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 its use 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.Andrew G. Traver, From Polis to Empire, The Ancient World, c. 800 B.C.–A.D. 500, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002, p. 257 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 star and crescent are common Persian symbols, being a regular feature of the borders of Sassanian dirhems." Philip Grierson, Byzantine Coins, Taylor & Francis, 1982, p118 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 (Morning Star) (or their divine personifications). It has been suggested that the crescent actually represents Venus, or the Sun during an eclipse.This would explain cases where the inside curve of the crescent has a smaller radius of curvature than the outer, the opposite of what happens with the moon. 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 (also called star in crescent, or star within crescent, for disambiguation of depictions of a star and a crescent side by side)."There are also three cases [... viz., associated with the "Danubian Rider Religion"] where the star, figured as a radiate disc 'balancing the crescent moon', must represent Sol, balancing Luna who is represented as a crescent instead of in bust. The 'star in crescent' theme itself appears only once, on an engraved gem, accompanied by the lion and an indecipherable inscription [...] This theme is connected with the Orient and has a long history behind it in the Hittite, Babylonian, Assyrian, Sassanid and Iranian worlds. Campbell gives us valuable particulars. The heavenly bodies thus symbolized were seen as the powerful influence of cosmic fatalism guiding the destinies of men." Dumitru Tudor, Christopher Holme (trans.), Corpus Monumentorum Religionis Equitum Danuvinorum (CMRED) (1976), p. 192 (referencing Leroy A. Campbell, Mithraic Iconography and Ideology' '(1969), 93f. In numismatics in particular, the term pellet within crescent is used in cases where the star is simplified to a single dot.e.g. Catalogue of the Greek coins in The British Museum (2005), p. 311 (index).
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 (eyalets and vilayets) and later in the 19th-century Westernizing tanzimat (reforms). The Ottoman flag of 1844, with a white ay-yıldız (Turkish for "crescent-star") 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 (1951–1969 and after 2011), Tunisia (1831) and Algeria (1958). The same symbol was used in other national flags introduced during the 20th century, including the flags of Kazakhstan (1917), Azerbaijan (1918), Pakistan (1947), Malaysia (1948), Singapore (1959), Mauritania (1959), Uzbekistan (1991), Turkmenistan (1991) and Comoros (2001). 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 (Nanna) and the star with Ishtar (Inanna, i.e. Venus), often placed alongside the sun disk of Shamash.Michael R. Molnar, The Star of Bethlehem, Rutgers University Press, 1999, p78"the three celestial emblems, the sun disk of Shamash (Utu to the Sumerians), the crescent of Sin (Nanna), and the star of Ishtar (Inanna to the Sumerians)" Irving L. Finkel, Markham J. Geller, Sumerian Gods and Their Representations, Styx, 1997, p71. André Parrot, Sumer: The Dawn of Art, Golden Press, 1961 In Late Bronze Age Canaan, star and crescent moon motifs are also found on Moabite name seals.Othmar Keel, Christoph Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel, Fortress Press, 1998, p. 322. The Egyptian hieroglyphs representing "moon" (N11 N11) and "star" (N14 N14) appear in ligature, forming a star-and-crescent shape N11:N14, as a determiner for the word for "month", .A.H. Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs. 3rd Ed., pub. Griffith Institute, Oxford, 1957 (1st edition 1927), p. 486.
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 (12th century BC; found in Nippur by John Henry Haynes in 1896).W. J. Hinke, A New Boundary Stone of Nebuchadrezzar I from Nippur with a Concordance of Proper Names and a Glossary of the Kudurru Inscriptions thus far Published (1907), 120f. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, object nr. 29-20-1. An example of such an arrangement is also found in the (highly speculative) reconstruction of a fragmentary stele of Ur-Nammu (Third Dynasty of Ur) discovered in the 1920s.J. V. Canby, Reconstructing the Ur Nammu Stela, Expedition 29.1, 54–64.
A very early depiction of the symbol (crescent moon, stars and sun disc) is found on the Nebra sky disc, dating from (Nebra, Germany). A gold signet ring from Mycenae dating from the 15th century BC also shows the symbol. The star and crescent (or 'crescent and pellet') symbol appears 19 times on the Berlin Gold Hat, dating from c. 1000 BC.
Classical antiquity
Greeks and Romans
Many ancient Greek (classical and hellenistic) and Roman amulets which depict stars and crescent have been found.
Mithradates VI Eupator of Pontus (r. 120–63 BC) used an eight rayed star with a crescent moon as his emblem. McGing (1986) 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 "[t]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."B.C. McGing, The Foreign Policy of Mithradates VI Eupator, King of Pontus, Brill, 1986, p 97 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 (and by extension Day and Night), the Zoroastrian Mah and Mithra,"The star and the crescent, the emblem of the Pontus and its kings, were introduced by Mithradates and his successors to the Bosporus and appeared on Bosporan coins and locally produced jewelry. On the coins this symbol often appears near the head of a young man wearing a Phrygian cap, who is identified as either a solar deity or his deified worshipper. [...] the star and the crescent, the badge of the Pontus and its kings, shown on the Colchian amphora stamp, and appearing on engraved finger-rings discovered in this area allude to the possibility of an earlier association of the Pontic dynasty with the cult of mounted Mithra. Mithra in fact must have been one of the most venerated gods of the Pontic Kingdom, since its rulers bore the theophoric name of Mithradates [...] although direct evidence for this cult is rather meager." Yulia Ustinova, The Supreme Gods of the Bosporan Kingdom, Brill, 1998, 270–274 or deities arising from Greek-Anatolian-Iranian syncretism, the crescent representing Mēn Pharnakou (, the local moon godStrabo (12.3.31) writes that Mēn Pharnakou had a sanctuary at Kabeira in Pontus where the Pontic kings would swear oaths. Mēn Pharnakou is a syncretistic Anatolian-Iranian moon deity not directly comparable to Zoroastrian Māh. Albert F. de Jong, Traditions of the Magi: Zoroastrianism in Greek and Latin Literature (1997), %A9n%20Pharmakou&f=false p. 306.) and the "star" (Sun) representing Ahuramazda (in interpretatio graeca called Zeus Stratios)"His royal emblem, an eight rayed star and the crescent moon, represented the dynasty's patron gods, Zeus Stratios, or Ahuramazda, and Mén Pharnakou, a Persian form of the native moon goddess." Andrew G. Traver, From Polis to Empire—The Ancient World c. 800 B.C.–A.D. 450, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002, p. 257"The significance of the star and crescent on royal coins has also been frequently debated. Many scholars have identified the star and the crescent as royal symbols of the Pontic kingdom. Their appearance on every royal issue suggests they were indeed important symbols, and the connection of this symbol to the royal family is definite. The nature of it, however, is still uncertain. Kleiner believed they were symbols of an indigenous god and had their origins in Persia. He associated the star and crescent with the god Men and saw them as representations of night and day (the star may be considered the sun here). Ritter, on the other hand, suggested that the star and crescent symbols derived from Perseus, just as the star symbol of the Macedonians did. […] Ma and Mithras are two other deities with whom the star and crescent symbol are associated. Olshausen believed that the star and crescent could be related to a syncretism of Pontic and Iranian iconography: the crescent for Men and the star for Ahura Mazda. Recently, Summerer has convincingly suggested that Men alone was the inspiration for the symbol on the royal coins of the Pontic kingdom. Deniz Burcu Erciyas, "Wealth, Aristocracy, and Royal Propaganda Under The Hellenistic Kingdom of The Mithradatids in The Central Black Sea Region in Turkey", Colloquia Pontica Vol.12, Brill, 2005, p 131