the sun god Shamash, and the star of Ishtar, the planet Venus. These three appear at the head of countless kudurru stones, invoked as guarantors of a land grant. The device is a legal formula as much as a religious one.

It recurs across the Iranian world. From the fifth century CE the star and crescent appears in the marginal decoration of Sasanian coinage and remains in use there for four hundred years, which puts it in continuous circulation across the territory that Islam would later govern.

Independently, a crescent was a civic badge of Byzantium, the Greek city on the Bosphorus, and appears on its coinage from the Hellenistic period, sometimes with an eight-rayed star inside the horns. Later legend attached the crescent to a moonlit night on which the city was saved from a besieger, which is the sort of explanation cities invent for devices whose origins they have forgotten.

None of these traditions is connected to the others by anything but the sky. The crescent and the evening star are simply the two most conspicuous things in it, and it is unsurprising that unrelated cultures drew them together.

How It Became Islamic, and the Objection to It

The star and crescent is not an Islamic symbol in origin, in scripture, or in law. There is no verse of the Quran and no hadith that assigns any emblem to the religion, and the visual culture of early Islam is calligraphic rather than emblematic: the shahada, the name of God, and geometric ornament do the work that a badge does elsewhere.

The transition is Ottoman and it is late. Ottoman state use of the star and crescent begins in the reign of Mustafa III, in the third quarter of the eighteenth century, becomes established under Abdul Hamid I, and is formalised by the Ottoman flag law of 1844, which fixed the red field with white crescent and star. Before that the Ottomans had used a variety of devices, including multiple crescents and the sword of Ali.

Because the Ottoman Empire was for centuries the most visible Islamic polity to European eyes, its state emblem was read abroad as the emblem of the religion, and that reading hardened during the nineteenth century. When the empire's relief service needed a counterpart to the Red Cross it used the crescent, which further fixed the equation. The successor states of the empire, and later a number of unrelated Muslim-majority countries, adopted crescents on their flags on the same understanding.

The objection from within is straightforward and is worth stating. A number of Muslim scholars reject the crescent as a symbol of Islam precisely because it has no scriptural basis and because it originates in the astral religion the faith displaced. That position is a minority one in practice but it is not a fringe argument, and it explains why the symbol is absent from Saudi and several other flags.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Babylonians, Cultures

This source names Babylonians directly: "The crescent with a star beside or within it is far older than Islam and was not originally Islamic at all."

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Constantinople, Cities

This source names Constantinople directly: "a civic device of Byzantium and later Constantinople."

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Belongs to Tradition

Islam, Religions
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Rejected Here

Salafism, Denominations

Salafi argument treats the crescent as a later borrowing with no warrant in the sources, and refuses the use of any emblem to stand for the religion at all.

Source Global Salafism: Islam's New Religious MovementRoel Meijer (ed.)
Wahhabism, Denominations

The Najdi reform recognises no emblem for the faith, which is why the state that carries the movement bears the declaration of faith and a sword on its flag and no crescent.

Source The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi ArabiaDavid Commins

Symbol Of

Islam, Religions

The star and crescent is widely used as an emblem of Islam and of Muslim-majority states.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of World ReligionsJohn Bowker (ed.)
Sources
1. The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition
P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds.), Brill, 2005s.v. HilalView the Source
2. Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005Entry on astral symbolism in Mesopotamian religion: the triad of the moon god Sin, the sun god Shamash and Ishtar as Venus
Quote, Entry on astral symbolism in Mesopotamian religion: the triad of the moon god Sin, the sun god Shamash and Ishtar as Venus
The crescent, the rayed disc and the star appear together as the standard divine triad on Kassite boundary stones, invoked as guarantors of a grant of land.
View the Source
The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
John Bowker (ed.), Oxford University Press, 1997View the Source
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