What is the origin of the crescent moon symbol seen throughout Islamic cultures?

• ISLAM emerged in Arabia where travel along the desert trade routes was largely by night, and navigation depended upon the position of the moon and stars. The moon thus represents the guidance of God on the path through life. The new moon also represents the Muslim calendar, which has 12 months each of 29 or 30 days. So in Islam the lunar month and the calendar month coincide, and the new moon is eagerly awaited, especially at the end of the month of Ramadan when its sighting means that the celebrations of 'Id al-Fitr can begin.
Linda and Phil Holmes, Cottingham, N Humberside.
• THE USE of the so-called crescent moon in many Islamic symbols cannot be related to the importance attached to the new moon in Islam. The moon depicted on, e.g. many Islamic flags is the old moon, the reverse shape of the new moon, which is like a letter C backwards. Again 'crescent,' implying 'increasing,' is properly applicable only to the young moon: the old moon is diminishing in phase. Presumably the moon is depicted as a crescent in Islamic, and many other, contexts as that shape is unambiguously lunar.
A A Davis, London SW7.
• ALTHOUGH the crescent is indeed a very widespread motif in Islamic iconography, it is not Islamic in origin nor exclusive to that religion. The emblem has been used in Christian art for many centuries in depictions of the Virgin Mary, for example. It is in fact one of the oldest icons in human history, having been known in graphic depictions since at least as early as the Babylonian period in Mesopotamia. The stele of Ur Namu, for example, dating from 2100 BC, includes the crescent moon to symbolise the god Sin, along with a star representing Shamash, the sun god. Later the moon became a female deity, typified by the goddess Artemis and her many counterparts, including Diana, who was celebrated as the moon-goddess in Roman times and depicted with a crescent on her brow. The device seems to have entered Islam via the Seljuk Turks who dominated Anatolia in the 12th century, and was widely used by their successors, the Ottoman Turks, who eventually became the principal Islamic nation, and whose Sultan held the title of Caliph until 1922. The story that the Ottomans adopted the crescent to symbolise their conquest of Constantinople must be dismissed as mere legend, since the device considerably predates 1453. In the late 19th century the Pan-Islamic movement sponsored by the Sultan Abdul Hamid II used the crescent and star on a green flag as part of its propaganda, and from this were derived the flags of Egypt and Pakistan and many other Islamic states.
William G Crampton, Director of the Flag Institute, Chester.
• A DETAILED answer will be found in the entry 'Hilal' Encyclopaedia of Islam (second edition, Brill, Leiden, 1960). Professor Richard Ettinghausen, writer of the entry, notes that crescent moon (hilal) motif is featured with a five or six pointed star (the latter known as Solomon's shield in the Islamic world ) on early Islamic coins circa 695 AD, but it carried no distinct Islamic connotation. Some 500 years later, it appears in association with various astrological/astronomical symbols on 12th century Islamic metal-work, but when depicted in manuscript painting, held by a seated man, it is thought to represent the authority of a high court official: 'the sun [is] to the king and the moon [is] to the vizier ... ' Its use as a roof finial on Islamic buildings also dates from this medieval period but the motif still had no specific religious meaning as it decorated all types of architecture, secular as well as religious. In fact Ettinghausen argues that it was the European assumption that this was a religious and national emblem that led to several Muslim governments adopting it officially during the 19th century.
(Dr) Patricia Baker, Farnham, Surrey.

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