Re: The moon and star at the mosques
I found this in a document:
http://eetd.LBL.gov/Controls - 2 - DRAFT
The Crescent Moon —the “Hilãl”2
One question which arises in considering a moon as the symbol for sleep is whether it has any associations
which would call its suitability into question. The principal one we have considered is the association with Islam —
whether people of Islamic faith would be offended. In the United States (and presumably the rest of the
industrialized west), the association does not cause any significant concern, which is demonstrated by the use of the
moon on many computer products, in hardware and software. The primary question then is how it is seen from
countries where Islam is dominant.
The “hilãl” is the “crescent moon” or new moon symbol, often shown with one or more stars. It is
important as many events in the Islamic calendar are determined by the first sighting of the crescent moon as it
begins to increase in size. The single star is presumably Venus, the “morning star”. The hilãl’s association with
Islam is not original, but has grown over the last few centuries.
The “Encyclopaedia of Islam”3 reviews historical use of the hilãl in art/décor, flags, and buildings, all in
considerable detail. The first reported use of the crescent moon is on coins in the year 695 A.D. (year 75 in the
Islamic calendar), in combination with a star. From the beginning, it was often quite stylized with the two points of
the moon nearly or actually touching each other. In addition to coins and artwork, the hilãl has been sometimes used
on top of mosques, in the way that a Christian cross is. However, the use of hilãl on mosques is not as universal as
the cross's use on churches and cathedrals, and the hilãl has also been put atop non-religious buildings as well.
The hilãl is reported to be used on military flags beginning in the 15th century. Modern nations began
using it on national flags beginning in the early 1800s with the Ottoman Empire / Turkey, Tunisia, and Egypt. In the
1900s, other countries adopted it as part of their flags, such as Pakistan in 1947.
Modern Flags
Quite a few countries use a crescent moon on their national flag, as shown in Figure 1. Most Islamic flags
use the right-facing crescent, even though it is to symbolise the first sighting of the waxing crescent, which would be
left-facing as facing the equator in the northern hemisphere. One possibility is that the goal of having the moon face
away from the flag hoist (flag depictions by convention have the hoist on the left) was a higher priority.
Figure 1. Crescent moons on National Flags as of 2002
Algeria Azerbaijan Comoros Mauritania Maldives Malaysia
Pakistan Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Uzbekistan
Source: The CIA “World Factbook 2001”
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/
For those with monochrome copies of this discussion, green is the most common color of the flag fields, with red the
second. Most of the moons are white with two yellow and two red.
2 The word “hilal” is supposed to have a long bar "-" on top of the "a", not the tilde as shown here. Advice on how to do this in
modern word processors would be appreciated.
3 Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, edited by R. Lewis, V.L. Menage, Ch. Pellat, and J. Schacht., Volume III, 1971.
PIER — Sleep, the Crescent Moon, and Islam 5/20/02
Most of the flags have some moving of the points past 180 degrees, with Turkey’s (the oldest) the most
stylized. All but one have one or more stars, and all but two have five-pointed stars (this last point is significant in
Islam). Most have the points aligned vertically, and only two resemble our proposed moon — Pakistan’s, though it
has a prominent star on top of the moon, and Maldives, which has the points in a vertical line.
