Star and crescent
The conjoined representation of a star and a crescent is used in various historical contexts, including as a prominent symbol of the Ottoman Empire, and in contemporary times, as a national symbol by some countries, and by some Muslims as a symbol of Islam, while other Muslims reject it as an Islamic symbol. It was developed in the Greek colony of Byzantium ca. 300 BC, though it became more widely used as the royal emblem of Pontic king Mithridates VI Eupator after he incorporated Byzantium into his kingdom for a short period. During the 5th century, it was present in coins minted by the Persian Sassanian Empire; the symbol was represented in the coins minted across the empire throughout the Middle East for more than 400 years from the 3rd century until the fall of the Sassanians after the Muslim conquest of Persia in the 7th century. The conquering Muslim rulers kept the symbol in their coinage during the early years of the caliphate, as the coins were exact replicas of the Sassanian coins.
Both elements of the symbol have a long history in the iconography of the Ancient Near East as representing either the Sun and Moon or the Moon and Venus . It has been suggested that the crescent actually represents Venus, or the Sun during an eclipse. Coins with star and crescent symbols represented separately have a longer history, with possible ties to older Mesopotamian iconography. The star, or Sun, is often shown within the arc of the crescent. In numismatics in particular, the term pellet within crescent is used in cases where the star is simplified to a single dot.
The combination is found comparatively rarely in late medieval and early modern heraldry. It rose to prominence with its adoption as the flag and national symbol of the Ottoman Empire and some of its administrative divisions and later in the 19th-century Westernizing tanzimat. The Ottoman flag of 1844, with a white ay-yıldız on a red background, continues in use as the flag of the Republic of Turkey, with minor modifications. Other states formerly part of the Ottoman Empire also used the symbol, including Libya, Tunisia and Algeria. The same symbol was used in other national flags introduced during the 20th century, including the flags of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritania, Azad Kashmir, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Comoros. In the latter 20th century, the star and crescent have acquired a popular interpretation as a "symbol of Islam", occasionally embraced by Arab nationalism or Islamism in the 1970s to 1980s but often rejected as erroneous or unfounded by Muslim commentators in more recent times. Unlike the cross, which is a symbol of Jesus' crucifixion in Christianity, there is no solid link that connects the star and crescent symbol with the concept of Islam. The connotation is widely believed to have come from the flag of the Ottoman Empire, whose prestige as an Islamic empire and caliphate led to the adoption of its state emblem as a symbol of Islam by association.
History
Origins and predecessors
Crescents appearing together with a star or stars are a common feature of Sumerian iconography, the crescent usually being associated with the moon god Sin and the star with Ishtar, often placed alongside the sun disk of Shamash.In Late Bronze Age Canaan, star and crescent moon motifs are also found on Moabite name seals.
The Egyptian hieroglyphs representing "moon" and "star" appear in ligature, forming a star-and-crescent shape N11:N14 , as a determiner for the word for "month", ꜣbd.
The depiction of the "star and crescent" or "star inside crescent" as it would later develop in Bosporan Kingdom is difficult to trace to Mesopotamian art.
Exceptionally, a combination of the crescent of Sin with the five-pointed star of Ishtar, with the star placed inside the crescent as in the later Hellenistic-era symbol, placed among numerous other symbols, is found in a boundary stone of Nebuchadnezzar I. An example of such an arrangement is also found in the reconstruction of a fragmentary stele of Ur-Nammu discovered in the 1920s.
A very early depiction of the symbol is found on the Nebra sky disc, dating from . A gold signet ring from Mycenae dating from the 15th century BC also shows the symbol. The star and crescent symbol appears 19 times on the Berlin Gold Hat, dating from c. 1000 BC.
Classical antiquity
Greeks and Romans
Many ancient Greek and Roman amulets which depict stars and crescent have been found.Mithradates VI Eupator of Pontus used an eight rayed star with a crescent moon as his emblem.
McGing notes the association of the star and crescent with Mithradates VI, discussing its appearance on his coins, and its survival in the coins of the Bosporan Kingdom where "he star and crescent appear on Pontic royal coins from the time of Mithradates III and seem to have had oriental significance as a dynastic badge of the Mithridatic family, or the arms of the country of Pontus."
Several possible interpretations of the emblem have been proposed. In most of these, the "star" is taken to represent the Sun. The combination of the two symbols has been taken as representing Sun and Moon, the Zoroastrian Mah and Mithra, or deities arising from Greek-Anatolian-Iranian syncretism, the crescent representing Mēn Pharnakou and the "star" representing Ahuramazda
By the late Hellenistic or early Roman period, the star and crescent motif had been associated to some degree with Byzantium. If any goddess had a connection with the walls in Constantinople, it was Hecate. Hecate had a cult in Byzantium from the time of its founding. Like Byzas in one legend, she had her origins in Thrace. Hecate was considered the patron goddess of Byzantium because she was said to have saved the city from an attack by Philip of Macedon in 340 BC by the appearance of a bright light in the sky. To commemorate the event the Byzantines erected a statue of the goddess known as the Lampadephoros.
Some Byzantine coins of the 1st century BC and later show the head of Artemis with bow and quiver, and feature a crescent with what appears to be a six-rayed star on the reverse.
The moon-goddess Selene is commonly depicted with a crescent moon, often accompanied by two stars ; sometimes, instead of a crescent, a lunar disc is used. Often a crescent moon rests on her brow, or the cusps of a crescent moon protrude, horn-like, from her head, or from behind her head or shoulders.
In the 2nd century, the star-within-crescent is found on the obverse side of Roman coins minted during the rule of Hadrian, Geta, Caracalla and Septimius Severus, in some cases as part of an arrangement of a crescent and seven stars, one or several of which were placed inside the crescent.
Iran (Persia)
The star and crescent symbol appears on some coins of the Parthian vassal kingdom of Elymais in the late 1st century AD.The same symbol is present in coins that are possibly associated with Orodes I of Parthia. In the 2nd century AD, some Parthian coins show a simplified "pellet within crescent" symbol.
The star and crescent motif appears on the margin of Sassanid coins in the 5th century.
Sassanid rulers also appear to have used crowns featuring a crescent, sphere and crescent, or star and crescent.
Use of the star-and-crescent combination apparently goes back to the earlier appearance of a star and a crescent on Parthian coins, first under King Orodes II. In these coins, the two symbols occur separately, on either side of the king's head, and not yet in their combined star-and-crescent form.
Such coins are also found further afield in Greater Persia, by the end of the 1st century AD in a coin issued by the Western Satraps ruler Chashtana.
This arrangement is likely inherited from its Ancient Near Eastern predecessors; the star and crescent symbols are not frequently found in Achaemenid iconography, but they are present in some cylinder seals of the Achaemenid era.
Ayatollahi attempts to connect the modern adoption as an "Islamic symbol" to Sassanid coins remaining in circulation after the Islamic conquest
which is an analysis that stands in stark contrast to established consensus that there is no evidence for any connection of the symbol with Islam or the Ottomans prior to its adoption in Ottoman flags in the late 18th century.
Western Turkic Khaganate
Coins from the Western Turkic Khaganate had a crescent moon and a star, which held an important place in the worldview of ancient Turks and other peoples of Central Asia.Medieval and early modern
Christian and classical heraldric usage
The crescent on its own is used in western heraldry from at least the 13th century, while the star and crescent emblem is in use in medieval seals at least from the late 12th century.The crescent in pellet symbol is used in Crusader coins of the 12th century, in some cases duplicated in the four corners of a cross, as a variant of the cross-and-crosslets.
Many Crusader seals and coins show the crescent and the star on either side of the ruler's head, e.g. Bohemond III of Antioch, Richard I of England, Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse. At the same time, the star in crescent is found on the obverse of Crusader coins, e.g. in coins of the County of Tripoli minted under Raymond II or III c. 1140s-1160s show an "eight-rayed star with pellets above crescent".
The star and crescent combination appears in attributed arms from the early 14th century, possibly in a coat of arms of c. 1330, possibly attributed to John Chrysostom,
and in the Wernigeroder Wappenbuch attributed to one of the three Magi, named "Balthasar of Tarsus".
Crescents increase in popularity in early modern heraldry in Europe. Siebmachers Wappenbuch records 48 coats of arms of German families which include one or several crescents.
A star and crescent symbolizing Croatia was commonly found on 13th-century banovac coins in the Kingdom of Slavonia, with a two-barred cross symbolizing the Kingdom of Hungary.
St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna used to have at the top of its highest tower a golden crescent with a star; it came to be seen as a symbol of Islam and the Ottoman enemy, which is why it was replaced with a cross in 1686.
In the late 16th century, the Korenić-Neorić Armorial shows a white star and crescent on a red field as the coat of arms of "Illyria".
The star and crescent combination remains rare prior to its adoption by the Ottoman Empire in the second half of the 18th century.