Talk:Crescent

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Rather crude diagrams.
also, I think the radii of the circles are not the same; the "inside" one has

a larger radius - obviously! David Martland 22:46 Dec 10, 2002 (UTC)

Er, I would say that there are two crescents.. one that is a circle of the same size covering all but the edge of a circle, the other is a circle with a -SMALLER- circle taken out of it.

    _________
      \__    \____
         \__      \_
            \_      \_
              \       \
               \       \
                |       \
                |        |
                 |       |
                 |       |
                |        |
                |       /
               /       /
             _/      _/
          __/      _/
       __/    ____/
    __/______/

OK, the ASCII crescent is moved here and I drew a new image for the article (FEAR MY ART SKILLS! XP). --Lorenzarius 13:42 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)

exploitation of symbol by Western clothing companies

Isn't the moon crescent being exploited by clothing companies? Really, I have seen several T-shirts with the symbol on them...

everything i have read with regards to the symbol of the crescent and the star is that originated in byzantium. the crescent was adopted as the symbol of the greek colony of byzantium after they were saved by the light of the moon from a sneak attack from philip of macedon (alexander the greats father) during the fourth centurt B.C. later, in the fourth century A.D. when constantine the great was rebuilding the city of byzantium as his new capital he added the star as a symbol of the virgin mary who was to be the guardian of the city. when the ottomans captured the city in 1453 they adopted the flag as a bringer of good luck and, from there, it has spread to many islamic coutries.

It is impossible to know if this story is legend or not. In any case, crescents have been used as symbols by an enormously diverse range of peoples, and there's no real way of knowing for certain where the Ottomans got it. It could be a pre-Islamic pagan symbol, a Byzantine symbol, a combination of these, who knows?

Well, the crescent as a symbol was also in use in the pre-Islamic Uygur-Turk kingdoms, e.g. usually artistic depictions portraying monarchs or religious dignitaries show a crescent whose both sharp ends point to the top. (Will try to find an example from the scource in my college library, think it was the 'Uygurica'...)

In ancient and contemporary non-Islamic Turkic and Lamaist Mongolian art crescents are to be found, too. Since Manichaeism was the the first state-religion to be introduced by a Uyghur-Turk ruler after shamanism, this might be the explanation for the spread of this symbol in Mongolia, East-Tukistan, even when Buddhism and other religions gained more importance, and eventually in the Ottoman empire. Manichaeism somehow acted as a bridge to the cultural sphere of the various Iranic empires and manifold cultures in Middle Eastern and Anatolian antiquity that influenced its neighbours and successors, including Greek and Persian cultures respectively. The crescent symbol, if I am not mistaken, goes back to the originally Phoenician goddess Ashtoreth and the Hellenic goddesses Selene and Phoebe... and that finally lead to this usage of the moon symbol in its crescent-shaped form throughout that region. Nevertheless since animism was the aboriginal belief system of the ancient Turks, Turkic and other similar - related or unrelated - peoples throughout East Central Asia and Siberia, that even shows parallels to Japanese Shintoism, it has to be taken into account that Sun and Moon deities (well, Stars, too..) were deeply inherent to these aboriginal cultures. So it could be mere chance that a crescent was used there as well. Even if you doubt that, the moon played an important role there too, and the crescent shape as symbol was already of relevance in the Manichaeist and Buddhist Uyghur kingdoms! So the Turks who appeared in Anatolia got it from them. Period. 134.100.1.121 10:05, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Question

I read somewhere that the star and crescent is a controvercial symbol for some Muslims because it originated in the pre-Islamic Shamanist beliefs of the Turks. Is this true? What is the symbol's status in Arab countries, which do not really use the star and crescent in their flags? -- unsigned comment by IP 128.54.44.225 23:45, 15 February 2006

All those who are interested in the matter can rather easily find out that the crescent was not used as a symbol of Islam during Muhammad's lifetime, and some back-to-the-origins or Salafi type Muslims dislike it for that reason (so the Taliban flag and the Saudi Arabian flag include Arabic lettering, in accordance with the practices of early Islam, and avoid crescents), but this hasn't prevented a red crescent from showing up on the OIC flag, and the Red Crescent is still the Muslim version of the Red Cross in all Muslim-majority countries... AnonMoos 15:08, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The crescent was the symbol of the Ottomans and in the late 19th century as the weakening Ottoman sultan tried to give himself more importance by for the first time in the history of the dynasty playing up his role as caliph. The crescent then became associated with the caliphate (in the late 19th century). In Tunisia and Algeria the crescent is a symbol left over by the Ottomans, but notice that in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco (countries that were not controlled by the Ottomans) the crescent has never had any symbolic importance at all. Such that before the Islamic Revolution the symbol of the Red Cross ... in Iran was the Red Lion and Sun. The symbol spread to the Indian subcontinent as a symbol of Islam when after World War I the Muslims of India were afraid that the victorious powers would abolish the caliphate. The modern usage of the symbol in Central Asia can be tied to Turkish nationalism in the late 19th century that unsurprisingly looked at the uncolonized Ottoman Empire for inspiration. And its universal spread can be considered as tied to the fact that Christians, having their own cross, needed to find a symbol for Muslims. So millions of Muslim children for the past century have read Western books seen that the cross is for the Christians, the Star of David for Jews, and the crescent for us, and so its just kind of seeped into our conscience. So it makes a handy symbol if you need to come up for a graphic for a new Islamic center in Jersey, but its religious meaning is nil. Ahassan05 17:09, 9 July 2006 (UTC)ahassan05[reply]

To add to ahassan05's comments, the crescent was present in India as an Islamic symbol considerably before WWI, as Indian Muslims increasingly became concerned with the maintenance of the Ottoman Empire as the last remaining independent Muslim power. There were a number of organizations in existance in the 19th c to further this end, for instance the following:

Cemiyet-i Ihya-i Islam - Revival of Islam Society; Memalik-i Islamiye Coğrafya Cemiyeti - Islamic Lands Goegraphic Society; Ittihad-i Islam - Unity of Islam; Meclis-i Müeyyid-i Islamiyye - Assembly for Islamic Aid; Defter-i Iane-i Hindiyye - Register of Indian Contributions; Encümen-i Islam - Committee of Islam; Encümen-i Huddam-i Kaaba - Committee for the Maintenance of the Kaaba

Indian Muslims contributed quite large sums of money, supplies, and expertise to Ottoman endeavors, like medical care, the Hijaz Railway, refugee care, medical assistance during wars, etc.

AHassan, the crescent was used my countless ancient cultures. It was used by later Islamic caliphates as a secular symbol for their empire because it was adapted from the Sassanian Persian Empire which the Arabs conquered in 651CE. Religiously speaking, it has no significance in the iconoclastic religion of Islam. Nakhoda84 14:27, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Many fundamentalists"??

"Many Christian fundamentalists such as Jack Chick use this symbolism to make a claim that Allah was in fact Hubal who was, in turn, a moon-god worshipped by the pre-Islamic Arabs. This argument is sometimes used to argue that the god of Islam is different from that of the Jews or Christians."

"Many"? If there are more than a few dozen such people I'll eat my hat. -- 19:32, 21 November 2006 68.33.206.93

I don't know how many of them there are, but those who do say that say it loudly, including Pat Robertson: [1] ... -- AnonMoos 00:29, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong information about the crescents in flags

It is written "(e.g. Pakistan, The Red Crescent, etc. — though currently none of the Arab states in Arabia or the Mashreq have crescents on their flags)." But this is wrong. check the Algerian flag for instance 217.117.224.177 --00:10, 14 January 2007 217.117.224.177

I already wrote on your IP talk page User talk:217.117.224.177 that "Algeria isn't in either the Mashreq or Arabia -- it's in the Maghreb". If you would log in to a Wikipedia user account, then you might find it easier to catch such messages. AnonMoos 02:03, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Moon god Hubal

There is elaborate discussion on the Hubal page that Hubal has nothing to do with a cerescent / moon and that that whole representation was a figment of immagination of some radical christian propaganda source. Subsequentially all references to Hubal as a "moon god" were removed from the article, yet the reference remains here.

Shouldn't the refference be removed here as well?--89.212.75.6 01:50, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]